Skip to main content

The Derision of Heaven








The Derision of Heaven by Michael Whitworth

Unaccustomed to Michael Whitworth’s writing, I was glad to receive this book for review in the mail on the Book of Daniel.  The Book, Derision of Heaven, is a guide to the book of Daniel as Michael looks at the hostile world that Daniel is up against in Babylon and the world we live in also.  With a combination of scholarly acumen and theological wisdom, Michael steadily brings us through the situation that Daniel faced and the situation we face today.  With an eye towards God’s sovereign work over all nations, the obedience that he calls believers to, and the way believers are to live in ungodly cultural circumstances, The Derision of Heaven makes for an excellent read.

One of the significant aspects of the book was the way Michael opened up key points in Daniel’s life that helped us frame the entire message of the book.  In the first chapter Michael writes, “The word “resolved” (Hebrew sim) in 1:8 is among the most important in the entire book.  It marks Daniel as a man of great integrity and conviction, one absolutely committed to doing God’s will and bringing God glory” (32).  Daniel paid careful attention to serving God in his heart and in his actions regardless of what those people around him were asking him to do.  The importance of Daniel’s resolve was in part due to his resolve “to buck the trends of so many generations before him” (33) and follow after God and his Law.  Israel prior to Daniel looked more like the nations that squashed them than a holy people devoted to a jealous God.

Not a point easily seen, Michael’s careful use of good scholarly material on Daniel is to be commended.  In Daniel 7, he references the four different empires alluded to in ch. 7-12 as having various interpretations, whether they be from conservative or liberal scholars (134).  He goes on to make the telling comment that, “..obtaining a scholarly consensus on most anything in Dan 7-12 is as likely as getting a bus full of adolescents to agree on where to eat lunch on a long road trip” (134).  Yet, he takes the position that the fourth empire in Daniel is Rome.  Michael is careful to outline the various views of the kingdoms and still cogently argue for his position.

Overall, this book was a blessing in disguise.  I was not expecting to find such God-glorifying writing that used such great background research.  You will certainly find much to learn from and grow from in this book.


Thanks to Book Crash and Start2Finish  Books for the copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Saving Casper

Saving Casper: A Christian and an Atheist Talk about Why We Need to Change the Conversion Conversation by Jim Henderson and Matt Casper http://www.amazon.com/Saving-Casper-Christian-Conversion-Conversation/dp/1414364881 Many readers will quickly know the authors of this book from their previous release Jim and Casper Go to Church.  Jim and Matt’s new book entitled Saving Casper focuses on the way we talk about conversion in the church and the devastating ways we have pushed away atheists and other non-believers by our posture.  Both Jim and Matt traversed the national landscape, meeting in churches and asking hard questions about faith, conversion, and life. The basic premise of the book and travel is laid out here in their words, “Part of what Casper and I are trying to achieve when we speak to a group of Christians is to help people move a little bit on their “judgment meter.”  This capacity, while intellectually and often theologically uncomfortable,...
Post a Comment
Read more

Essential Christian Doctrine

  Essential Christian Doctrine , General Editor John MacArthur Pastor John MacArthur has for years been teaching the Word of God in both pulpit ministry, books, and conferences with an aim to displaying God’s revelation to his listeners in a winsome and foundational manner.  This new book, Essential Christian Doctrine takes an entire life of teaching and preaching and encapsulates the main contours of the Christian faith for its readers.  John in a systematic way highlights the most necessary teachings from Scripture including God’s Word, the Trinity, while also including sections on Man and the Future. One of the most helpful ways the authors bring to light biblical truth and theology is the way in which they group together particular themes.  In the section on the Holy Spirit, instead of a complex discussion of personhood, word pictures of the Holy Spirit are introduced in a discernible and profitable manner.  The metaphors for the Holy Spirit include fir...
Post a Comment
Read more

God's Grace for All of Life

The Romance of Grace by Jim McNeely III To be honest, when I received this book in the mail I had visions of what it might be like with a title like, ‘The Romance of Grace.’  The emotional rollercoaster and one-sided perspective on how our emotions fuel our faith was my presumption about the book, but this was the furthest thing from the truth as I started reading.  The Romance of Grace by Pastor Jim McNeely III is a careful look at the movements of grace in the way God pursues us with his love and his desire to get us to love him back.  McNeely writes, “We are entering a cosmic romance with a passionate lover, and He is interested in our heart’s truest desire.  His deepest objective isn’t to make us more moral; it is to get us to love Him back.  Virtue is the fruit, not the root” (18).  Why is this helpful?  For one thing, beginning with God’s initiating grace frees us from starting out on the wrong foot in the way we tell the story and...
2 comments
Read more