Discerning Reader Blog

Hampton Writes History

Mark Tubbs — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 06:11:13 +0000

We here at DR don't tend to tip our hands as to the books we are reading before we post reviews of them, but I can't help but crow about the 2008 Oxford University Press release Anti-Arminians: The Anglican Reformed Tradition from Charles II to George I by the Rev. Dr. Stephen Hampton, Dean of Peterhouse in Cambridge. I mention this book not to take a swipe at Arminians (my boss is an Arminian!) but to alert you to an excellent history text and to direct you to the only vendor who sells it for less than $240 (that I can locate). Happy history reading!

Some Notable 2010 Releases

Mark Tubbs — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 04:36:11 +0000

Oh, but it's been a long time since I wrote a blog. Then again, I had an eventful 2009. Losing a teaching position in late June and taking a Bible college registrar position in mid-August was one highlight, as was another bout of pneumonia from August onwards, culminating in a nine-day hospital stay in late December.

But enough about me; let's talk about books. Recently on his Hard Words blog, Aaron Armstrong listed a few books he is looking forward to in 2010. He listed six promising titles, all of which appear to have substantial merit. In due course I will update our Upcoming Releases section, but in the meantime, here are some notable releases, in my humble book-loving opinion.

Disclaimer: Since I'm intending to tackle some thick, important books in 2010, I don't expect to get around to all these titles, but I do intend to try. Additionally, a couple of my preferred publishers don't list upcoming releases, so the list is bound to be incomplete. Here goes:

Christian Nonfiction

Christ Formed in You by Brian Hedges with Kevin Meath (Shepherd Press). If you act quickly, you can still pre-order this book for only $7.50. Anything that Kevin Meath has had his editing hands on turns out well.

Giving Church Another Chance by Todd Hunter (IVP). Hunter, a Vineyardite house church planter turned Anglican Mission bishop, is re-issuing his book about rediscovering the beauty of the gathered church.

Holy Subversion by Trevin Wax (Crossway). My book reviewing colleague releases his first book this year, and if his blog is any indication, the book is going to be a good one.

The Church and the Surprising Offense of God's Love by Jonathan Leeman (Crossway). Despite all Paul's clear injunctions to practice church discipline, and the indications that a church that practices true church discipline will be a healthy church, it is still a rare practice.

What Did You Expect? by Paul David Tripp (Crossway). This is a book on marriage by one of my favourite authors. 'Nuff said.

Grounded in the Gospel by J.I. Packer and Gary Parrett (Baker). Its subtitle, Building Believers the Old-Fashioned Way, refers to the long-neglected discipleship mode of catechizing new believers.

Interpreting Gospel Narratives by Timothy Wiarda (B&H). The English teacher in me loves the subject matter, while the book lover in me loves the cover. Anything that helps us Christians read the Bible more accurately and more passionately is a very good thing.

The Epistles of John: From Behind the Veil by Peter Leithart (Athanasius Press). To be honest, this book released in late 2009. But since AP isn't a mainstream publisher, and since anything by Peter Leithart is worth reading, I'm unilaterally including it in this list.

After You Believe by N.T. Wright (HarperOne). I'm planning to read the much-embattled bishop for the first time this year, so I might as well add this one to the mix. Trevin Wax convinced me.

Opening Up Acts by John-Michael Wong (Day One). I find Day One's "Opening Up" guides to be clear, concise, charitable, insightful, and theologically orthodox - a difficult balance, especially in the space of only 100+ pages. I thoroughly enjoyed Opening Up 1 Corinthians, and I don't expect Opening Up Acts to be any different.

(Mostly) Christian Fiction

Between Two Kingdoms by Joe Boyd (Standard Publishing). Besides the entrancing cover art - yes, I do judge books this way - this allegory by a seasoned screenwriter seems to be the kind of mythological work that C.S. Lewis would have appreciated.

