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What I read in May

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May 2017 reading

I am always consuming books, whether they’re physical, digital or audio. Every month, I like to share a breakdown of everything I read, including the books I abandoned. I do this because it gives me an opportunity to introduce you to books you might not have had an opportunity to read while practicing the art of writing concise book reviews.

In May 2017, I read 13 books to completion and started a couple of others that have yet to complete. Here’s what I read:

  1. Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance
  2. The Imperfect Disciple: Grace for People Who Can’t Get Their Act Together by Jared C. Wilson
  3. The New Teen Titans, Vol. 5 by Marv Wolfman and George Perez
  4. The Door Before by N.D. Wilson
  5. The Chestnut King by N.D. Wilson
  6. Hal Jordan & the Green Lantern Corps, Vol 1: Sinestro’s Law by Robert Venditti et al.
  7. ESV Reader’s Bible Volume II: Historical Books
  8. Detective Comics Vol 1: Rise of the Batmen by James Tynion IV, Eddy Barrows and others
  9. Detective Comics Vol 2: The Victim Syndicate by James Tynion IV, Eddy Barrows and others
  10. Church History in Plain Language (4th Edition) by Bruce L. Shelley
  11. Leepike Ridge by N.D. Wilson
  12. Batgirl and the Birds of Prey, Vol 1: Who Is Oracle? by Julie and Shawna Benson, and Claire Roe
  13. Aftermath: Empire’s End by Chuck Wendig

There’s no discernible pattern in my reading this month for the most part, aside from I had fun reading different kinds of stories. Here are a few thoughts on the whole pile.

Imperfect Christians, Christian history, and family legacies

I don’t want to say too much about it because at some point in the near future I’m going to review it, but The Imperfect Disciple is probably the best book of Jared Wilson’s I’ve ever read, and definitely the best one intended for Christians I’ve read all year. So encouraging and helpful. This was my first go around with the fourth edition of Church History in Plain Language (I’ve read the third edition previously). This one-volume edition is a must-read for anyone who wants to explore how the past has shaped our present.

Hillbilly Elegy is one of those books that everyone was reading last year that I finally got around to. Vance gave himself a challenge with this book: how to tell an honest story while honoring his family. Usually one loses out, and maybe someone closer to the author could say which wins in this book. For what it’s worth I found it a compelling read, one that digs into some of the cultural and historical background of his family’s dysfunction, but still puts his love of his grandparents in particular on full display.

Books with pictures, pop culture, and activism turns cliché

I borrowed Empire’s End from the library really just to see how Wendig wrapped up his story as I found the first two volumes in the series reasonably entertaining. This one was more or less of the same, but in hindsight the plot in the series as a whole is pretty thin (which might be strange to say given that it’s a media tie-in book). Really, the three books could have been one really tight and compelling novel. But there wasn’t enough to warrant three books.

New Teen Titans Vol. 5 was a lot of fun overall, and I’m continuing to really dig the whole feel of DC’s Rebirth initiative. Most of the books I’ve read have warranted at least reading a second volume, and so far there’s only been one series I’ve not introduced to Abigail at all due to the content being a bit too mature (Green Arrow). Of this month’s batch, Hal Jordan & the Green Lantern Corps, Batgirl & the Birds of Prey, and volume one of Detective Comics are the standouts. The stories have a good hook, and the art fits the tone of the stories.

Detective Comics Vol 2 and Empire’s End both remind me how tired I find social progressives’ activism on matters of gender and sexuality. One of Empire’s End‘s main characters is gay, and his heroic actions are motivated in part by his relationship with another male character. Detective Comics also introduces a transgender character, Dr. Victoria October, whose brief appearance is filled with references to the process of transitioning (“pupal stage,” “dead name,” and so forth), and caused some pop culture enthusiasts to celebrate Batman as a transgender ally. But honestly, I don’t see what the fuss is all about. Of course a transgender character will be in Batman, and a gay character will be in Star Wars. That’s the formula, in all it’s predictable glory. So why celebrate what you know is going to be there?

