For All It's Worth

Nelson’s Biblical Cyclopedic Index By Thomas Nelson The first thing I want to say about this cyclopedic index is that it is pocket size. No longer are the giant, oversized, small print concordances and word study books manageable to carry or to use. This small, pocket size index is easily accessible due to its layout, bold print for subjects and numerous, overall structure. Secondly, I enjoyed the subject references that provided more than just a word about the passage you were to look up. In the Ten Commandments section, listed are references “divine origin, Christ sums up, love fulfills” (110). These references give you a fuller grasp of the passage you are going to look up before you begin your search. The word study sections provided in the text are immensely helpful when trying to grasp concepts and words such as propitiation, revelation, humble, etc. The word study parts give a basic definition of the word but also lead you into a broader contextual understanding of the ...

A Woman and Her Workplace by Rosemary Flaaten It might seem kind of odd that I am reviewing a book about women and the workplace.  Yes, I do agree that it is a bit different that as a man I am blogging about a book concerned about women.  Yet, I see the difficulty, frustration, joy, and attitude that it takes in the life of my wife being a music teacher.  The first thing I noticed about Rosemary's book is that she does not sugar coat the issues that frequently come up in the workplace; there is not always an easy way to fix a problem nor is that possible sometimes.  At one point after bearing witness to the radical effects of the fall, she says, "Toxic relational issues, caused by our sin as well as the sin of others, permeate our workplace and threaten to erode our relational bridges" (22).  These relational bridges being built upon the biblical mandate to love God and others can falter due to the corrosion of sinful ideas, hearts, and more importanly actions....

Joan Chittister, The Liturgical Year: the spiraling adventure of the spiritual life I chose to review this book because being a Protestant I am uninformed about the liturgical year, feast, cycles, etc. Every year I focus in on the Advent Season and Easter but have yet to get into the liturgical cycle. To begin with, the outline of the book is great in that each chapter is short enough but informative enough to get a picture of things such as advent, liturgical time, and calendars. Secondly, the chapters written by Dr. Chittister are succinct and yet many times spiritually profound. At one point in the book she is talking about heroes and models when she says, “No theological treatise is any kind of substitute for the sight of a life well lived” (193). In my reading, this is an exact reflection of what Francis Schaeffer once said. It is these kind of reflections that are worth the reading of this book. Another great thing about reading this book is that Joan lays a historical found...

Jungle Warfare: A Basic Field Manual for Christians in Sales by Christopher Cunningham Cunningham’s new book about Christians in sales takes a different starting point than most business books. His granddad left a basic field manual for warfare after his death dated in 1941. This field manual left a huge imprint upon Chris’s life and he sets up his book in a similar fashion to the field manual, using the object of sales as his study. The unique thing about the book is that it is set up as a 22 day devotional almost. You have a verse of Scripture, a battle plan, prayer, written thoughts and prayers as a way to prepare oneself for not only sales but also life. I am not a salesperson but I can resonate with the need for a challenging plan at work to both serve God and my employer. What I found to be the most helpful in this book was not the writing sections or the references but the printed prayers by the author. Sometimes vulnerability in our prayer life is just the thing that we n...