Tag Archives: bible

Book review: Altar Ego by Craig Groeschel

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Yes, it’s another book about becoming who God says you are in Christ. This one’s split into three parts, basically covering who we are in Christ, what characteristics that means we should have, and how to be bold in obeying God.

Craig Groeschel is biblical, challenging, humble and absolutely hilarious. Each chapter is well-structured, based on clear Bible passages and ideas, and well-communicated through Groeschel’s own experience and powerful challenges throughout. I’d challenge any Christian to read this book and come out the other side thinking they can continue living as they have before. The best thing about this book is Groeschel’s trademark all-or-nothing approach; God demands our all, so give him your all!

I normally try to come up with one or two things I didn’t like about a book but I simply can’t with this; at times it made me laugh out loud at his stories while at others it was as if my heart had been ripped out of my chest. I haven’t read a book as good as this in a long time, and am looking forward to Groeschel’s next creation.

If you’re a Christian, read this book. And if you’re not, become a Christian, then read this book.

I got this book for free from BookSneeze.com in exchange for an honest review.

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Book review: Captive in Iran by Maryam Rostampour and Marziyeh Amirizadeh

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This is essentially a diary following the interrogation and imprisonment of two Iranian ladies, who were held by the government for nine months simply for being Christians. Their story covers everything from their arrest to the prison environment, relationships with the guards and other prisoners, the court case and hearing about the news reports.

Firstly: this is eye-opening. I knew basically nothing about Iran before reading this, and it almost reads like a fiction story. The Iranian government is controlling and insecure, oppressing women and silencing any voice against them going as far as falsifying statements and handing out the death penalty simply for disagreeing with them. This book is a well-written account of the experiences of two innocent ladies remaining calm and speaking out in the face of persecution.

By the nature of it the book’s saddening, but there’s an under-current of faith and hope throughout the whole thing; the authors are Bible-focused and love to pray, and are an incredible modern example of rejoicing in the midst of suffering.

That said, there’s humour in here as well; on a few occasions the ladies related giggling as a bit of a coping mechanism, and the mental image of pompous, ultra-serious prison guards being humiliated by two ‘infidels’ not being able to stop laughing made me chuckle on many occasions, despite the rest of the book’s content.

I’d encourage anyone and everyone to buy and read this book. It’s written really well and it’s informative; I’m certainly going to be more aware of the situation in Iran from now on, and not only for Christians. The message of the book is clear, true and simple: Maryam Rostampour and Marziyeh Amirizadeh were quite literally captives in Iran, but the people of Iran are themselves captives of the regime there, whether they realise it or not.

I got this book for free from Tyndale House Publishers in exchange for an honest review.

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How can I get close to God?

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Yes, I'm a happy child.

Yes, I’m a happy child. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A question that comes up a lot for Christians is: How can I get closer to God? At times he can feel distant, silent and difficult to understand. I think the answer might be easier than it seems.

I’ve been a Daddy for almost one full year now and the times that I’ve felt best as a Dad have been when (a) my little boy is upset and I make him happy, and (b) when he’s having a good time and I make him laugh.

As a Christian I’ve been adopted into God’s family; he’s my Daddy, and I don’t think anything makes him happier than when (a) I’m upset and go to him so he can make me happy, or (b) I’m happy and go to him to be grateful and increase my joy.

This might be too simplistic but asking ‘How can I get close to God?’ is a bit of a non-question; we don’t need to get close to him because he is close to us. And he loves us to turn toward him; it isn’t a case of ticking the right boxes, working harder, reading the Bible more, praying more…it’s just about looking to him.

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The art of the self-defeating statement

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Morality Play (novel)

Morality Play (novel) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’m entirely unable to write English.

For the quick-witted among you, I’m sure you already spotted that the above sentence is pointless – you don’t need years of analysis to figure out that the sentence proves itself to be incorrect. But we do fall into the trap of believing these self-defeating statements from time-to-time.

Shall we look at a couple of examples?

No-one can know any truth about religion.

Well, for that to be true, it must not be true…shame.

You can’t know anything for sure.

Are you sure?

You shouldn’t force your morality on people.

Ever heard this one? Why shouldn’t I? Is it morally wrong? Stop forcing your morality on me!

You should just accept people as they are.

I’m assuming that the only exception to this rule is you then, who haven’t just accepted me as I am?

Now I don’t want to be that guy who just shouts at people then refuses to listen to them, but at the same time I don’t want to just roll over in the face of clearly flawed reasoning.

Any suggestions as to how to spot these, or any other examples that might be useful?

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Book review: Draw the Circle by Mark Batterson

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Leading on from Mark Batterson’s book The Circle Maker, this is a 40-day devotional-style book. In each of the 40 chapters there’s a Bible verse or passage, a true inspiring story of someone who prayed, and an application point for the day. The chapters are short and readable, and are well-suited to the design of the book.

There were things that I liked about this book – its incredibly well-written, and each chapter is clearly thought through. The application points from each chapter are challenging and Bible-based.