Rooms: A Novel by James Rubart (B&H). Tricia Goyer, another novelist, mentioned this book on Twitter and it has remained on my Amazon wish list ever since.

blueyedboy by Joanne Harris (Harper Perennial). It's a dark, bizarre tale. No darker or bizarre than life, really - or the Internet, for that matter, but consider yourself warned.

Back on Murder by J. Mark Bertrand (Bethany House). I'm no longer a mystery fan of any report, but J. Mark's first nonfiction book, Rethinking Worldview, was stellar, and I'll read this new book on the strength of his prosody alone.

The Sword: A Novel by Bryan Litfin (Crossway). Spins a story around the question, "What if humankind had never seen a Bible, and then one was found?"

"Sacred Friendships" Blog Tour stops at DR

Mark Tubbs — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 18:00:22 +0000

Dr. Bob Kellemen of RPM Ministries has become a good friend and I am happy to have him make a whistle stop here at DR to promote his new book Sacred Friendships, co-authored with Susan Ellis of EternalCommunity.org. Having read portions of the book - but I highly recommend you read the whole thing, as I plan to - I posed Bob some questions.

Q: You explain your book’s approach as “a historical way of viewing and thinking about spiritual friendship, pastoral care, and professional Christian counseling. It is the map we will use to organize systematically what Christian women have done as they provide Christian care giving.” (p. 13) Why might the narrative approach of this book function more effectively than the proposition-based books on female Christian living that saturate Christian bookstore shelves?

A: That’s a fascinating question. For one thing, I think most proposition-based books on female Christian living have an “agenda.” That is, they tend either to come from a “feminist” agenda, or they tend to focus on “putting women back in their place.” Susan and I worked hard to avoid either extreme, as Dr. Timothy George noted in his gracious recommendation of the book. When you use historical narrative, you let historical truth speak for itself—or at least you should.

Plus, we are “story-people.” God created us to live within His narrative of grace and redemption. Over 75% of the Bible is narrative. We have the false idea that some how proposition gives truth but narrative doesn’t.

The narratives in Sacred Friendships teach truth for life through real life. A mother with an unbelieving husband who is trying to mentor her son can learn from Monica’s relationship with Augustine. A wife trying to honor her husband, stay within her God-designed roles, and minister using her gifts can learn from Susannah Wesley. And on and on it goes. These fifty-plus remarkable women teach us—women and men—about life and ministry.

Additionally, a lot of the books on female Christian living that saturate the shelves are, to me, a tad shallow and faddish. Too often they try to Christianize the current secular view of women. Sacred Friendships offers the depth of almost 2,000 years of over fifty women who refused to be conformed to this world and instead were transformed by the renewing of their minds and, in turn, transformed their world for Christ.

Q: You mentioned (in Author Q & A # 6) that the historic voices of women have been silenced in church history due in large part because the writers of church history have been men. Do you believe it is possible for a church or denomination or movement to have a healthy, biblical view of women’s roles in the church even if women’s stories have been lost, or is it absolutely vital that we recover the stories?

A: I also note that women’s voices have been silenced because of male sinfulness that we can trace all the way back to Genesis 3 and Adam blaming Eve, and through the “texts of terror” sprinkled throughout Genesis. I add this thought because it is vital that we understand that a primary result of the Fall relates to how men sin against women by failing to honor women as equal bearers of God’s image. So minimizing the historical role of women is but a symptom of the larger sin of dishonoring women.

Since God created us in His image—male and female He created them and gave them dominion (Genesis 1:26-28)—any approach to life that excludes, minimizes, or dishonors half of the Body of Christ—women, is, theologically and practically speaking, going to be less than fully biblical.

That said, I’m not saying that rediscovering the historical role of women is the solution to this larger biblical issue. But I am saying it is part of the process. Perhaps I would summarize it this way: for a church or denomination to have a healthy, biblical view of women’s roles in the church, one absolutely vital step is the recovery of the buried treasure of women’s roles in church history.

