Rebecca Writes

Defending Truth and Treasuring Christ in the Lives of Athanasius, John Owen, and J. Gresham Machen by John Piper.

This is another in John Piper’s The Swans Are Not Silent book series. Like the others, it consists of biographical sketches of three historical christian leaders and discussion of lessons the reader can learn from lives of each one. The men whose life stories are featured in this volume are Athanasius, John Owen, and J. Gresham Machen, who each defended truth in the Christian controversies of their day.

The introduction of Contending for Our All is a defense of those who fight for “the truth and meaning of the gospel” when the truth of the gospel is at stake. The reason this defense must be made is that

[i]n every age there is a kind of person who tries to minimize the importance of truth-defining and truth-defending controversy by saying that prayer, worship, evangelism, missions, and dependence on the Holy Spirit are more important….

Click to read more ...

Here are all my Amazon book reviews.

If you found a review helpful here on the blog, consider giving it a helpful vote on Amazon.

With an Annotated Bibliography of Reformed Doctrinal Works, edited by Joel R. Beeke and Sinclair B. Ferguson.

I often use this handy-dandy reference work when putting the Theological Term of the Week posts together, and I know there are some of you reading here who would find this as fun and useful as I do. Included are seven historic reformed confessions—the Belgic Confession of Faith (1561), the Heidelberg Catechism (1563), and the Canons of Dort (1618-19), the Second Helvetic Confession (1566), the Westminster Confession of Faith (1646-47) and the Larger and Shorter Westminster Catechisms (1647)—side by side in seven column format, arranged by subject matter. So when I want a historic quote on a particular theological term, I just find the topic in this book and pick a confession to quote.

Click to read more ...

How Knowing God Makes a Difference in Our Daily Lives by Wendy Horger Alsup

Sometimes Practical Theology for Women uses a question and answer format, so it seemed appropriate to review it using questions and answers. And I’m guessing that when you read the title and subtitle, you had some of the same questions I did, starting with this one:

Who is Wendy Alsup?
Wendy Alsup, says the blurb,

enjoys teaching theology to women. Alsup resides in Seattle with her husband, Andy, and two young children.

She is also involved in teaching theology to women at Mars Hill Church, and this book is one of Mars Hill’s Re:Lit publications.

Still want to know more? Here’s an interview with Wendy Alsup at Pure Church, the blog of Thabiti Anyabwile. Best of all, you can read her very own blog called—what else?—Practical Theology for Women.

Click to read more ...

by Thabiti Anyabwile (Thu-BEE-tee On-ya-bwee-LAY-hee)

What Is a Healthy Church Member? is patterned after the book What is a Healthy Church? by Mark Dever, and is the third book in the IXMark series. It gives us “one proposal for becoming a healthier member of your local church.”

The ten chapters in this little book (and it is little) are based around ten marks of a healthy church member. Each chapter ends with a few questions for deeper thinking on the topic of the chapter, and many chapters also include a short list of books for more reading on the topic. It’s all biblically grounded, theologically sound, and most of all, practical.

Here are the 10 marks of a healthy church member, otherwise known as the ten chapter titles:

• A Healthy Church Member Is an Expositional Listener
• A Healthy Church Member Is a Biblical Theologian
• A Healthy Church Member Is Gospel Saturated
• A Healthy Church Member Is Genuinely Converted
• A Healthy Church Member Is a Biblical Evangelist
• A Healthy Church Member Is a Committed Member
• A Healthy Church Member Seeks Discipline
• A Healthy Church Member Is a Growing Disciple
• A Healthy Church Member is a Humble Follower
• A Healthy Church Member Is a Prayer Warrior

There’s nothing earth shaking here, but that doesn’t mean this isn’t an exceptionally useful book. I’d call it a church member’s user manual, but that would make it seem too much like a to-do list and it is not that. It does have suggestions that the reader is encouraged to practice because they desire to become a healthy church member, but in the end, Thabiti Anyabwile brings us back to the gospel of Christ Jesus as the foundation for everything and the gracious work of the Spirit as the means by which these 10 marks are accomplished.

What Is a Healthy Church Member? would be well-suited for use in a new member’s class or other group study as well as for individual reading and study. Check out the online excerpt of this book at Crossway.com.

by John Piper.

This book is right up my alley. Back in my early blogging days I did a series of posts on the reasons for Christ’s death given to us in scripture. In a final summary post, I wrote this:

We have looked at only the explicit purpose statements [for Christ’s death] …. Any result of Christ’s death listed in scripture, however, is also an intended purpose of Christ’s death, and an important purpose of Christ’s death. God has the power and wisdom to do things so that only exactly what He wishes is accomplished—so that there are no unintended or tertiary results from anything God does.

What John Piper has done in this book is do all the extra work that I didn’t do when I looked at the purposes of Christ’s death. He’s taken fifty of the results of Christ’s death and listed them for us as fifty reasons why Jesus came to die. 