Binge-reading Wilson

This month I was able to read three of ND Wilson’s books, including his soon-to-be released prequel to 100 Cupboards, The Door Before. But first, I want to say a couple of things about the other two books. First, Leepike Ridge, which was Wilson’s first book for the youth fiction market. I think what I enjoyed most about this one wasn’t so much the story as seeing the evolution of Wilson as a storyteller. The dialogue isn’t quite as sharp. The peril is a touch milder (but only a touch). There’s just not quite the same level of confidence as in his more recent books.

Second, The Chestnut King, the third book of the 100 Cupboards series. I read this right after reading the prequel, and it was refreshing to see an author manage the continuity well. To my knowledge, I didn’t see any major inconsistencies, which is refreshing.

Finally, The Door Before. If you’re a fan of either Ashtown Burials or 100 Cupboards (or both), you’ll be overjoyed reading this book. Wilson did a terrific job of bringing these two worlds together in a very satisfying way, and managed to pull off writing a prequel that still manages to have a real sense of drama and danger. Consider it as close as you can get to essential summer-reading, gang.

That’s it for this month’s round-up. Do you find these posts helpful? Do you have a suggestion for a book for me or someone else to read or want to share what you’ve read? Connect with me on Twitter or Facebook and let me know!

Here’s a look at what I read in:

Weekend reading (4/22)

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Luther is now available!

Big news: Luther, the latest documentary from the team behind Through the Eyes of Spurgeon, is now available. Check it out on demand or purchase a Blu-ray or DVD edition.

How Brainy Women Benefit the Church

Hannah Anderson:

It’s taken me years, but I finally understand that nothing about my womanhood is at odds with my mind. If anything, being female lends me a unique perspective that my male intellectual counterparts lack. My parenting, too, has shifted with these concerns in mind. A few weeks ago, I observed as my ten-year-old son took a battery of achievement and IQ testing. When the proctor finally met with me, he confirmed that, yes, just like his mother, my son will probably always analyze everything. I couldn’t help but wonder how his experience of his own intelligence will be different from mine. Will his giftedness open doors for him in ways it hadn’t for me as a girl? Will I be tempted to parent him differently than I parent my daughter, who also excels academically?

It was an abomination

In other news, water is wet.

Why I Use “We” More Often Than “You” When Preaching

Marty Duren:

I need correction and admonition as much as any brother or sister in Christ. My role as a pastor does not make me less in need of instruction, but more.

My choice of words when preaching either reveals this awareness or reveals my lack of that same. If, as the old saying goes, the ground is level at the foot of the cross, I should not seek an acclivity from which to preach down on the gathered crowd.

One Very Good Reason to Study Church History

Tim Challies:

When you became a Christian, the history of Christianity became yours. You became a citizen of Christ’s kingdom and gained its past in all its glory and shame. The early church is your early church. The Church Fathers are your church fathers. The Reformation is your Reformation. The rise of Evangelicalism is your rise of Evangelicalism. On a less positive note, the religious wars and persecutions are yours, as are the advocacy of slavery and the apathy toward abuse within the church. You are right to feel pride over the church’s accomplishments as she has stood fast in the face of trial and error, carrying out the Great Commission given to her. You are right to make these accomplishments known and to attempt to ensure there are many more like them. Likewise, you are right to feel sorrow and even shame over the church’s transgressions and to work equally hard to ensure she never succumbs to such sins again.

Our Minds Are Like Baking Stone

Erik Raymond:

I often think about that baking stone when I consider our pursuit of sanctification. Our minds are to be like baking stones seasoned by the promises of God in the Bible. The daily exposure to the Scriptures should seep into everything we do. Throughout our days, we are to retain the flavor of who God is, what he has done, and what he has promised.

The Covenant of Candy

David Murray:

My greatest passion in life is to teach profound biblical truth simply; to take the deepest theological doctrines and explain them in a way that a child could understand. That’s what constantly motivates and shapes my preaching and teaching. It probably adds about 2-3 hours of work to every sermon I preach as I struggle mightily to simplify, simplify, simplify.

