Explicit Gospel
By Matt Chandler
Summary:
Matt Chandler writes a hit-and-miss work on the Gospel, full of sharped barbs that are occasionally convicting but are mostly mean-spirited and glitzy.
Strengths:
I really, really, really wanted to like this book. And indeed, I found parts of it absolutely brilliant. But we get a version of Matt Chandler here that hardly sounds like himself.
Summary:
Prolific Christian author Jerry Bridges does it again with his surgically precise work on spiritual transformation. For those confused on how transformation happens, Bridges goes into concise detail about our sanctifying journey with Christ. While there are already so many books on “How To Change,” this is the one that shows you the Holy Spirit’s role like you’ve never known Him.
Strengths:
Jerry Bridges is absolutely no-nonsense in his writing, and probably the cool philosophical uncle I always wanted. He uses the exact number of words to explain concepts with no sugar attached, never diminishes the uphill struggle, and clarifies huge concepts into a simple sentence. There are some writers who grasp their own material so well that they sort of leave you in the dust, but Jerry Bridges guides you just enough to keep your head above water while also challenging your knowledge. Of all the Christian authors I’ve dug into, good old Uncle Jerry is the most concise and plainspoken of them all.
“Your real, new self (which is Christ’s and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him. Does that sound strange? The same principle holds, you know, for more everyday matters. Even in social life, you will never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking about what sort of impression you are making. Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. The principle runs through all life from top to bottom, Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.”
– C.S. Lewis
Summary:
Perhaps the absolute seminal work on biblical marriage, Gary Thomas’ classic Sacred Marriage is worth a revisit considering both Tim Keller’s The Meaning of Marriage and Mark Driscoll’s Real Marriage have topped the charts. Written before the escalating attacks on marriage today, Gary Thomas’ work is more needed now than he could’ve imagined.
Strengths:
Revisiting this work with my faded highlights and old foodstains, I remember why it had struck such a chord before: because Gary Thomas is a writer. He does not mince words, does not skirt the issue, does not go for the easy answer. Using vivid illustrations with personal stories and sound theology, Thomas writes like a tough mentor but a comforting friend. He’s the coach you can expect to whip you in shape but also have a heart-to-heart with after the game.
Gary Thomas’ grand central thesis is, What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy? It’s an incisive, convicting theme that is both biblical and practical. I believe almost all marriage books since (including Tim Keller’s and Mark Driscoll’s) have quoted this in one form or another.
Since marriage is but a shadow of our relationship with God, then marriage itself is our earthly picture of the Gospel for both joy and sanctification. Nothing else like marriage will give us such a clear view of God Himself. And nothing else like knowing God will lead to a fulfilling, lasting, joyful marriage.
Summary:
One more book in the continual stream of literature about God’s love, Elyse Fitzpatrick writes a commendable but ultimately flat, uneven work on the Gospel’s implications for our lives. She doesn’t say much wrong but doesn’t say much interesting, either.
Strengths:
A major problem with current Christian literature is pacing — too long or too bloated — and had the popular Elyse Fitzpatrick hired a more prudent editor, this could easily have been a classic. I wish the book had cut the entire first half, because everything thereafter is vivid, honest, and convicting. Alas, we have instead a work bloated by a protracted first half that reads like a Reformed Calvinist’s instruction manual.
Summary:
Andy Stanley, one of the most effective church leaders today, writes another practical work: this one on emotions gone bad. Diving into the core of the matter, Andy digs deep enough to start the hard work on overcoming our fluctuating feelings.
Strengths:
Andy Stanley is like the cool uncle who dispenses the best advice over a cup of hot coffee on a rainy day. His voice feels like inviting an old friend in your home: safe, reassuring, almost “by-golly” at times, with just the right balance of zip and patience. It’s why Pastor Andy is one of the bestselling preachers and writers for every age range, walk of life, among different communities and races, for the erudite scholar or the everyday layman. He has a cozy, broad appeal.
Enemies of the Heart is no different, as Pastor Andy covers the four most aggressive emotions that threaten to hurt us: Guilt, Anger, Greed, and Jealousy. Turning each of these into “debts” — such as Guilt becoming “I Owe You” — Pastor Andy gets to work on the diagnoses and the cure. While some would accuse him of being soft on doctrine, Stanley actually does a great job incorporating the Gospel into each of these emotions, showing how Jesus came to rescue us daily from the power of sin.
Many people feel that they have played a game-winning hand when they level the hypocrite charge against Christians, and yet Christians who do not understand their identity in Christ do not understand their hypocrisy. … Hypocrisy for Christians occurs when we sin. Out true identity is as children of God, and it is evidenced when we act like Christ or obey the Scriptures. … It is in moments of self-centered living, idolatrous priorities, and bondage to habitual sin that we are acting hypocritical. Yet because these moments feel so natural or are so often our experience, they seem more like our identity, and transformations seems like the act of hypocrisy.
