Category: Book Reviews
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This is Awkward; Discipleship That Fits
Every now and then I’ll read a book that makes me laugh out loud (i.e. LOL). It’s not often given the books that I tend to read, but when I saw that Sammy Rhodes’ This Is Awkward: How Life’s Uncomfortable Moments Open The Door to Intimacy and Connection was out, I knew it would do the…
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Living In The Light: Money, Sex & Power
Last summer, John Piper spoke at the Co-Mission weekend meetings called Revive in Canterbury, England. This is a church planting movement in greater London. Those messages were expanded roughly three-fold to become Living in The Light: Money, Sex & Power. Even still, it’s a relatively small book, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth checking…
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How To Be An Atheist: Why Many Skeptics Aren’t Skeptical Enough
While it hasn’t shown up in my recent reviews and reading, I have a long standing interest in apologetics. Specifically, I’m partial to presuppositional apologetics. One strategy within this school of apologetics (though not necessarily limited to it), is assuming the premises of the opposing argument to then tease out how it doesn’t make sense…
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Zeal Without Burnout: Seven Keys to a Lifelong Ministry of Sustainable Service
It is a feeling that still haunts me. Around this time 2 years ago, I was about to experience burnout. But I didn’t know it. Based on the trajectories I had setup, I’m not sure reading this book would have stopped it at that point, but it couldn’t have hurt. This is a deceptively simple…
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Counseling One Another: A Theology of Interpersonal Discipleship
I’ve had an interest in counseling ever since I took a class on biblical counseling at Word of Life. Then, I majored in psychology at Liberty University. Ever since then, I’ve come back frequently to think through issues of integrating psychology and theology and how counseling works in the local church. Along the latter lines,…
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Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics: An Introduction and Reader
I have long been perplexed by Karl Barth. I had only vague ideas about anything he said before going to seminary. There, I didn’t study anything he wrote directly, and unfortunately had mostly indirect contact through Cornelius Van Til. It took a few years to recover from that and then start to figure out what…
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People To Be Loved: Why Homosexuality Is Not Just An Issue
Although I don’t blog about the topic very often, I have had a research and personal interest in the church’s relationship with the gay community for quite some time now. Notice I didn’t say “what the Bible says about homosexuality.” Despite some revisionist attempts to re-read certain passages, I think a traditional understanding of sexual…
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3 Books on The Trinity (Of Course)
On of my abiding reading interests is books on the Trinity. Ever since I took Trinitarianism as a course at Dallas, I keep coming back to try to understand the biblical teaching on God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Recently, I finished three (of course) new volumes that each engage in theological exegesis to…
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The Gospel According to Heretics: Discovering Orthodoxy through Early Christological Conflicts
When you think of the early church, you may very well picture a dry and dusty time. Or, perhaps it is dry and dusty books about a time that might otherwise be intriguing. Maybe I’m being unfair. But, I don’t know a lot of people who get psyched to study the early church, and if…
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Augustine on The Christian Life: Transformed By The Power of God
If one were to put together a list of influential theologians in the history of the church, Augustine would certainly be near the top. In terms of sheer literary output, not to mention kick-starting a genre (autobiography), Augustine towers over other theologians. Yet, he was primarily a pastor (bishop) for his day job. As such,…