New Reviews: a Puritan, a Pastor, and a Professor

...and they're up.

Tim Challies' contribution this week is a 4-in-1 special from Mark Driscoll. Driscoll's church, Mars Hill in Seattle, is heavily composed of new Christians, so Driscoll began to release a series of booklets addressing issues of theology and ecclesiology. On the Old Testament, On the New Testament, On Church Leadership and On Who Is God? are the four titles released by Crossway Books thus far, with more on the way.

Jacob Hantla, a new father, provides two reviews this week.

Peter R. Jones, a presbyterian churchman with a few years on Driscoll, has written many books, The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back: An Old Heresy for the New Age among them. Via Jones, Jacob reminds us that the gnostic heresy has not gone away; it is simply wearing new names.

Jacob also reviews Keeping the Heart by John Flavel, a puritan pastor with centuries on both Jones and Driscoll. One of the easier Puritans to read, Jacob recommends the Soli Deo Gloria edition, which includes a helpful outline of the book for the sake of navigation.

Finally, Happy Fourth of July tomorrow to our American readers. It's a sure bet that we'll be back next week with more reviews, many of whom are bound to be fine American churchmen and women. Please consider it our tip of the hat to the fine nation to the south of Canada.

Tuesdays are for Reviews

The stack of books that Discerning Reader's reviewers have read in the past couple of weeks is so eclectic that I suspect anyone will be able to find suitable summer reading amongst them. We have read theology, Christian living, biography, apologetics, and history books both classic and contemporary. To be specific...

Headlining this batch of reviews (and garnering a reprint on the Reformation Theology website) is James Anderson's masterful review of the venerable Robert Reymond's new apologetics book entitled Faith's Reasons for Believing. Set aside plenty of time if you intend to take on this meaty volume this summer.

Also in the theological vein are reviews of 1) Arthur Pink's classic Seven Sayings of the Saviour on the Cross (please note the Canadian spelling!) summatively reviewed by Tim Challies at the end of his most recent "Reading Classics Together" effort over at Challies Dot Com; 2) my reviews of Vaughan Roberts' excellent little primer on the nature of true Christian worship, suitably entitled True Worship; and 3) Larry Dyer's slim credobaptist manual entitled Baptism: The Believer's First Obedience. We recommend all of the above.

For history and/or biography buffs, one or two or all of the following books may intrigue. From one of many suggested reading lists produced by Al Mohler, Tim read and reviewed the thrilling sunken submarine account Escape from the Deep by Alex Kershaw, and the singular scientific biography The Snake Charmer, which Tim calls a book unlike any other he has ever read. If snakes aren't really up your alley, perhaps Christian philosopher Francis Schaeffer is: Tim has favorably reviewed the newest Schaeffer biography, An Authentic Life by Colin Duriez. Or you might want to attempt a book Tim almost didn't review, but is glad he did: Heaven Without Her: A Desperate Daughter's Search for the Heart of Her Mother's Faith. Just the subtitle is heartrending!

Ladies last, but certainly not least: Leslie Wiggins reviewed Elyse Fitzpatrick's latest book, Because He Loves Me, and heartily recommends it. Beneath its unassuming title lies a potentially life-transforming message, Leslie warns.

Next week we'll be back with some more great summer reading. Now, have at'em!

New Reviews: Almost Too Much To Tell

To make up for last week's silence, today I am reporting on the last two week's worth of reviews.

In honor of the Banner of Truth Minister's Conference, we posted three reviews of Banner books: God's Righteous Kingdom by Walter Chantry, The Doctrine of Repentance, a Puritan Paperback by Thomas Watson, and Sinclair Ferguson's meaty volume on the thought of John Owen in John Owen and the Christian Life. We unhesitatingly recommended all three books.

As promised, Leslie Wiggins supplied the second installment of reviews of Lydia Brownback's new On-The-Go Devotionals from Crossway. She ranks Contentment: A Godly Woman's Adornment just as high as she did the first devotional, Trust.

In the past two weeks, Tim Challies posted five reviews of five disparate books.

23 Minutes in Hell by Bill Wiese is a companion volume for Don Piper's 90 Minutes in Heaven, and presents similar theological problems.

Next Tim reviewed Why Good People Do Bad Things by self-help guru Debbie Ford. He critiques it for many reasons, one of which is Ford's propensity to appeal to herself as highest possible authority.

The Soloist, by journalist Steve Lopez, is a human interest story about the friendship between Lopez and a homeless mental illness sufferer named Nathaniel Ayers, who happens to be a violin prodigy. It will be made into a movie this fall and will star Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr. The book can be gritty - Tim attaches a language advisory to his review.