– Bill Clem
“The Internet has co-opted the word “browse” for its own purposes, but it’s worth pointing out the difference between browsing in a virtual realm and browsing in the actual world. Depending on the terms entered, an Internet search engine will usually come up with hundreds, thousands, or millions of hits, which a person can then skate through, clicking when she sees something that most closely echoes her interest. It is a curious quality of the Internet that it can be composed of an unfathomable multitude and, at the same time, almost always deliver to the user the bits that feed her already-held interests and confirm her already-held beliefs.
It points to a paradox that is, perhaps, one of the most critical of our time: To have access to everything may be to have nothing in particular. After all, what good does this access do if we can only find our way back to ourselves, the same selves, the same interests, the same beliefs over and over? Is what we really want to be solidified, or changed? If solidified, then the Internet is well-designed for that need.
But, if we wish to be changed, to be challenged and undone, then we need a means of placing ourselves in the path of an accident. For this reason, the plenitude may narrow the mind. Amazon may curate the world for you, but only by sifting through your interests and delivering back to you variations on your well-rehearsed themes: Yes, I do love Handke! Yes, I had been meaning to read that obscure play by Thomas Bernhard! A bookstore, by contrast, asks you to scan the shelves on your way to looking for the thing you had in mind. You go in meaning to buy Hemingway, but you end up with Homer instead. What you think you like or want is not always what you need. A bookstore search inspires serendipity and surprise.”
Featured on David Platt’s website, my testimony about reading his book.
I’m a youth pastor of New Light Church in Tampa FL, and I run an online ministry/blog called The Way Everlasting. I am a former atheist, recovered porn addict, and fifth degree black belt. Recently after listening to a sermon by Eugene Cho, I was immediately convicted to cut my income in half and give it away to charity at the end of the year. This would be a little over $10,000. People called me crazy. They told me to “pray about it some more,” but I knew I would chicken out. I have already saved over a thousand, and it hurts. Hurts so good. In a sober moment, I noticed almost every Christian book on my shelf hardly spoke about anything like this. Nothing radical. And I saw Dr. David Platt’s book on my desk, a random purchase I had made a year ago. I had seen Pastor David preach at Catalyst in Atlanta. He was different. So I picked up his book and finished it in five days. It only wildly confirmed my Christ-given conviction: that I was indeed wealthy by the world’s standard, and this money could save lives. Please know that I was saving for a wedding ring, the wedding itself, and a down payment on a house. I still feel crazy. But I finally, at LAST, feel like a Christian. It’s exciting. My youth think this is quite legit. The outpouring of blessing has been incredible. Friends unsolicited have been buying me meals, giving me gift cards, and offering all sorts of undeserved favors. I am beyond blessed. No one can outgive God. Thank you, Pastor David, for your affirming words. Love you, brother.
Summary:
Pastor Bill Clem of Mars Hill Church writes a work on defining a disciple of Jesus Christ, an ultimately disappointing book that is far too American and seldom convicting. While there are brilliant sections strewn throughout, the book is neither groundbreaking nor wholly biblical. A missed opportunity for a much needed discussion.
Weaknesses:
Despite my best efforts and Bill Clem’s best intentions, this is the definition of disciple that I gleaned from his work:
A disciple is someone who looks like Jesus and joins a small group community.
Of course, I doubt this is Clem’s goal. Yet the book is so American that I could never see it working in an urban or third world context. With an almost abstract, self-help style, Clem writes in largely conceptual strokes about mind-molding and relational-sharing, but hardly ever touches on the Great Commission to Go and to Make.
It might be unfair that I expected a book like Radical. David Platt’s seminal work on discipleship felt much closer to the biblical reality of carrying the cross, denying the flesh, and giving your all for Christ. When I read a book about disciples, I expect urgency and adventure, not megachurch-style small groups isolated in an upper-class neighborhood.
While Clem gives a nod to the work of Dietrich Bonhoeffer — the great anti-Nazi preacher who authored The Cost of Discipleship and was hung for plotting against Hitler — in Clem’s work there was never any sense of risk or rejoicing. He instead makes discipleship appear like a nagging grandmother’s task of checklisting spiritual progress and attending church to copy the “stoic” personality of Jesus.
Read my “Radical Testimony” from David Platt’s site.
Summary:
David Platt, pastor of Brook Hills Church in Birmingham, Alabama, writes a searing work on American Christianity and the counterintuitive commands of Christ. Calling out every Western ideal that has poisoned our obedience, Platt gets to work on both the problems and solutions for our privileged, complacent country.
Strengths:
I’m a bit late to the party here, as Radical had been sitting on my desk for quite some time. Since I’ve recently decided to give away half my income, I took a renewed interest in David Platt’s work. It has come exactly at the right time.
I can absolutely feel the tension in David Platt’s voice as he describes his own megachurch, his resources, the book he has written, and the 4.5 billion people without Jesus. Just as passionate as his preaching and his life’s mission, Platt makes a call for all Christians not to confuse American ideals with biblical commands.
We have so quickly compartmentalized Jesus’ commands into “They’re the missionaries, not me,” and “They have the gift of giving, I don’t.” Except Jesus calls all of us to go, all of us to give, and all of us to make disciples. This is a book that will, if you let it, snap you out of your passive consumer faith into something more reckless, more dangerous, more wrenching, but at last biblical. It’ll lead to joy. It’s the missing piece of your Christian life that you’ve been waiting for.