Q: What is the “big idea” in the chapter on the women of the Reformation? What one major thing did the women of the Reformation recover regarding true Christian feminine spirituality?

A: The “big idea” that unites all the stories of women of the Reformation is their commitment to Christ and His Word. For instance, Argula von Grumbach, while thought of as a follower of Luther, declined that label claiming instead to be a follower of Christ. As she put it, “And even if it came to pass—which God forbid—that Luther were to revoke his views,that would not worry me, I do not build on his, mine, or any person’s understanding, but on the true Rock, Christ himself, which the builders have rejected.”

The major truth that women of the Reformation recovered regarding true Christian feminine spirituality was the same truth recovered by male Reformers: the priesthood of all believers. But of course, these women insistently and consistently applied that truth to all believers, not just to all male believers. They refused to bury their talents, their gifts, and their calling because of their gender. While primarily staying within the prescribed “roles” of the day, they believed they had the right, the responsibility, and the ability to come to the Bible directly and to minister the truth in love.

Q: The characteristic of humility weaves through virtually all of the women you have written about in this book. What kind of model does this provide for women in denominations who have opened up even bishop’s seats to women? What of denominations in which women are not permitted to speak or hold offices in churches?

A: I want to do my best to answer your question not through “my eyes,” but through the eyes of the fifty-plus women of Sacred Friendships. How would they respond collectively?

I don’t sense that any of the women of Sacred Friendships fought for “position” or “title.” However, they did humbly insist upon using their gifts for God’s glory. They did refuse to bury their gifts.

In the context of Sacred Friendships, we highlighted their relational gifts of sustaining, healing, reconciling, and guiding men and women. No one could stop these godly women from the one another ministry that communicates, “it’s normal to hurt,” “it’s possible to hope,” “it’s horrible to sin but wonderful to be forgiven,” and “it’s supernatural to mature.”

So, while Nonna did not have a “position” or “title,” she did not seem to “care.” Instead, her son Gregory said of her that she taught her husband how to be a shepherd and a bishop!

Even the Roman authorities could not stop Perpetua from ministering sustaining care, healing hope, reconciling confrontation, and guiding wisdom. They tried to silence her by martyrdom, but to the very end her life spoke.

What model do these women teach? God is less interested in position and title—those are concepts of the world. God is interested in relational ministry, and no one can prevent us from offering one another ministry. It seems to me that that’s just as important for men to realize as for women.

Q: Would Sacred Friendships compliment your core textbook Soul Physicians in a classroom or church seminar setting? If so, how would you recommend they be employed together?

A: Actually, that’s exactly what I do when I present my church seminars and para-church in-services on How to Care Like Christ (http://bit.ly/o7TxX). I use Sacred Friendships, Beyond the Suffering, and my dissertation on Martin Luther’s pastoral counseling to illustrate the truths in Soul Physicians and Spiritual Friends.

It’s rewarding because I say that true biblical counseling must be Christ-centered, comprehensive, compassionate, and culturally-informed. So then I am able to illustrate how to think like Christ and how to care like Christ using women in Church history (Sacred Friendships), African American Church history (Beyond the Suffering), and Reformation Church history (Luther).

Another reason Sacred Friendships can easily be used in training pastoral, lay, and professional counselors in conjunction with Soul Physicians, is that they both have a built in discussion/study guide. And both guides aim at life implications and ministry application.

Q: You authored another book giving vote and voice to the silenced and voiceless: Beyond the Suffering. Could this book and your newest one work in tandem in classrooms and churches?

A: They certainly were written “in tandem” in that Sacred Friendships values and validates the ministry of women in soul care while Beyond the Suffering validates the ministry of our African American brothers and sisters in soul care. I think any church that wants a biblical multi-cultural approach to one another ministry could benefit from each book, especially with the built-in discussion guides that help in the equipping process.

Part of what is unique about both books for classroom use is that they are not simply history books; they are not simply counseling books; and they are not simply multi-cultural and/or women’s studies books. They blend all those components in one. So college, seminary, and graduate school classes in counseling, church history, women’s studies, multi-cultural ministry, soul care, spiritual direction, etc., can all benefit from these two works.