Three questions I really hope will be answered in the new creation

A favorite from the archives:

Y’know, one of the things I’m looking forward to about the new creation is the opportunity to ask a whole lot of questions. And I don’t mean that in the “When I get to heaven, I’m gonna have a word with Jesus” way, either, because while that’s cute and all… no.

Seriously though, I have a ton of questions I would love to have answers to eventually. They’re not questions which affect my faith all that much. They’re the curiosity ones about events in history, the background of certain books of the Bible, and how Jesus really feels about King James Only-ism… (Kidding. I’m pretty sure I already know that last one.) But of those, there are three that, at this moment anyway, I’d love to have an answer to eventually.

Weekend reading (3/04)

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The Local Church Is More Awkward Than Your Facebook Wall

Richard Clark:

The results can be powerful. It is no small thing to experience connection with mothers who have the same struggles, or with those who share a passion for the same oft-disregarded hobby or unusual social cause. Those wounded by the church often live in mental isolation until they discover someone who has also been wounded. These groups reflect a powerful truth in a world that often is shaped by a lack of understanding: You are not alone.

What Gets Lost People to Church? And What Doesn’t?

A Revival Without Christ at the Center Is Not a Revival

Jared Wilson:

It is the Spirit’s raison d’etre to shine the light on Christ. The Spirit is often called the “shy” person of the Trinity because of this. He is content—no, zealous—to minister to the church the Father’s blessings in the gospel of Jesus. He quickens us to desire Christ, illuminates the Scripture’s revelation of Christ, empowers us to receive Christ, and imparts Christ to us even in his own indwelling. For this reason, then, any church or movement’s claim of revival better exalt at Christ at its center, or it is not genuine revival.

What God can Do With the Blank Page

Jay Sanders:

Here’s my confession. I’m overwhelmed. 2017 has been challenging so far. Lately, with every sermon that I preach, I imagine one of my old seminary professors sitting on the back row and giving me the Bless Your Heart Look. I haven’t felt very effective in the counseling sessions that I’ve been leading. The solutions just don’t seem to come as easy as they do in the books. And I’ve felt inadequate as a leader. I feel like I need to be more of a CEO, the buck stops here, my way or the highway type of leader but the reality is that that’s just not me.

That leads to the blank page. I’m supposed to write an article filled with biblical and practical wisdom that will inspire pastors to be better leaders, counselors and preachers, all the while knowing that I need to be on the other end of that article. I need to be the reader, not the writer. So I sat in my office, staring at a blank page.

What Tolkien Did So Well, What We Do So Poorly

Tim Challies:

One of the great strengths of Tolkien’s work is its grounding in history. One of the great weaknesses of the contemporary church is its detachment from its own history. Few of today’s Christians have a clear sense of how the church came to be. They know of Acts and Reformation and Billy Graham, but the rest is a blur. They do not know their forebears, the ones who faithfully proclaimed and finally handed down the faith. They have no grounding in history—their own history.

Kids, Asparagus, and the Command of Jesus

Michael Kelley:

Everything else on the plate will be eaten until there will be only the lonely green stalks left on three plates, and there it will sit. And sit. And sit. Until it starts to get cold and mushy, and the act of eating the asparagus will move from being distasteful to downright disgusting. At some point, inevitably, I will have to put my hands on the table, look them all in the eyes, and say clearly: “You will eat that asparagus.”

The only question at that point is who can play the waiting game longer.

Articulating unbelief

A favorite from the archives:

A letter.

You wouldn’t think it’d be that hard to write a letter, but this one has a very specific purpose, because it’s also my term paper for my apologetics and outreach course. I am to write a letter to a friend, a family member—someone I am close to—bridge the gap between their beliefs and my own, and encourage them to pursue Christ.

And until last night, I’ve been stuck.

Links I like (2/21)

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Letter from a ‘Concerned Church Member’

Jared Wilson gets a bit satirical in this one.

Watch Your Mouth, Christian!

