Review: Just Do Something: A Liberating Approach to Finding God's Will

Just Do Something: A Liberating Approach to Finding God's Will by Kevin DeYoung
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I am reminded of my shallowness of having a laugh at (at the expense of) many wonderful single ladies who seem to have the gift of celibacy. They are mighty in ministry and have a great sphere of influence, some of them with a Masters or PhD in theology or ministry. Some have gone out to the mission field for years and have come back in middle age, and sometimes when you know these lovely ladies personally, it makes me wonder whether they have ever thought of getting married. Yes I know what Paul says that singlehood is preferable and I understand why he puts forth that suggestion in the perilous time of the early church's persecution. However, I scratch my head and ponder why some of these middle aged ladies share that they had simply been too choosy and perhaps had waited too long.

But onto my own life, when I finish my degree, it is so scary to think of what will happen next. Do I pursue a Masters or PhD? And if so, in the UK or US or somewhere else? Or I first get some ministry experience by going into full time ministry? and if so, for how long? Where should I go into ministry, in a church, or parachurch or perhaps even take on a full time job and hold a lay-leadership position? Is it God's will for me to marry the girl I am dating now, or if there is difficult times prior to engagement and marriage, could it be that she is not the one for me?

These are serious questions. And many of them will impact who I am and who I will be as a person in future. I picked up DeYoung's book after thoroughly enjoy his book on "Crazy Busy." As a slowly reforming thinker away from postmodernism, I connected with his authenticity and passion for God. The first few chapter were like... nothing special... but as i continued to flip the pages, the content spoke increasingly to me. Ever read a book that had an amazing first few chapters only to water off into extreme boring-ness? This book is far from it. The closing chapter on grandpa DeYoung struck me right in the heart. I was saddened by the many years of wanting my will to be done, and for God to show me supernatural signs to convince me to do otherwise.

I had done an extensive intertextual study on asking God for signs (especially before making a decision on matters large or small), as part of a two part youth cell group study. As a pentecostal, I have had various experiences of supernatural encounters in the spiritual realm. Yet the reformed theologian resonate with DeYoung's approach because I am convinced that signs were more often than not, initiated by God, and not by man.

Just today in bible school we were joking that the more power encounters a person has, the less "holy" he should be regarded to be. Because the more "holy" ones should be the ones who did not need a supernatural encounter with the Lord before daring to make a decision. But in all seriousness, I thoroughly enjoyed and highly recommend this book.

And if you are interested to know which part of Scripture I had done in the study here are the verses: Gen. 9:8-17, Exod. 7:1-5, Num. 14:1-12, Isa. 20:1-6, Ezek. 4, 12, 24, Luke 2:8-15, 25-35, 1 Cor. 1:18-22, Mk. 8:11-13, Mt. 11:2–6 (par. Lk. 7:18–23), Mt. 12:28 (par. Lk. 11:20), Mt. 12:38–42 (par. Lk. 11:29–32), John 2:18-22. Do comment if you notice that I had missed an important passage on this topic so that i can add it into the study when I conduct it in future!

View all my reviews

Review: Breaking the Idols of Your Heart: How to Navigate the Temptations of Life

Breaking the Idols of Your Heart: How to Navigate the Temptations of Life by Dan B. Allender
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Having had a diet of 95% non-fiction books in the recent years, this book brought me back to good old days of my childhood - when I could not stop turning the pages of an enthralling story. Dan Allender captivated and held my imagination with his narrative of Noah and Joan, so much so that I found myself trying to read Longman's commentary as quickly as I could to find out how the story would unfold.

I am astounded as to how Allender masterfully penned the vividly relatable fictional story whilst constrained with so little word counts. The extended parable served as a wonderful companion for Longman to flesh out, elaborate and reflect on the themes of idols, cast against the backdrop of the book of Ecclesiastes.

In choosing not to get mired in the source criticism, authorship or expounding various scholarly contentious theological issues, Longman probably targets the lay reader. I'd suggest that the authors did a marvellous job at engaging this target audience. However, I wished that the book was written with less brevity and more attention was given to narrate through the reflection and application segments (the authors provided reflection questions at the end of each chapter, but I'd guess the majority of readers would not journey through the book together with others and received the benefit of helpful introspection, prayer and review).