Matt Chandler is touring in six states for his new book, The Explicit Gospel.
He will also be touring with Shane and Shane.
I’ll definitely be catching him in Florida.
From The Resurgence:
Inspired by the needs of both the overchurched and the unchurched, and bolstered by the common neglect of the explicit gospel within Christianity, Matt Chandler has written this punchy treatise. He begins with the specifics of the gospel—outlining what it is and what it is not—and then switches gears to focus on the fullness of the gospel and its massive implications on both personal and cosmic levels.
Summary:
Youth ministry is messed up, don’t you know? So says every article on youth ministry, ever. Steve Wright is onto something here, but beats a dead horse so badly that it looks alive from the twitching of his unrelenting beatdown.
Weaknesses:
The ratio is about Ten to One: Ten complaints for every One solution. He never stops saying there’s a problem with youth ministry. We get it. By chapter four when he offers a way forward, he still keeps hammering that there must be change. This doesn’t let up to the final page.
Speaking To Teenagers
Doug Fields and Duffy Robbins
Summary:
Like a soldier’s manual in the heat of battle, Speaking To Teenagers is a resource for both the newly graduated seminarian and the burnt out veteran. It might have better been called Speaking Well since it delivers such practical wisdom for preachers who were taught all exegesis and no communication. While overly pragmatic in spots, this will help to unlock much of the preacher’s block.
Review:
Doug Fields, pastor of Saddleback Church, and Duffy Robbins, a professor of youth ministry, dive into the daunting topic of communicating to the youth. Though they write as one voice, it can be easy to tell who is speaking: Doug offers the relational tips and Duffy is more systematic, detailed, and doctrinal. Using a method called S.T.I.C.K., their methodology pulls from both traditional and contemporary teaching, pulling the best of both worlds. Mostly this works and at times it does not.
An article by Jay Thomas from The Gospel Coalition.
Talking about sex in church — how to and how not to.
Excerpt:
“A little more than a year ago I was a college pastor. The topic of dating, purity, and romance seemed to be an ever-present area of commentary, question, and struggle. (Many of my former students are smirking right now, thinking that I am the one who kept bringing it up.) As I prepared to teach a series on romance, dating, and marriage, I was taken aback by the lack of theological depth among evangelicals on this topic. Many books and essays (on the left) properly noted that dating cannot be found in the Bible, but then wrongly concluded that therefore the Bible has nothing conclusive to say on this topic.
Bearing these challenges in mind, here are some preliminary suggestions on how you can keep your sex talk fresh.”
Continue Reading at The Gospel Coalition
Read Related:
- Question: Premarital Sex Is Bad?
- Question: What about oral sex?
- Question: How To Get To Know The Ladies (The “Christian” Way)
- Question: The Weird World of Online Dating
- Question: What do you look for in a future spouse?
All the animal life in us, all schemes of happiness that centered in this world, were always doomed to a final frustration. … If we thought we were building up a heaven on earth, if we looked for something that would turn the present world from a place of pilgrimage into a permanent city satisfying the soul of man, we are disillusioned, and not a moment too soon.
– C.S. Lewis
Summary:
Mark Driscoll, the pastor of megachurch Mars Hill of Seattle, and his wife Grace write an honest, detailed, gripping, and at times explicit work on the troubles of marriage. While overly practical and less spiritual than expected, Pastor Mark and his wife have written tough words for the prideful and healing words for the hurting. Most of all they have written truth that no other pastor would dare to venture, which is both the book’s best strength and most glaring weakness.
Strengths:
Mark Driscoll spells controversy because of his unequivocal expression, uncompromising views, and his colorful use of language. He makes fart noises in his sermons, got busted over preaching on oral sex (essentially telling Christian women to use it as a lure for their unbelieving husbands), was publicly lambasted by John MacArthur (one of the five Big Johns, including Piper, Calvin, the Baptist, and the Apostle — so you know it’s serious), and is called a chauvinist by both lesbian atheists and evangelicals. We get it: he’s the vulgar, brash, older brother that puts you in a greasy headlock and gives you purple nurples.
But there’s no doubt the man preaches the Gospel, proclaims sound doctrine, and has a brilliant mind for practical theology. Regardless of tactics, he has once again written a clear-headed, straightforward work on marriage that is so unlike any Christian fare it’s bound to grab your attention, fart noises and all. One thing is most obvious in his writing: Pastor Mark is a pastor and loves people. He does the dirty task of writing what no one else will say, and while it may feel gratuitous, it’s true that no one else will say it. So he takes on the thankless duty of speaking to reality about as real as you can get.
We may have experienced things in our lives that caused us to build emotional walls to protect ourselves and create systems of thinking that give us a false sense of safety. Often we are not aware that we are doing this … If we continue to feed our old way of thinking with lies and fears, the sin of disrespect will control us.
– Grace Driscoll, on the root of disrespect and control