You can order Bob's books at his ministry website here.

"Soul Physicians" chapter-by-chapter treatment

Mark Tubbs — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 20:20:09 +0000

Pastor Mark Kelly at Grace Dependent only started blogging in January of this year, but his informative, prolific blog has already made a splash in the Christian blogosphere. Kelly usually focuses on summary book reviews, but recently began to blog through Bob Kellemen's Soul Physicians on a chapter-by-chapter basis. Doc K is one of DR's reliable, discerning reviewers, so we are happy to point you to a blog that is giving Doc's book some much-deserved exposure. At Doc's web site you can bundle two or more of his books and save some money.

Quick links for the current five installments: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5.

BlogThru: The New Testament in Antiquity, Part 1

Mark Tubbs — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 18:31:12 +0000

Earlier this year, publicist Emily P. Varner of AcademicPS kindly sent me an unexpected package from Zondervan containing one of their newest textbooks: The New Testament in Antiquity, edited by Wheaton College professors Gary M. Burge, Lynn H. Cohick, and Gene L. Green. While I would have loved to read it straight through, time has militated against that desire. I have had to approach it in chunks, which on reflection seems to be a handy approach.

Instead of summarizing the volume in one fell swoop, I thought that instigating a new BlogThru series – with the recognition that I have not yet completed the Future Grace and Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood series – could be the best way forward.

The textbook’s subtitle specifies its task: “A survey of the New Testament within its cultural contexts.” Its first four chapters set the stage for the rest of the book, laying out a broad panorama over which the more specialized subsequent chapters can be teased out in greater detail.

1. Studying the New Testament
2. The Historical Setting of the New Testament
3. The World of Jesus in His Jewish Homeland
4. The Mediterranean World of the Apostle Paul

Emanating from the pens of Wheaton College professors, you would expect this textbook to treat the historical reliability of Scripture as seriously as possible, and you would be correct. As the authors explain in their preface, this volume is “responsive to the confessional commitments of the evangelical tradition. Too often academic treatments of the New Testament view faith commitments as passé.” Not so here. The deeper you read into the book, the more devotional it becomes.

If you are like me, and you have been craving a deeper look into the world and culture Jesus inhabited two thousand years ago, The New Testament in Antiquity is the book for you.

100 Recommended Books

Tim Challies — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 16:52:52 +0000

Colin Adams has provided an excellent list of 100 Recommended Books. The suggestions run from books to unbelievers, to books for new believers to classics and apologetics and just about everything else. Give it a look!

Just Jess (MacCallum, that is) on FamilyLife Radio

Mark Tubbs — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 03:41:09 +0000

A year and a half ago I reviewed a small book with a snappy cover entitled I Married Wonder Woman...Now What? It was a 99% awesome book, as I described in my review. To date I have recommended it to many folks, and was excited to hear that Jess MacCallum, the author, was to appear on FamilyLife Radio. So excited, in fact, that I forgot to mention it here on the DR blog when it was scheduled. The good news is, it's still available.

Jess is really one of the nicest guys you'll ever converse with over email, and his wife Anne - as you'll find out in the book - is one of the most gifted gals you'll ever hear sing.

Do Jess a favor and click on over to his FamilyLife Radio interview to hear how he values, respects, and appreciates his wife. One of the reviewers on that site says it's the best series he/she has ever heard on the topic of marriage.

And if you have any questions...ask Jess himself.

UPDATE: Amazon is currently scheduling the book to ship within 1 to 2 months. That's a long time, so you might want to buy it direct from the fine folks at Standard Publishing.

The Jesus You Can't Ignore

Tim Challies — Thu, 28 May 2009 20:27:02 +0000

It has been a little while since we've seen a new (and original) book from John MacArthur. There has been a recent volume edited by him and some reprints of his older material, but it has been some time since we've seen a major, new work. The wait ends in July of this year with the release of The Jesus You Can't Ignore: What You Must Learn from the Bold Confrontations of Christ.