But, unfortunately, I wanted to love this book a bit more than I did. I haven’t read The Circle Maker so don’t know if it’s explained in there, but even after having read this I still have no idea what Batterson means by ‘circling’. In the book it seems like at times it means taking a pen and drawing a ring around a particular Bible verse (e.g. ‘circling 2 Corinthians 7:14′), at others it means praying over a particular location while walking around it (e.g. ‘circling the living room’), and at others just praying about something (e.g. ‘circling a job interview’). Apart from being confusing this means that it lost its meaning, like when the author took Jesus’ command to ‘keep asking, keep seeking, keep knocking,’ and added ‘keep circling’ – what does that even mean?!

Something else that frustrated me was that the overall tone of the book made it seem like this guy just had everything in his life sorted now that he’d got ‘circling’ sorted out. There was quite a lot of things like ‘when I hit trouble I just circle it in prayer, trust in God, and continue in life with a smile on my face’ – not something I find useful.

The referencing also got on my nerves – some stories weren’t referenced at all (I’d never heard of Honi until this book talked about him in passing and I had to research him to understand it!), and the others had footnotes in really odd places, which for me broke up some excellent quotes unnecessarily.

Finally, although the book starts by saying that the purpose of circling stuff in prayer is more to learn God’s will rather than to get what we want, there was a bit too much talk about ‘you can get your dream through prayer’ which, again, I didn’t find useful.

Now, although this book did end up annoying me I still want to recommend it – the action points for each day are genuinely good, and if reading it is going to increase the amount of regular prayer (I can’t see why it wouldn’t), that can’t be a bad thing.

I got this book for free from booksneeze.com in exchange for an honest review.

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Book review: Afraid to Believe in Free Will by Carl E. Begley

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This book is a bit of an odd one, because I can’t quite nail it down. I suppose I was expecting a comparison between Calvinism and Arminianism, and this is definitely not that. It’s quite academic in flavour, looking at the philosophical and psychological history of belief in free will along with an analysis of societal contexts within which a stronger belief in free will would help.

First things first: I found this pretty interesting. I’m sure I’ll bring up stuff I’ve read here in conversations, and it definitely got me thinking. I’ve never put any time or effort into thinking through the ideas of whether or not we have free will, or whether or not belief in free will makes any difference, and this book has kick-started that thought process for me.

However, it’s fair to say that I don’t really get this book. It’s very academic in everything except the overall structure, which is frustrating – it took a while for me to understand where the author was going with this, and after having read it I’m not sure I get it even now, other than him saying that we ought to believe in free will. To say it’s branded as a Christian book that Christian input is fairly quiet throughout, and even when it comes in it’s analysed in the same way as any other philosophical source. The Bible’s quoted to back up Begley’s arguments and not to initiate thought, so I certainly didn’t feel like I’d learnt ‘the Christian view’ of free will here.

What particularly frustrated me was the way that the book looked at a couple of examples to demonstrate how belief in free will affects society, but the focus then shifted too far (in my eyes) onto the author’s own view of those particular situations; apparently offering financial support to the unemployed makes them lazy and reliant on good, hard-working citizens; of course communism is an idea from the devil himself; and scientific evidence shows that child abuse isn’t as harmful as society tells us it is. Yes, that last one is perhaps slightly skewing what the author says, but the particular chapter it’s in is long story about the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association and the confusion between the two – I still have no idea what the difference is, and I still have no idea how that relates to a belief in free will.

So in conclusion this has started some good thought processes, but I don’t think it’s done the best job at it – it’s got an academic tone without an academic objective, it gets too bogged down with the examples without explaining fully what we should conclude, and it doesn’t reinforce a Christian focus enough.

I got this ebook for free from BookSneeze.com in exchange for an honest review.

What’s so important about the springs?

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Negev Desert Acacia Trees

Negev Desert Acacia Trees (Photo credit: Stellas mom)

I’m currently reading the Bible through from cover to cover. One fun thing about that is discovering random bits which are easy to miss out otherwise. Take Joshua 15 for example.

We’re in the middle of a long description of what geographic area each tribe of Israel was allocated, when this happens:

…Caleb said, “Whoever strikes Kiriath-sepher and captures it, to him will I give Achsah my daughter as wife.” And Othniel the son of Kenaz, the brother of Caleb, captured it. And he gave him Achsah his daughter as wife. When she came to him, she urged him to ask her father for a field. And she got off her donkey, and Caleb said to her, “What do you want?” She said to him, “Give me a blessing. Since you have given me the land of the Negeb, give me also springs of water.” And he gave her the upper springs and the lower springs. (Joshua 15:16-19)

…then it goes straight back into the land allocation. As it’s so easy and convenient to do so, I asked my good friend Matthew Henry what he thought about it:

From this story we learn, 1. That it is no breach of the tenth commandment moderately to desire those comforts and conveniences of this life which we see attainable in a fair and regular way. 2. That husbands and wives should mutually advise, and jointly agree, about that which is for the common good of their family and much more should they concur in asking of their heavenly Father the best blessings, those of the upper springs. 3. That parents must never think that lost which is bestowed upon their children for their real advantage, but must be free in giving them portions as well as maintenance, especially when they are dutiful. Caleb had sons (1 Chronicles 4:15), and yet gave thus liberally to his daughter. Those parents forget themselves and their relation who grudge their children what is convenient for them when they can conveniently part with it.