Michael Kelley:

If a person walked into the church today, they might as well have stepped into a comic book convention, for they would likely find a group of people so entrenched into their own subculture that they don’t even think about what they’re saying, singing, or preaching any more. After all, everybody understands them; they’re seeking the same language.

Leaders, Don’t Get Numb

Eric Geiger:

When a leader is numb, the leader stops caring. The leader is no longer only physically exhausted; the leader is now mentally, spiritually, and emotionally numb. Passion has dissipated. Concern has ceased. Emotions, heart, passion, and care are all just numbed.

Tim Keller Speaks at Google on ‘Making Sense of God: An Invitation to the Skeptical’

The Faith of George Washington

Thomas S. Kidd:

Washington was no perfect man, either publicly or privately. Most historians understand that General Washington made a number of major errors in judgment as the war proceeded. And privately, his foibles were exposed nowhere better than his foolish but flagrant flirtations with the married woman Sally Fairfax, prior to Washington’s own marriage. Chernow judiciously focuses on this dalliance to remind us that however wise and courageous Washington became in adulthood, he began as a young man who could do some boneheaded things.

Cramming Seminary Well

Tabor Laughlin:

So why did I need to “cram” seminary at all in the first place? Before going to Louisville, KY for the ’13-’14 school year, we’d only planned to stay one year as a so-called seminary “break” from serving in China. I’d done some classes online beforehand and planned to take a light load at Southern for that year since I was doing a shorter Master’s degree [only 48 credit hours]. But during the summer before moving to Southern, I changed my mind and decided to do the M.DIV [94 total credit hours – usually spanning 3 or more years] instead of the M.A., so I knew I needed to cram tons of classes into that one year on-campus at Southern.

One of the best songs to sing (especially when you don’t feel like singing)

A favorite from the archives:

Nevertheless, when I don’t feel like singing, there are songs that I find myself starting to think about when I don’t feel like I can sing what everyone else is. It’s one I actually find myself singing as I’m getting ready for work in the morning. I first heard it at the close of a prayer meeting with Peter Jones at a TruthXchange event about five years ago. It was written in 1674, and is really simple—it has four verses and it’s simply an encouragement to offer praise.

Links I like (2/02)

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Introducing Our New Executive Director, Jeremy Writebol

Excited for my friends at Gospel-Centered Discipleship.

Why Christians Should Read the Short Stories of Langston Hughes

John Mark Reynolds:

If racism and race-based slavery was America’s original sin, Hughes demonstrates that racism and the legacy of slavery were alive and killing us in the middle of the last century. Conservative Christians know that history matters, ideas have consequences, and the wages of continued sin keep being death.

To Be A Diaper Changer

Nick Batzig:

To be a diaper changer to the glory of God is a glorious thing. Jesus said, “He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much” (Luke 16:10). Among the many things that I regret in the early years of marriage is that I was far to eager too be out with people “doing ministry” and was not home enough helping my wife change diapers and put the kids to bed. I say this without any hesitation whatsoever: Any fruit I have in ministry is directly correlated to my wife’s faithfulness in doing what is least to the glory of God.

Who Is to Blame for the Greatest Myth in the History of Science and Religion?

Justin Taylor:

That distinction falls to American scholars from the nineteenth century: (1) Andrew Dickson White (1832-1918), the founding president of Cornell University, and (2) John William Draper (1811-1882), professor of chemistry at the University of New York.

Gospel-Division That Creates Gospel-Ambassadors

Jonathon Woodyard:

This shouldn’t surprise us. Jesus told us we’d see this pattern play out in the world. Our Lord said, “Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division…”  (Luke 12:51–53). What he meant was that how people respond to him, either with belief or unbelief, will divide the whole world into two camps. Those who are with Jesus and those who are against him (Matt 12:30).

Yes, the gospel unites. But, in a very real sense, it divides.

