Fraternal Book Reviews 2006
Noel Ramsey:
New Studies in Biblical Theology No. 7
Neither Poverty Nor Riches – A biblical theology of possessions by Craig. L. Blomberg
David Magowan
Unspeakable : Facing up to evil in an age of genocide and terror
Os Guinness
Harper Collins; San Francisco, 2005
…the sorry state of moral illiteracy…in which we find ourselves (p7)
There is usually at least some positive side to evil and suffering, and it is healthy to recognise it – though finding the good in evil and suffering must never be misused as an explanation for why the evil occurred in the first place. (p12-13)
The right to believe anything does not mean that anything anyone believes is right. The former is freedom of conscience and must always be respected unconditionally; the latter idea is nonsense and must often be opposed, for it can be a license for evil itself. (p14)
The origin of evil remains an unfathomable mystery we can never finally plumb. (p17)
We are small, we are weak, we are fragile and vulnerable. We are here only for a moment, and the thread of our lives can be snapped in the blink of an eye. (p20)
…the extraordinary paradox at the heart of human nature: how can human beings be so great and so weak, so noble and so vile, so consequential in their deeds and so fleeting in their lives? (p24)
Our little bodies are as brief as a candle and as fragile as an eggshell (p25)
Our vulnerability is magnified into pathetic helplessness when we are up against the monumental forces of the universe…large natural disasters (p29)
[Natural disasters] remind us that our universe is not a place in which we can find rest with final order and security. (p31)
Is the universe ultimately cosmos or chaos? (p32)
The crust of the earth is soaked with the tears of the suffering (p35)
Secularist philosophies such as atheism are just as “totalitarian” as the three “religions of the Book.” [Judaism, Christianity and Islam] What secularists believe is so total, or all-encompassing, that it excludes what the religious believer believes. No atheist I know says “I don’t believe God exists, but I believe he is there for you.” (p41)
More than 100 million human beings were killed by secularist regimes and ideologies in the last century…Stalin murdered 30 million and Mao 65 million. (p42-43)
The questions that evil and suffering raise…Why me?…Where’s God?…How can I stand it? (p48)
When we are hit hard and hurt by evil, our experience demands an explanation. So our minds set out, searching everywhere, from the immediate to the ultimate, and asking ceaselessly where the ultimate responsibility lies. (p61)
A single why, whether true or illusory, will see us through the fire and rain of a thousand desperate whats. (p71)
Only what is worth living for is worth dying for, so we should never sell our souls to save our lives. (p74)
Modernity has minimized pain…And a largely pain-free existence may make us more vulnerable to pain when we do meet it, because we have become less realistic about its presence in the world. (p78)
At the heart of the modern world is a refusal to accept any limits and therefore a drive to cross lines, to break taboos, to open the seals of forbidden knowledge, and so to celebrate a culture of transgression (p103)
What was once unimaginable becomes thinkable and then fashionable. (p104)
The idea that our moral and social progress will be as effortless as our scientific and technological progress and that we no longer need the boundaries and restraints of faith, ethics, and the past is one of the pernicious follies of the C20th (p107)
Evil…is both a perversion and a privation – the absence of good…(p140)
Evil is a parasite on a healthy body, an unwelcome gate-crasher at the party of life (p140)
The biblical vision…is bifocal. The world must always be viewed simultaneously through two different lenses: the perspective of creation and the perspective of the fall. Sometimes we see what it might have been. Sometimes we see only what it has become by being marred. Neither one lens nor the other provides focus by itself; only the two together bring clear sight. (p141)
Outrage at what is wrong in life is the negative counterpart of wonder at what is beautiful in the world. (p143)
In contrast to the Eastern religions, the biblical response to evil and suffering is one of engagement, not detachment. And in contrast to secularist beliefs, we are not on our own as we fight evil. (p145)
In the crucifixion of Jesus, sheer and utter evil meets sheer and utter love. (p148)
We may be in the dark about what God is doing, but we are not in the dark about God. (p151)
For the biblical faiths, the depth and scale of modern evil is a sobering confirmation of their view of the darker side of humanity as well as a sharply lit reminder of the need for the very answers they bring. (p152)
The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being (Solzhenitsyn) (p161)
Underwritten by Darwinian views of natural selection and the survival of the fittest, the idea of survival at all costs and by any means leads to an ugly, cynical struggle that is destructive of civilisation and human values. (p166)
To forgive is not to excuse evil. (p177)
When we are with anyone who is suffering, we should never give words without love, and we should never give answers without knowledge. (p205)
Silence itself is eloquent sympathy. (p205)
What is correct as an observation – suffering has such and such good effects – is incorrect as an explanation…It is only [suffering’s] dark gift. (p208-9)
Our challenge today is not to resort to faith as a crutch because reason has stumbled, but rather to acknowledge that reason, in its long, arduous search, has come up short and that where it has stopped it has pointed beyond itself to answers that only faith can fulfil. (p238)
Paul Lintott
The Soul’s Quest for God – RC Sproul
A Review
When are you ready to read a book?
Not for a new Christian, not because too complicated or too technical although sometimes his discussion is less clear than others. But because these truths are things that need mature reflection. I wasn’t ready to read this book last year but I was ready to read it this week.
Quotes a lot from two authors – Augustine and Jonathan Edwards both of whom (from what little I have read) spend a lot of time in self examination and reflection on God’s glory. So their contribution to this issue I think is well chosen.
Talks about lots of things I expected and some I didn’t.
Restless hearts, how they yearn for God and yet how we are sporadic in fulfilling that. He looks at the woman at the well and talks about Jesus desire to give us satisfaction in our deepest longings for himself. Which is all what I expected – Good but expected.
He then goes on to talk about fulfilling that desire in the rest of the chapters.
Loving God’s word, his word becoming sweetness and honey to us.
Divine Illumination, the processes whereby the Holy Spirit makes the word of God more than ideas and concepts but rather heartfelt belief and conviction. Conviction of the word is more than appreciation.
He talks about loving God’s law and to a certain extent the place of the law in the life of the believer.
He then spends some chapters looking at godly models in the Bible, namely Mary, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego and Joseph – challenging stuff .
Then two chapters on the soul itself – a bit overly technical I thought – mind you his field is philosophy. The value of the soul then feeding our soul – the normal means of grace: The word, Worship, Prayer, Fellowship, then some other interesting minor ones: Sacrements, Litergy, Music and Arcitecture.
He talks about what he calls barriers to the quest for God, which is mainly about assurance, false and true assurance
Then finally he talks about the end of the quest, the beautific vision, seeing God’s face and what that means theologically and practically.
It’s a good book: RC Sproul is amazingly clear and simple and engaging.
The stuff in it from Edwards is wonderfully explained.
The Bible passages are well applied.
Mark Rowcroft
“The Old Evangelicalism – Old truths for a new awakening” by Iain Murray. BOT. 0851519016.
Philip Tait
Three books on the historical and archaeological background to the Bible, all from a conservative standpoint. By using the indexes, they provide a most useful reference source.
K A Kitchen On the Reliability of the Old Testament Eerdmans 2003
Iain Provan, V Philips Long, Tremper Longman III A Biblical History of Israel Westminster John Knox Press 2003
Eckhard J Schnabel Early Christian Mission Apollos 2004 [NB This is a book that delivers far more than the title promises. It is in fact a comprehensive survey of the world of the New Testament
