For All It's Worth

I have been reading thru the King of Glory with my young daughter lately and it has been a joy. Some of the pictures were a little on the scary side for her but were good depictions of evil at its core, including Lucifer. I think this distillation of the biblical story captures some of the grandeur of God's glory and creation, while also depicting the devastating effects of the fall of man into sin. Author P.D. Bramsen and illustrator Arminda San Martin have sought to bring to light the story of the bible from creation to new creation through picture and words in a very telling and thougtful manner. There are 70 scences that depict the story, roughly 36 from the Old Testament and the rest from the New Testament. The first 19 scenes are devoted to the creation and the Fall. I thought scene 19 was done very well in depicting Adam and Eve being banished from the Garden of Eden and Adam looking longingly to back where he came from. Bramsen makes a note here that the Lord is the on...

The Coming Revolution by Dr. Richard G. Lee is a book which aims to alert the American people to the past founders of this country and their beliefs but a calls people to do something about their present frustration with reigning administration in Washington. Instead of just providing some critical remarks about the book, I want to delineate the positive information in the book and at the end look at some criticisms. Positive- Lee goes to great measures to bring about the specific religous character of the founders and their beliefs. At one point he quotes from Benjamin Rush, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and member of the Continental Congress saying, "Let the children what are sent to those schools be taught to read and write and above all, let both sexes be carefully instructed in the principles and obligations of the Christian religion" (18). Even in the life of Benjamin Franklin, we find not an explicit Christian faith, but a resonance with ...

God with Us by K. Scott Oliphint Not having much familiarity with Van Til nor Oliphint's other books, I believe I was stepping into deep waters when I sent off for this book from Crossway. Instead of going on about what I did not understand about the book (which was much), I want to examine some things that I not only understood but were crucial in the discussion. The purpose of the book in the beginning is to "think biblically about who God is" (9), and in doing so we might more adequately worship him (11). This purpose statement is right on track with the goal of doctrine in the biblical life, not as some separate mental engagement, but a mental engagement that fuels our whole being in worship. Following this notion, Oliphint proposes that a proper view of God and his attributes is only really understood as we relate in to the Son of God, Jesus Christ (knowledge of him). In posing this thesis, he takes into account some aberrations with respect to God's chara...

Wagon of Fools by Samuel Bejamin Gray (pen name) is a collection of seven parable like stories that intertwine narrations of families, brokenness, an unloved wife, and a search for God in the midst of ritual and religion. I thought most of the stories were interesting but lacked a coherent point. The first story involves the narrator highlighting major points about his father, being an orthodox Jew but not talking like one at all. Early on in the story, we see the father teaching his son that talking to God is something we can do in a natural way. The same thought is echoed in the last story. The father tells his daughter that "to know what God wants of us, we must simply have the heart to do what he tells us to do. And when he comes to us-we must do what he says on that day" (215). The ease of a father playing games with his son is the way a person should relate to God. Yet, in these stories I am largely confused as to what the author was seeking to do. Was he seeking t...