My Crisis on a Cliff

Josh Moody:

As I sat close to the precipice of West Rock, I realized I wasn’t really at a crossroads; instead, I was at a cliff’s edge. Suddenly, I realized afresh that God had given his Son for me. Hardly news, you might say, but it hit me like a rocket-propelled grenade, and it opened the tear ducts like an English public schoolboy is never meant to admit. I wanted my son to be fixed; I couldn’t understand why God wouldn’t; I realized God had intended, deliberately, to have his Son be unfixed—crucified—by fixing him to a cross. Hard as it is to watch your son suffer and not be able to do anything about it, what would it be like to watch your Son suffer, be able to stop it, but refrain for the sake others for whom he dies?

How to engage on social media like a Christian

A favorite from the archives:

But there are things I hate about Twitter and Facebook—often having to do with folks who are charged up about a particular hobby horse, a serious issue, or whatever. These are the people I’m most tempted to block (and often do): hashtag hijackers who spread lies and/or unsubstantiated gossip, or folks who seem to relish the fall of fellow believers. I really struggle to know what to do with these people because, well, I’m really tempted to respond to them and rebuke them.

But that’s not always the best response, as tempting as it might be. Instead, it often winds up getting you into flame wars and makes an awful mess—and depending on your job, it can get you in serious trouble at work if you’ve got a corporation or ministry’s reputation to think of. Instead, there are a few ways that are more helpful—and almost certainly more befitting of a Christian.

Links I like (1/05)

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5 Gospel-Centered Devotionals for the New Year

Mr. Medders offers a number of good recommendations.

Every Opportunity to Preach the Gospel is an Opportunity to Believe the Gospel

Michael Kelley:

Paul doesn’t pray that his readers might be active in preaching the gospel so that others will be converted. Nor does he pray that they’re active so that the gospel can go forth to the nations. He might well have done so, and no doubt he did on other occasions, but specifically here the apostle points us to a personal benefit that comes when we are active in speaking the words of the gospel to others. When we speak the gospel we have a more and more full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ.

How Do We Know Who Wrote the Gospels?

Timothy Paul Jones:

Open your Bible to the table of contents and take a look at the list of books in the New Testament. There, you’ll find the Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John leading the list. But did this quartet of early Christians actually have any connection with the books that bear their names? Were Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John really the ones who wrote the Gospels? If so, how do we know?

3 Mistakes Leaders Make When Starting a New Year

Eric Geiger:

Here is a typical scene the week after Christmas…

A leader gets some rest, feels rejuvenated, and the burden to lead the team better in the New Year starts to grow. The leader reads a book, favorites a dozen blogs, listens to some leadership training on a variety of topics, and is fired up for the first meeting with the team he/she leads. In the midst of the enthusiasm, here are 3 common mistakes leaders make as a new year begins.

Why should evangelicals care about church history?

Good thoughts from Matthew Hall:

3 Questions to Ask When Choosing a Bible Study

 

Courtney Doctor:

If you’ve ever been responsible for choosing Bible study curriculum, you may have felt a bit like Indiana, standing in front of a book-covered table. It can feel daunting. What do you do? Do you close your eyes, choose randomly, and hope for the best? Do you have a lifeline you call and rely on for an answer? Do you choose the latest study on the market, assuming it must be good if everyone else likes it?

Caution and Help for the Hyperdriven Leader

Mike Ayers:

But the designation has also been used as a self-label by some seeking to justify their own excessive and compulsive drives. In the leader’s mind, the euphemism excuses their obsession with results and the tunnel-vision that accompanies their success. These leaders are often hard on staff, demanding of people, and are constantly charging a hill. When this occurs, the visionary leader creates vision-weary people. In extreme cases (and also in the name of vision), they may be authoritarian, autonomous and even downright mean.

Why would otherwise great leaders act in such destructive ways?

What a lottery can’t satisfy

A favorite from the archives:

I never habitually bought tickets—I wasn’t a part of the company lottery ticket pool, or anything like that. But every once in a while, I’d grab one just to see if maybe it was “the one”: the one that would take care of all my money problems, and maybe let me do something nice for my mom, too. The only problem was I never won, ever. I realize this was God withholding something that would not have been good for me now. But then, I didn’t acknowledge God. I didn’t worship him. I worshipped getting rich.

If I had one god, it was money.

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