While I have given this title 4 out of 5 stars, I'm thoroughly impressed with how well Allender and Longman have put their strengths together to come up with this gem. I think that I am most definitely going to read (and maybe review) their other titles in the near future, just to appreciate this interesting format they have written so very well with.

I received this book from IVP Academic for the purposes of providing an unbiased review. All views are my own.

View all my reviews

Review: The Church and the Surprising Offense of God's Love: Reintroducing the Doctrines of Church Membership and Discipline

The Church and the Surprising Offense of God's Love: Reintroducing the Doctrines of Church Membership and Discipline by Jonathan Leeman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

As a student of theology that leans more toward biblical theology, no wonder I felt that I did not like this book as much as I thought I would - Leeman states he is attempting to lay out a systematic theology! So perhaps the more systematic scholars would find this a more enjoyable read.

Brevity is not one of Leeman's strength. This book makes Dever's original 9marks book look pint sized! As I read through the pages, often I would be wondering to myself, why couldn't he just write more concisely; how I wish I did not have to wade through so much murky water just to find that gem or two? This is a pity because there were plenty of nuggets of wisdom for reflection between the pages, but you'd need to get through quite a fair bit to find them.

I've yet to encounter a book that exceeded 300 pages that I found still managed to capture my attention, and this was no different (the sole book that did was Stott's The Incomparable Christ - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/324690). But alas! Leeman mercifully includes a summary of the main substantives of the book in the Appendix. Perhaps one could start from there, see which topic interests you and then dive into deep depths of the chapter.

If he, like Dever, would shrink this immense amount of research into a shorter book, that would probably make for a 5 star masterpiece (Dever shrank his 300+ page long book into a 130 page book titled "What Is a Healthy Church? - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/966587)" While the sister volumes in the 9marks series titled Church Discipline and Church Membership may fit the bill, I cannot really tell much from the amazon previews what they really are like. Ideally it would be great if they were merged into shorter one combined title given the numerous overlaps between the two topics.

View all my reviews

Review: Five Ministry Killers and How to Defeat Them: Help for Frustrated Pastors--Including New Research from the Barna Group

Five Ministry Killers and How to Defeat Them: Help for Frustrated Pastors--Including New Research from the Barna Group by Charles Austin Stone
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

While the thesis of this book is not one I am necessarily drawn to (I'd prefer meaty biblical theology and a macro picture of seeing how our work is all for the glory of God), I did find that I quite like this book. For the purposes of research for a paper on church growth, I sped through about 25 books, many of which grieved me so very much because they actually were written by authors who hated the church (and wanted to justify their own version of church by quoting Scripture out of context).

I felt that Stone genuinely cared for his fellow pastors but what I really appreciated was the amount of research he did in preparation for this book. Not only does he routinely refer to large surveys and studies conducted by the Barna Group and Lifeway, he repeatedly references the most salient points from veterans in the field. And boy were many of these so very really impactful - they made me feel like actually going to look up these secondary sources in future.

In a world with too many opinioned authors who are very happy to give their two cents worth on how to run God's church, Stone's masterpiece of a meta-analysis was a very welcome breath of fresh air. His passion, personal brokenness and rigour research have come together to create this encouraging read.

View all my reviews

Review: Becoming a Pastor Theologian: New Possibilities for Church Leadership

Becoming a Pastor Theologian: New Possibilities for Church Leadership by Todd Wilson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I requested for a review of this book because I had read "The Pastor as Public Theologian" (Eds. Vanhoozer & Strachan). As a final year seminary student, this title appealed to me, for it is something I believe in passionately.

As indicated by the title, this book is targeted at pastors who have already been convinced that being pastor-theologians is something that they want to strive toward, and the many chapters essentially provide the characteristics and the historical examples of what that looks like.

The challenge with books that are made up of compilations by various scholars is putting together a seamless flow of thought, which I'd imagine that the editors have attempted to do. I felt that because of the sake of brevity, many of the articles from the contributing theologians were so dense and rich that I had difficulty absorbing the ideas and substantives.

For me, the mark of a 5 star book would be the communication of complex ideas in a manner that the reader can easily comprehend, be inspired by, and apply. And unfortunately, I do not feel that this book meets this criteria.

I received this book from IVP Academic for the purposes of providing an unbiased review. All views are my own.

View all my reviews