For All It's Worth

Gospel Centered Discipleship by Jonathan Dodson is a wonderful, timely, and hard-hitting book about the nature, purpose and application of discipleship in the Christian life. Jonathan Dodson is pastor of Austin City Life church in Austin, Texas and has been a regular conference speaker to those who are committed to see gospel discipleship ch)ange the stagnation of the church. In the introduction to the book, Dodson shares something that is very eye-opening with respect to discipleship, he writes, "Making disciples requires not only "sharing our faith," but also sharing our lives-failures and successes, disobedience and obedience" (15). This sentence hit me right in between the eyes. Why? I have grown up their various ministries (campus and church) with having an either/or concept of discipleship, either you share your faith or you grow spiritually with a small group. In fact, this kind of message sends the wrong message to others concerning Christianity. In the...

Darrin Yeager has written a practical commentary on the book of 1 Corinthians for his readers. There are a number of problems with the work but I will first mention the positive contributions of the book. Yeager seems to understand the direct connection between the vitality of the individual members of the body of Christ and the church as a whole. He writes, "The church needs all the gifts, and all should be in operation. But man places more importance on some over others, not God" (38). The Corinthian church was riddled with self seeking members looking after their own best interest. Yeager is right to point to the cummulative effect that pride has upon an individual member of the church in pulling them away from using their gifts for the edification of others. In looking at 1 Corinthians chapter 8 Yeager focuses on the message of grace over against the message of legalism. Yeager writes, "Living by grace requires more effort than living by law, which explains ...