Here is the publisher's description:

Meek and mild. Politically correct. A great teacher. These are the popular depictions of Jesus. But they aren't the complete picture. Maybe because it's uncomfortable, or maybe because it's inconvenient, Christians and non-Christians alike are overlooking the fierceness of the Savior, His passionate mission to make the Gospel clear and bring people into the Kingdom of God. A mission that required he sometimes raise his voice and sometimes raise a whip.

In the much-needed message in The Jesus You Can't Ignore, renowned Bible teacher and best-selling author John MacArthur reintroduces the compelling and often unsettling passion of Jesus' ministry. MacArthur points to the picture of the real Jesus the world is so eager to gloss over. And he calls readers to emulate Jesus' commitment to further the kingdom by confronting lies and protecting the truth of God.

You may also want to keep an eye out for The Divorce Dilemma: God's Last Word on Lasting Commitment, published by DayOne Publications.

So you find yourself at one of life's most important crossroads with an extremely difficult decision to make. Whether you're married and considering divorce, single and considering marriage, or divorced and considering remarriage, you're battling tough questions: Am I doing what's best? Am I doing what's right? Maybe you think no one knows exactly how you feel--no one understands the pressures shaping your decision. If that's the case, you'll be relieved to know you are wrong. God's Word offers the most comprehensive guide to answering those questions. In The Divorce Dilemma, John MacArthur looks directly to the Bible to dig out the solutions and advice you need. This book can help to strengthen good marriages and heal troubled ones, and offer wisdom for singles and divorced people considering marriage.

The Divorce Dilemma is available now.

The Prayer of the Lord

Tim Challies — Thu, 28 May 2009 14:44:14 +0000

The latest book by R.C. Sproul is now available from Reformation Trust. The Prayer of the Lord looks to the Lord's Prayer as a model prayer for all Christians. Sproul finds in this prayer principles that can aid all Christians as they seek to join our Lord in constant, heart-felt prayer.

Here is the publisher's description:

What is the Lord’s Prayer? In The Prayer of the Lord, Dr. R. C. Sproul writes, “Jesus’ intent was to give His disciples a model prayer, an example to follow, one that would teach them transferrable principles for conversation with God.” In short, Christ gave the Lord’s Prayer to teach His disciples about prayer, and Dr. Sproul, in his trademark fashion, brings out many of the truths Christ intended for His followers to learn. Readers will learn how not to pray, then will be led into a deeper understanding of such topics as the fatherhood of God, the kingdom of God, the will of God, the nature of sin and forgiveness, the dangers of temptation, and the cunning of Satan. The final chapter includes questions and answers on various aspects of prayer not covered elsewhere in the book, and the appendix addresses the difficult question of the relationship of God’s sovereignty and prayer. The Prayer of the Lord is an eye-opening journey, one that reveals new vistas in familiar terrain.

The book is currently available through Reformation Trust and, in the near future, will be available through all your favorite online booksellers.

Old DR Review of "Outrageous Mercy" by William Farley

Mark Tubbs — Tue, 26 May 2009 16:16:16 +0000

Today Tim Challies posted his recent review of Bill Farley's excellent book Outrageous Mercy, kindly reprinted by P&R Publishing. I thought I would post my original review here on the blog. You can read Tim's new review here or here.

Recommended: Using the Bible and life experience, Farley shows why a lifelong focus on the cross is indispensable for the Christian life.

Review:

It’s the cross, stupid.

No, William Farley would never be so blunt or tactless. But that phrase, or a variation of it, was my personal epiphany the day I came to the same conclusion as Farley concerning what constituted the essence of Christianity – the crux of Christianity, if you will. In the course of a five-year journey exploring the various facets of Christianity and not finding ‘the main thing’ (C.J. Mahaney’s phrase) in any of them, I finally stumbled across the cross of Christ. Now I know it was all of grace and the sovereignty of God, but learning all of that was still in the offing.