I’d probably add something else to his wisdom. God gives grace upon grace to us. I’ll first break down the story into chunks, then show how I’d apply it:

  1. Caleb offers a reward for completing a task.
  2. Othniel completes the task, gets the reward, yet ultimately asks for more (apparently Kiriath-sepher was in a really dry place).
  3. Caleb goes further than requested, and gives more than requested.

I think you know where this is going. It’s all about Jesus:

  1. God offers the free gift of eternal life to all who put their faith in Jesus Christ.
  2. Even after having received the ‘reward’ of salvation by grace, we still go back to God in prayer, asking him to give us more gifts (apparently some people find the Christian life a bit hard – I suppose that makes sense, seeing as Jesus promised we would).
  3. God blesses us in more ways than we can ever realise.
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What colour are demons?

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Demon

Demon (Photo credit: ark)

Everyone knows what colour demons are: red. They’re red. With little horns, a skinny forked tail and a trident that they carry around everywhere. They probably have bat-like wings as well.

Of course, almost everyone knows that this image of demons isn’t the image portrayed in the Bible, but it was concocted in the Middle Ages…but why?

Simples! The church wanted an easy way of demonstrating visually that compared to Jesus’ power, demons were jokes – an annoying but insignificant insect that perches on your shoulder, telling you to do bad things but which you can swat away in the name of Jesus.

So as atheists look at these pictures of demons and laugh at the foolish Christians for believing such medieval nonsense, I will look at those same pictures and laugh at Satan for having rebelled against the holy God when he must have known exactly what was going to happen.

Christus victor!

Celebrating the end of the slave trade

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Slavery monument

Slavery monument (Photo credit: drhenkenstein)

Writing in 1823 the Bible commentator Adam Clarke wrote this about Isaiah 58:

How can any nation pretend to fast or worship Godat all, or dare to profess that they believe in the existence of such a Being, while they carry on the slave trade, and traffic in the souls, blood, and bodies, of men! O ye most flagitious of knaves, and worst of hypocrites, cast off at once the mask of religion; and deepen not your endless perdition by professing the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, while ye continue in this traffic!

Good words for a dark time: don’t pretend to be a Christian while you lounge around in your luxurious lifestyle, supporting the slave trade. I’m sure we’d all offer a hearty ‘amen’ to that.

So today, how about we remember that there are more slaves in the world today than ever before, almost 27 million of them.

In 1850 the cost of a slave was $40,000; a luxury good owned only by the most wealthy. Nowadays, you can own one for $90. That’s cheaper than most mobile phones, tablets, games consoles, TVs…virtually worthless. If my TV dies after a few years’ work, let’s buy a new one. If my slave dies, there are plenty more where that came from.

And let’s consider slaves in the sex trade. In the USA, a progressive, influential, modern, rational nation, the average…the AVERAGE age of entry into the sex trade is 11-12 years old. And every year about 325,000 children join them.

But what can we do? Probably more than we realise:

  1. We can fast and pray. God listens.
  2. We can actually admit that products we buy that don’t say they’re fairly traded, probably aren’t fairly traded. So we can stop buying them.
  3. We can consider giving money to churches and charities which are working to eliminate the slave trade.
  4. We can go back to that Adam Clarke quote and read it again, and admit we need to do something now, for the glory of God.
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God and that cat – dead or alive

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It’s Wednesday, time to post what I first put up 13 February 2012! The original post is here.

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English: Diagram of Schrodinger's cat theory. ...

English: Diagram of Schrodinger’s cat theory. Roughly based on Image:Schroedingerscat3.jpg (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The ‘Schrodinger’s Cat’ theoretical experiment puts a cat in a box in which it will either live, or die. The science bit of it says that while inside the box the cat is simultaneously both alive and dead. It’s only once it’s outside of the bag that it is one or the other. Interesting thought.

Let’s just grab a couple of Bible verses to drag some Truth into this:

the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face (Exodus 33:11)

[God] said, ‘you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.’ (Exodus 33:20)

If these were two different, fallible accounts of the same conversation you could quite easily conclude that one of them was simply wrong, but look at the references – these are only a paragraph or two apart!

The conclusion we must draw is that both accounts must be true, not only theoretically, but in reality; the author would have to properly be thinking of something else to make that daft a mistake.

God’s so incredible and beyond our puny fallen understanding that it’s perfectly possible for both to be totally true about him. In fact, God being God, you’d expect something like this to come up – it’s more a surprise that we can understand anything about God at all!

And this sort of thing happens in the Bible all the time. Is God fully in control, or do humans have free will? Well, both are fully true. We’ll not understand quite a lot of God until we arrive home but until then we can be joyful in the ‘sure and steadfast anchor of the soul’! (Hebrews 6:19)