Each of the fifty reasons is allotted two pages of text. First, supporting scripture is given and then there are several paragraphs of explanation. This makes the book especially suited for devotional reading, two or three reasons at a time. Anything more than that might be too much, as there is so much reflect on in each little section.

You’d think by now I’d know all there is to know about the purposes of Christ’s death, but there were several in this book I’d never thought about before. For instance, one of the reasons Piper gives for Jesus coming to die is “to give marriage its deepest meaning.” This is, of course, based in Ephesians 5. Our marriages were designed to picture Christ’s relationship with his people, and Christ’s suffering shows husbands (especially) how they should love their wives. And if Christ’s death is an example of how we ought to love our spouses, then that’s an important part of God’s design for it. 

I’d call Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die an introductory level book—there’s nothing difficult in it—and yet I’d say almost everyone will learn a thing of two from it. And who among us doesn’t need a reminder of the infinite wisdom of God in the cross of Christ? 

Here are several ways this book could be used:

• It would make—dare I say it?—an excellent bathroom reader.

• I’m going to use it as a universal gift book. There’s nothing intimidating about it, the sections are short, and the information invaluable. Everyone needs to know what’s in this book. I plan to order a few extra copies to have on hand whenever I need one to give away. And, believe it or not, Monergism Books has it for only $5.99. (They also give you a full list of the fifty reasons right there on the page you get if you click on that link.)

• I recommend it for tucking in your purse to read while you’re waiting in the supermarket check-out lines (or anywhere else for that matter.) That’s how I read much of my copy. It sure beats the gossip magazines that I’ve been known to read while I wait.*

• It would be a very appropriate book to give to anyone who asks you about the meaning of the cross, something that I’ve had happen to me a couple of time so far this year. I gave a short answer—that’s all I could do in an everyday conversation—but the whole multi-faceted answer is so much more glorious, and I wish I’d been able to say, “Here’s a book you can have that explains it in much more depth.”
  

• It would be suitable for a small group to use for study. 

Celebrating the Glory of the Atonement, by J. I. Packer and Mark Dever.

The publication of this book resulted from the collective reasoning of Ligon Duncan, Al Mohler, Mark Dever and C.J. Mahaney,  who all agreed that it would be useful to have three classic essays on the atonement by J.I. Packer included in one book. These three pieces—The Heart of the Gospel, a chapter from the classic book Knowing God; What Did the Cross Achieve?: The Logic of Penal Substitution, originally a Tyndale Biblical Theology Lecture; and Saved by His Precious Blood,  the well-known introduction to John Owen’s The Death of Death in the Death of Christ—along with Mark Dever’s article, Nothing but the Blood, first published in Christianity Today, make up the heart of In My Place Condemned He Stood.

Since this book is a collection of essays, I’ve decided to go through it chapter by chapter, giving a short summary of each and, when I think it’d be useful, my evaluation of it.

Living the Ten Commandments and Giving Them To Our Children by Jani Ortlund.

Jani Ortlund has written this book with mothers who are raising children in mind. Her purpose is to help women learn to delight in God through his law and to help them pass on that love for God  to their children.

What do you think about the Ten Commandments? Many of us, I’d say, tend to think of them in either of two ways, both of them wrong. We think of them as a list of very demanding rules that we need to keep in order to become righteous, or we think of them as a list of very demanding rules that no longer, since we are new covenant people, have any relevance for us.

Jani Ortlund argues that God’s law has three purposes for us today. First, it leads us to the Saviour because it shows us our sin. Second, the law helps us understand who God is. And third, the law is a guide to those who are being saved through Christ, because it shows what living the like-Christ life looks like.

His Loving Law has an introduction, a conclusion, and ten chapters, each chapter examining one of the Ten Commandments. The chapters end with two sections of study questions and activities. One section is for the woman herself, to help her consider how she might live out each specific commandment, and the other contains suggested questions and activities for children to help mothers give each commandment to their children.

In the chapter on the sixth commandment, for instance, we learn that the command “You shall not murder” prohibits us from taking human life, but also includes positive expectations of us along with that prohibition. At its core, it’s a call to value and protect human life, or using Jani Ortlund’s words, “we obey this command by being life giving to others, rather than life depleting.” We must “cherish and honor and care and protect this life we have received from God…”  And of course, those who are truly obeying this commandment will show this honor for human life by their words and actions. The study section for adults asks, among other things, what “it means to be made in the image of God.” In the second study section, one activity for children given is reading Romans 13:8, which says “love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law,” and writing down a concrete plan for giving “life-giving love” to someone who needs it.

Let me let you in on a little secret: It’s only in the last few years that I’ve begun to understand how much is rolled up in the summary words of each commandment. I’ll admit that I haven’t paid as much attention to the Ten Commandments as I should. That’s why I’m enjoying the part of the Westminster Larger Catechism that I’ve been posting lately, even though there are parts there I’m not sure I agree with. That’s why I enjoyed this book, too, even though I’m not teaching young children anymore.