Although it claims to be a report of Farley’s journey to cross-centeredness, Outrageous Mercy does not operate as a chronological narrative. But neither is it “a perfectly balanced theological treatise.” Rather, it is far more concerned with being an expositional examination of “some of the key messages spoken to us through Jesus’ death.” Implicitly, Farley challenges the dangerous assumption of most contemporary evangelicals that the cross is simply a way station on the road to deeper spiritual experiences. No, no, no, Farley says in every chapter: it is the key to understanding everything about the Christian life. Picking up where his first book For His Glory left off, in Outrageous Mercy Farley telescopes in on the meaning of the cross in greater detail than in the central chapters of For His Glory. Throughout Outrageous Mercy Farley makes consistent but unobtrusive references to incidents from his own life, which serve to remind the reader that this book is the fruit of a personal journey into the heart of a personal God.

I can best do justice to this book by outlining the emphases of the various chapters and providing salient quotes from each, many of which provoked my spirit in outward worship of our great Redeemer, sometimes with tears.

Chapter 1 is entitled “The Centrality of the Cross” – self-explanatory, no? Not so much, contends Farley: “What the heart is to the body, the cross is to our faith. What the foundation is to a building, the cross is to Christian thought and practice. Lay this doctrine crooked, and our faith will be a Leaning Tower of Pisa.” While most Christians understand the cross to be the Church’s central message, Farley appends no less than three other functions of the cross: our teacher, as “a window through which we learn everything we need to know about God, humanity…and a host of other issues;” our source of power, without which the Church will never experience revival; and the stimulus to behave Christianly in all of life.

Chapter 2, “Foundations,” describes how Christianity differs from every other religion in its central focus. The cross will divide, its historicity will be questioned, and both its mode and message will offend. As in the first chapter, Farley warns against the menace of cross apathy: “We can put the cross on the back shelf and still be Christians, but the slide [of Christianity’s transformative power in society and in individuals] will continue. The children of those who accept a Christianity centered in something other than the cross won’t put the cross on the back shelf; they will put Christianity on the back shelf. And the next generation might even forget about the faith altogether.” This is clarion call to cross-centeredness if I’ve ever heard one.

In Chapter 3, “God 101,” Farley zooms out the telescope slightly in order to set up God’s attributes of justice, wrath, mercy and love (among others) as a backcloth to the finished work of Christ: “The cross synthesizes the wrath of God and the love of God. It satisfies both without compromising either. At the cross, the fear of God and the comfort of the Holy Spirit shake hands, the mercy of God and the justice of God become friends. It is God’s great harmonizer.” This chapter rounds out with a nutshell explanation of God’s passion for law and zeal for grace, a point of tension even mature Christians struggle with.

Chapter 4, “The Worst of Sinners,” sets out an accurate portrayal of the human condition: we are each of us the worst of sinners in light of God’s holiness. The cross reveals the infinite punishment Christ had to bear as a result of our infinite sins, both personal and corporate. Farley goes deeper than a restatement of the Pauline presentation of our sinful condition of God, however. Addressing contemporary culture, he asserts “We cannot see ourselves aright when humanity is our only point of reference. We must see ourselves through God’s eyes, comparing ourselves to the holy whiteness of his moral purity. No one who has seen himself or herself in God’s light can remain arrogant.”

“For God’s Glory,” Chapter 5, is highly reminiscent of the arguments expounded in Farley’s first book, that of the necessity for Christians to be devotedly God-centered. These arguments, mainly derived from the works of Jonathan Edwards, propose that God’s primary intent to glorify himself is the motivation of all of his past, present and future actions, including (and especially) the cross of Christ.

