Resources on Book Reviews
When I finish a book, I add it to my annual “books read” list. My 2018 list is at the end of this post. I don’t have a detailed reading plan – I select books based on interest and recommendations. I also use commentaries, Bible dictionaries, and systematic theologies as I prepare two weekly sermons and one Bible lecture. Since I seldom read these cover-to-cover, I don’t include them in the list. 2018 was spent in Romans, Exodus, 1 Timothy, and a December morning and evening series in Isaiah. What follows are some of my 2018 reading highlights. Several of my comments come from booknotes I wrote earlier in the year. Every year, I read a few substantial volumes in…
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My day begins with putting on my eyeglasses; it’s the very first thing I do. Most of the time, I do it without thinking. But occasionally, when I pick up my eyeglasses, I remember that I am holding one of God’s most precious gifts to me. Eyeglasses are a relatively recent development of the human story. David Landes writes that the invention of spectacles more than doubled the working life of skilled craftsmen, especially those who did fine jobs: scribes (crucial before the invention of printing) and readers, instrument and toolmakers, close weavers, metalworkers. The problem is biological: because the crystalline lens of the human eye hardens around the age of forty, it produces a condition similar to farsightedness (actually…
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Names like Bob Moses, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Vernon Dahmer should be as familiar to Mississippians as those of Washington, Lee, and Grant, and Mississippi school children should be as a acquainted with the events surrounding the assassination of Medgar Evers as those of Abraham Lincoln. History buffs should possess the knowledge to trace the strategic battles for civil rights in Mississippi with as much attention to detail as they give to the battles of the Civil War. John Dittmer recounts that conflict well in Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi. Covering the pivotal years of 1946-1966, the author tells the story of the heroic efforts to end Jim Crow segregation and secure voting rights for African American citizens.…
Read MoreBelievers must be watchful, ever alert to spiritual danger. From Jesus’ “watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation” to Peter’s “be sober, be watchful; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour,” the New Testament sounds an alarm calling God’s people to spiritual watchfulness (Matthew 26:41, 1 Peter 5:8). Given the ample scriptural admonitions to spiritual watchfulness, the number of Puritan sermons and treatises devoted to the discipline of watching is unsurprising. What surprises is the contemporary lack of interest in an area of vital concern to every believer. Therefore, I’m grateful for Brian Hedges’ Watchfulness: Recovering a Lost Spiritual Discipline. He argues that “watchfulness is as necessary to a healthy…
Read MoreBioethics and the Christian Life: A Guide to Making Difficult Decisions, by David VanDrunen. Wheaton: Crossway, 2009. Christians grappling with beginning and end of life issues will welcome this fine book by minister, attorney, and theologian David VanDrunen. He asserts that “[b]ecoming a morally responsible bioethics decision-maker is the task of a lifetime and cannot be reduced to figuring out the right answer at a particular moment of crisis. Bioethical decisions must be made within the context of lifelong growth in Christian maturity” (15). He is persuaded that “having a firm and knowledgeable theological foundation is crucial for living the Christian life well” (17). The pages that follow reveal a solid grasp of scripture and Christian doctrine, as well as…
Read MoreI’ve read Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead twice, most recently in 2014. This week a friend invited me to discuss the book, which brought to mind this booknote I published in another forum more than a decade ago. The first thing that struck me as I read Gilead is the author’s elegant prose as she finds the voice of Congregational minister John Ames. He has spent his entire life in Gilead, Iowa. His first wife and daughter died long ago, and after decades living alone, he marries a much younger woman. Now, with his own death fast approaching, he writes a letter to his son, seven years old. A significant part of the story is his long friendship with a Presbyterian…
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