If you are the mother of children younger than mine (or if you teach children), I’ve going to doubly recommend this book to you. You’ll probably learn from it, like I did, but you’ll also learn, from someone who’s raised four children, practical ways to pass your new knowledge and love for the law to your children. As I read it, I kept thinking that it would make an excellent book for a group of young mothers to study together. And I couldn’t stop wishing there were more books like this one, books that are both theological and practical, geared to mothers who want to teach their children.

I’ve listened to quite a few of D. A. Carson’s sermons and lectures (Okay, I’ll be honest. I’ve heard every single one I can download for free.), so I already knew some of his stories about his family and upbringing. I already knew that there were at least a few parallels between my own upbringing and his. My dad, for instance, was a small church pastor and missionary like Carson’s father, Tom Carson, and some of what I’d heard Don Carson say about his father made me think that he might have been a bit like my dad. My own mother used old adult-sized clothing to create cute clothing pieces for my sister and me, while Margaret Carson, Tom Carson’s wife, remade hand-me-down suits for her husband. And like D. A. Carson, I grew up poor, but unaware how much less we had than most people around us until later.

This is the reason I was hoping I’d be able to read and review Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor, Carson’s new book on the life of his father, who was a missionary pastor in Quebec. I can’t pass up a good biography, anyway, and if there are similarities between the people portrayed and the people I know and love, so much the better.  And this was a good biography. I received my review copy in the mail on Thursday and finished it a couple of nights later because I stayed up reading until 2:30AM on Easter morning.

As it turns out, Tom Carson was different than my own father in many ways. Still, the parallels are notable, making the book all the more engrossing for me. Like my dad, Tom Carson was a faithful, ordinary pastor. His congregations were small; he wrote no books. His circumstances were often difficult, but he kept on serving and loving God, serving and loving his family, and serving and loving God’s people. He was disciplined in his use of time, one thing I’ve decided I need to work at more consistently.

The marketing for Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor seems to be directed primarily to pastors. If you aren’t a pastor, don’t let that keep you from adding this book to the list of books you wish to read. You may be particularly interested in reading about the life of Tom Carson if

by Tim Challies.

Let’s cut right to the chase from the start: This is a very good book.

It’s a good book, first of all, because it’s a needed book. If you’ve been paying attention to what’s going on around you, you’ve probably noticed that there are a whole lot of conflicting ideas out there all claiming to be God’s truth. I don’t know if I can say that there are more varied ideas than there ever were—how would I know?—but I do know that more of them show up on my radar screen than did in the good old days before I had cable TV and internet access, when I managed to live my life mostly oblivious to the constantly changing trends in evangelicalism.

That I am constantly bombarded by different ideas, all demanding that I embrace them in order to be more in tune to the real truth, means that I am constantly called on to make judgments about the correctness of concepts or practices. And I’m betting my experience isn’t much different than the experience of most of us who claim to be Christians. Real life in the real world calls for frequent evaluations as to truth or error, and right or wrong. In other words, every single one of us needs to be discerning in regards to all sorts of things all the time.

There are, of course, people and ministries that attempt to do our discerning for us. But how can we know whether to trust them if we are not capable of making good judgments for ourselves? How do we know they are not throwing out a perfectly sound baby because there’s a speck in the bath water if we’ve never learned to examine the baby and the bath water for ourselves?

Yes, we all need to know how to discern. I’m guessing we all  need to be better at it than we are currently. And now that I’ve convinced you of the necessity of discernment, let me ask you this: What Christian book can you name that has the average believer’s growth in the right practice of discernment as it’s purpose?

I’m listening. Have you come up with one yet?

I didn’t think so. Tim Challies tells us that in his research he found “only a handful of books dealing with the subject, and few of those titles remain in print.” So The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment is good because we need this sort of book.

It’s also good because it’s written in a style that makes it accessible to everyone. You aren’t going to be starting this book and quitting because it’s too difficult for you. In each chapter, Challies tells us where we’re going, takes us there, and then tells us where we’ve been. It’s tightly organized, with no rabbit trails or wasted stops, which helps, I think, to make it easy to understand. No rabbit trails, however, doesn’t mean no examples or illustrations or stories to keep you interested. They are there, and plenty of them, too, but they are the sort examples and illustrations that advance the argument while keeping the reader interested.

Another reason this is a good book is because it stays close to scripture. At it’s heart, The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment is an examination and collation of everything scripture tells us about the practice of discernment. That makes it nearly impossible to argue with the content  found in it.

Last, this book is good because it is, at it’s core, practical. The reader is not only challenged to practice discernment, but is also shown, especially in the last chapter, how to do it. Step-by-step Challies demonstrates to us how to take a teaching and assess it as to it’s importance and validity, and then how to decide the right course of action to take in regards to it. In the end, you won’t be able complain that you don’t have a clue how to go about this discernment thing. You might need practice to get better at it, but you’ll know where to start and how to proceed.

Needed, accessible, careful and practical. Oh, and important. 

You? Read it.

And may our blogger turned author write many more.