This week Tim returns to one of his favorite themes - how boys become men, and how they often fail to do so. Boys Adrift by Leonard Sax identifies five factors driving this growing male epidemic.

Also this week, Tim reviews Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell, an autobiographical account of a Navy SEAL's adventure in Afghanistan, and his perspective on the the ways in which the US government and media fail its soldiers.

Finally, I (Mark Tubbs) have submitted two reviews of books that providentially go cheek-by-jowl. I wouldn't recommend you read Unbinding the Gospel, a book encouraging mainline churches to evangelize, without R.C. Sproul's little book Saved From What? at your elbow. In Unbinding the Gospel, author Martha Grace Reese asks the very important question, "From what are we saved?" just two pages from the end of the book, and leaves the answer dangling. Sproul, on the other hand, spends 123 pages providing a conclusive and biblical answer to Reese's question. Both Sproul's book and Reese's book excited and encouraged me for very different reasons.

Enough already - eleven books for you to read about, and at least nine of them worth a read through. We'll be back next week with a few more reviews.

The Son's Day

To what end do we meet on Sundays? To what end do we lift up our hearts and voices in corporate celebration of the triune God? To what end do we separate this day out from the others, declaring by the physical act of gathering together that we celebrate and anticipate God's kingdom come?

Notwithstanding the Apostle's differentiation between those who esteem one day more than the others and those who esteem every day the same (Romans 14:5), Sundays are conventionally the day of the week on which Christ's body comes together as one holy people.

Even as we celebrate, we also commemorate. The point is this: Christ's incarnation does not occur once a year at Christmastime, nor his crucifixion and resurrection once a year at Easter. Christ's incarnation continues.

Every day belongs to God. But Sunday is the Lord's day in a special way. Jesus has owned it uniquely ever since that first Easter when He stepped out of the empty tomb. Think of it. On that morning, for the first time, He had conquered death. He had atoned for our sin. He had made a way for us to come boldly into the presence of the Father. And every Sunday since has been an anniversary of that amazing morning. The Savior has risen - and everything has changed. From Stop Dating the Church by Joshua Harris, 104.

Let us never, ever neglect to meet together (Hebrews 10:25), for celebration and commemoration of the incarnated, living Christ.

New Reviews: 2 Booklets, 2 Devotionals, 1 Bishop

If you've done the math in the title of this update, you will already know we are posting five reviews this week. I will also mention a notable external book review of a runaway bestseller, so you'd best keep on reading.

Tipping the hat to Discerning Reader's friend and partner in the gospel Steve Burlew at Banner of Truth, we have posted three reviews of Banner books...and booklets. One of these days I'm going to have to post on the benefit of booklets, especially in light of Banner's brand new series of booklets called "Pocket Puritans", currently featuring four titles. Next week is Banner's stateside Minister's Conference, which Tim Challies will be attending and liveblogging.

Jacob Hantla, whose wife just gave birth to their firstborn, exists online at hantla.com and joins Discerning Reader as our newest reviewer. We nicked a review of Iain Murray's booklet about the atonement entitled The Cross: The Pulpit of God's Love while Jacob was at the hospital. We're glad to have him on board.

I (Mark Tubbs) have reviewed two fairly recent Banner efforts. I went to town on John Benton's book Evangelistic Calvinism: Why the Doctrines of Grace are Good News, which applies the Reformation acronym of TULIP to evangelism, and was very affected by a compilation of puritan Samuel Rutherford excerpts published under the title The Loveliness of Christ. As I note in my review, these excerpts help equip the reader to take ten looks at Christ for every look at themselves.

Leslie Wiggins offers the first of two reviews of brand new On-the-Go Devotionals for women from Crossway Books and written by Lydia Brownback. The first is entitled Trust: A Godly Woman's Adornment. Leslie, who is usually wary of feel-good, content-challenged women's devotionals, admires both the content and the format of this devotional. Come back next week, ladies, to find out the topic of Lydia's other On-the-Go Devotional - and one that I will be buying for myself.

Tim Challies has posted his review of Bishop V. Gene Robinson's semi-autobiographical book In the Eye of the Storm: Swept to the Center by God. Tim points out the various traps the book falls into but locates the epicenter of the problem in Robinson's liberal brand of hermeneutics.

Please also take time to check out Tim's expanded and reformatted theological critique of William P. Young's bestselling novel The Shack, another book that purports to reveal new truth about God outside the divinely set boundaries of Scripture. Tim has produced an attractively designed, downloadable review of The Shack ideal for printing off and passing on to friends, family, and coworkers who may come across this little book that does more harm than it does good.

And that's a wrap for this week. We're bound to have at least one or two more reviews of Banner books to mark the kickoff of the Minister's Conference next Tuesday, and other reviews besides.