Chapter 6, vividly entitled “Crucified Flesh,” expands upon the Edwardsian teachings of Chapter 5 by way of Edwards’ most prominent contemporary admirer, John Piper. Here Farley explains God’s hatred of sin and the appropriate Christian response to sin, fleeing it and crucifying it. But unlike so many books on the ‘seven steps to stopping sin,’ Farley highlights desire rather than duty as the motivation to turn away from sin. Neither does he instruct the individual Christian to go it alone in mortifying sin: “Cross-centered counseling helps people in their problems. Show the guilty God’s unlimited forgiveness. Show the discouraged Christ’s unearnable, unchanging, never-quenchable love. Show the unrepentant God’s hatred of sin. Sanctification begins and ends at the cross. Counselors who want to see lives change feed their counselees Christ crucified.”

The most intriguing chapter in this book is “God’s Spiritual Boot Camp,” an outline sketch for cross-centered spiritual warfare. Most Christians’ ideas of spiritual warfare involve crucifixes, holy water, contorted bodies and exhausted clergyman, and Farley does not leave these elements out completely, but they are not the focus of spiritual warfare as he sees it. He describes how “we fight on two battlefields. The first is inward – in our own soul – and the second is the outside world. God wants us to use these three weapons [of faith, hope and love] inwardly and outwardly – plundering both realms for Christ and his kingdom.” Farley also proposes a fresh but orthodox understanding of the crucifixion; that of Jesus’ experience on the cross as worship – more on this later.

In Chapter 8 Farley purposes that he will boast no more (hence the title “I Will Boast No More”) in anything except for Christ crucified. He rightly recognizes that nothing in and of himself can save himself: “Since God is perfectly just, and punishment for sin (hell) is infinite, the offense must be infinite. Therefore, apart from Christ’s cross I am in serious trouble. I face a problem of infinite proportions with personal resources that are a best miniscule. Those who rely upon self in the face of this problem will be utterly ruined.”

Chapter 9, “The Foolishness of God’s Wisdom,” narrates Farley’s progressive journey into a deeper understanding of God’s wisdom. Putting the pieces together from various biblical references to wisdom, Farley teaches the cross-centered application of biblical wisdom in Bible reading and everyday life. “The power of God inhabits the proclamation of God’s wisdom because the proclamation of God’s wisdom is always the proclamation of the cross.” I admit the rhetoric is lofty, but the significance is crucial to grasp.

Chapter 10 paints Jesus Christ as “The Supreme Sufferer in the Universe.” This chapter contains the only statement where I would possibly part company with Bill Farley, if he hasn’t refined his position in the intervening years since publication. Farley says, in essence, that although God both allows evil and uses it, that he does not cause it. I would tend to take John Piper’s side in this matter, as defended in an article entitled “Why I Do Not Say, “God Did Not Cause the Calamity , but He Can Use It for Good.” At the same time, Chapter 10 also contained a quote that almost overcame me with its truth and beauty while I was reading it on a bench in our local mall: “Suffering for enemies speaks louder than suffering for friends. God would be no less loving had he died for good people, but when he went to the cross for the wicked, for his enemies, for those deserving wrath not love, his goodness erupted with infinite beauty. The sinfulness and unworthiness of those for whom he died revealed the depth of his awesome love….Our sin does not make the love of God greater. Nothing can be added to it or taken from it. It is perfect and always will be. However, humanity’s sin enhances our power to discern a love that would otherwise be hidden from us.” Amen.

Simply put, Chapter 11, “The Heart of Worship,” is the text that every single pastor, worship leader and interested layperson needed to read at the outset of the worship wars in the 1980s. An anachronistic wish, I know. The contents of this chapter root us in the cross as the primary focus point for the worship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is the essence of worship in spirit and truth, which Christ exemplified in the midst of infinite suffering on the cross, there realizing the pinnacle of such God-centered worship.

As you near the end of this review, please don’t make the mistake of thinking this review has let the good bits of the book out of the hat. The above is only the tip of the iceberg, which hopefully only whets your appetite for this book. I highly commend Outrageous Mercy, available from Monergism Books or through Bill Farley himself, and hope you enjoy the ride.