For All It's Worth

Gifted Mind: The Dr. Raymond Damadian Story by Jeff Kinley with Dr. Raymond Damadian The story of Dr. Raymond Damadian, Inventor of the MRI is a story of great ingenuity and belief.  From the beginning, Ray was a brilliant student and excelled in music and in scientific endeavors.  The first chapter of the book, rather than being an introduction to this life is more of an apologetic for the Christian life.  Damadian states, “Similarly, I attribute the invention of the MRI entirely  to the Lord’s hand in revealing it to me.  I credit His specific intervention to accomplish it reduction to practice (15).”    Dr. Ray in the first chapter seeks to explain that to believe in a closed system in which God never intervenes is to lose our access to His truth.  Dr. Ray tells his early childhood story in the second chapter and particularly illuminating was the part about his violin.  He started playing at the young age of five and...

Ready to Return: Bringing Back the Church’s Lost Generation by Ken Ham with Jeff Kinley, research by Britt Beemer The church is in trouble in the West and this is no lie, for there has been for many years a growing secularism that is eating away at the livelihood of the historic church.  Ken Ham and Jeff Kinley decry this global diminishing of the church in their new book, Ready to Return.  They look at the spiritual departure from churches in Europe as a sign of both a unhealthy belief system but also a church that has weak in its proclamation and stance on the real issues of the day (9).  What is the way forward for the church to regain its footing? The authors posit that the real issue at hand is the nature of biblical authority (58).  The questions to begin this discussion are: Did God really make you? and Is He really the Creator?  These questions point back to the origins of humanity and the divine work in the beginning.  Man was ...

The Story of Everything: How You, Your Pets, and the Swiss Alps Fit into God’s Plan for the World by Jared C. Wilson The title alone begs one to dive straight headlong into this book.  For those of you familiar with Jared C. Wilson, The Storytelling God and The Prodigal Church are some of my favorite books of his.  His passion for seeing God’s glory shower over all creation and central focus on Jesus Christ is admirable in many ways.  In this new book, The Story of Everything, Jared takes a wider angle lens and looks at the most significant events in the Scripture as providing a solid paradigm for a robust biblical theology.  The book is accessible, winsome and chalk full of good news for every believer. One of the important points that Jared makes in his book concerns Genesis 1-2 and creation.  Often we see this story of beginnings as relevant to the beginning of the story and the end of the story, but fail to see how Genesis 1-2 is con...

Mark (Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament) Vol. 2 by Mark L. Strauss This newer commentary set put out by Zondervan is an excellent series, and this volume on Mark by Mark L. Strauss is no different.  Many of you will no doubt recognize Strauss, as he has labored in the field of NT studies for many years, producing substantial works on the gospels, choosing a translation of the bible, and his newest work is on paradoxes in the Bible.  This work, coming in at the hefty weight of 784 pages, leaves no stone unturned as Strauss covers introductory matters, textual issues, commentary, and theology.  The helpful layout of the book made for easy reading in that you could looking at the Scripture and Mark’s commentary alongside each other, comparing notes and engaging the original text in an accessible manner.  What I particularly enjoyed about this commentary was its judicious balance of weighing the importance of Mark’s narrative alongsi...

Hymns of the Heart: Discovering God in the Psalms by Adam Faughn Have you ever needed a guide to reading the book of Psalms in the Old Testament?  Has it ever occurred to you that focusing on certain psalms will help you in your study of the Bible?  Adam Faughn helps his readers get in the heart of the psalms as he looks at 35 of them in his new book, Hymns of the Heart: Discovering God in the Psalms.  The book is designed to open up the prayer and worship book of the OT and help us discern the meaning for today. Adam gets into each psalm by looking at the structure, theology, and message of each psalm for today.  With an appreciation for the historical context of each psalm, Adam weaves together scholarship, story and application that helps the reader understand each psalm in its context.  With most chapters being around 10 pages, you can easily pick up the book and learn more about each of the 35 included psalms.  One thing I really t...

Here are a few books I'm reading this Christmas season that you might also enjoy: Sean Michael Lucas is Senior Pastor at First Presbyterian Church, Hattiesburg, Mississippi and a wonderful church history scholar as well.  He taught at Covenant Seminary while I was there and his prior book on On Being Presbyterian is my go to book to introducing people to the historic Presbyterian faith.  This new book traces the roots of the PCA from early on in the 19th century, through the ruckus that was caused between the North and the South Presbyterian bodies and stretches toward today with the founding of the PCA in 1973.  With an eye toward the theological shakeup with the beginning of Union Seminary and the emergence of social gospel emphases, Lucas does a great job at identifying the roots that eventually came to be the PCA.  This is much more than a book on the PCA but a book on Reformed identity and the shaping of a story that affects a much broader Protestant evange...

1-3 John (Reformed Expository Commentary) by Douglas Sean O’Donnell Every week we say it in worship after our admission/confession of sin, the single verse from 1 John 1.9 that states, “If we confess our sins God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all righteousness.”  This succinct truth delves deep into our hearts for it brings out two simple yet profound concepts; namely our confession and God’s faithfulness to forgive.  In this new commentary on 1-3 John by Pastor and scholar Douglas Sean O’Donnell, the author gets into the heart of these three small books near the end of the NT canon with wit, wisdom, and clarity.  Douglas states early on his book that John had two purposes in writing his epistles; pastoral in that he wrote to bring assurance of faith to his readers and second, polemical, upholding the truth of the incarnation among those who wanted to deny Christ’s full humanity (xiv). Commenting on 1 John 2.14 whe...