Book news

Life has been (usually delightfully) busy in recent weeks. Part of that has been the fruition of a couple of writing projects. I hope you will be interested to know about them.

The first is called Passing Through: Pilgrim Life in the Wilderness from RHB. The blurb says:

As twenty-first-century Christians, we must relate to the world, but the question is, how do we relate to it? Some Christians are scared, others are simply bewildered, and still others capitulate to the spirit of the age. In Passing Through: Pilgrim Life in the Wilderness, Pastor Jeremy Walker presents the biblical perspective that Christians are pilgrims passing through this fallen world who must cultivate the spirit of holy separation alongside holy engagement as they serve Christ in all their interactions. Unless we embrace this identity, we will lose our way. Reminding us that we need “the Word of God as our map and the Spirit of Christ as our compass,” Pastor Walker clearly presents principles for holy engagement with the world and separation from it for pilgrims on their way home, seeking to glorify the God of their salvation every step of the way.

Generous endorsements have come in from Michael Haykin, Michael Horton, Nathan Finn and David Murray. You can pick it up at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com or WTS.

The other is a book published by Cruciform Press and is called Anchored in Grace: Fixed Points for Humble Faith. Again, the blurb says:

The Bible delights to reveal the riches of God’s mercy in Christ Jesus toward sinners, to display his grace to the praise of his glory. These are the very realities upon which redemption hangs. When our expectation and enjoyment of salvation are not anchored in grace, God is robbed of his glory and we are deprived of hope, comfort, and happiness. Christians therefore need to grasp what the Bible says about these things. We need to know these sweet and substantial strands of revelation – to delve into, to delight in, and then to declare the exceeding riches of God’s grace in his kindness toward us in Christ. We need to learn and to love these bedrock truths in which spiritual life is grounded, the health of our souls is fostered, genuine humility is developed, and eager service is established.

Paul Washer, Joel Beeke, Conrad Mbewe, Geoff Thomas, Mez McConnell, Derek Thomas, and Brian Croft have all been kind enough to provide very warm endorsements. It too is available from Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com, but the publisher offers good deals, especially on multiple volumes.

If you have the opportunity, please drop a review at the various website. I appreciate knowing how people have interacted with the books, and am grateful for everyone who reads them, and delighted when someone profits by them. If you have a moment, please pray to that end. Thank you.

Shallow and narrow

One of the joys, if we choose to call it that, of the turn of the year is the “books wot I red” lists that emanate from bloggers left, right and centre. Some of them are simply crass arrogance – the “I read bigger, better, harder, higher, or simply more books than you” approach, a bit like those posts that slide out before the holidays suggesting the thirty tomes that the great and the good will be knocking back in their five days by the seaside. Some of the lists are genuine attempts to encourage and direct others in their reading or the well-meaning surveys of those who read more rapidly, more widely or in a more disciplined way than the rest of us. Some are combined with, or set alongside, the ten or twenty or fifty books that every Christian should read. So, for example, “The twenty books published this year that I read that every other Christian should read.”

But when you flick through a few of these, a pattern begins to emerge. Whether or not it’s your year-end or all-time lists, most of the books are often fairly predictable. What’s particularly disappointing is when the all-time lists include a significant majority of predictable authors from the same circles writing over the last ten years or so. I have seen a couple recently in which, having read the first five, I could have finished off the list for the chap in question, it being so clear the trajectory he was on.

I suspect that we are all prone to this (notice, I did not yet say guilty) to some degree. Most of us, either of necessity or habit or developed preference, have a measure of limit or focus to our reading at any particular time. If I am preparing a series of sermons, researching a particular person or period, or just enjoying something more than usual, my patterns of reading will reflect an element of concentration. Beyond that, we doubtless gravitate toward what we enjoy and profit from – reliable authors, favoured schools of thought, sweet places and stirring periods. That is fair enough, and understandable over time.

However, despite the Pavlovian salivation that occurs whenever anyone mentions the sainted Lewis, well-known for his critique of chronological snobbery in our reading, few seem to be taking him too seriously (whether or not they are confessed Lewis-slobberers). Indeed, the problem spreads beyond the temporal into the topical and the authorial and the geographical.

Too many of those lists show a narrowness and a shallowness that goes beyond the myopic and borders on the deliberately blind. Few contain anything more than a passing nod to anything too far outside the comfort zone. How will we ever test and assess and grow if we refuse to read anything that does not merely buttress or endorse our own preferred authors, preconceived notions, precious systems and protected memes? Some of these lists read like little more than exercises in how to pronounce ‘shibboleth’ properly.

I am not saying that we should indulge an appetite for pap or an itch for poison. Less mature readers usually need safer boundaries than more mature readers. But even the less mature could and should read beyond the hackneyed round of a few religious gurus. All should read those books which – without ever going outside the bounds of substantial orthodoxy – push us to think in ways we never otherwise would. Those starting out need to get into a groove, not drop into a pit. For most of us, it does us good to be stretched, challenged, engaged, taken out of our depth. If we are well-grounded in the faith, such a process can helpfully stir us, exercise us and ultimately strengthen us.

Take a few minor examples: you are a dyed-in-the-wool right wing reactionary of the sort who believes that the injunction to be subject to the governing authorities is somehow suspended in some way when speaking of and dealing with the Blairs and the Obamas of this world. Read a little Christopher Wright, and the first time you come up against his (let the reader understand) sentimental promotion of a left wing agenda of social (read socialist!) justice in the name of the Lord and Anglicanism you shy like a startled mustang. Fine, but once you calm down, you need to ask yourself where his notions and convictions come from, and go back to your Bible, and sieve his conclusions through the grid of Scripture, and assess and learn and argue. At worst, you have tested your own convictions against the convictions of another, and decided that – though you may have a little extra nuance – you see no particular need to shift your most fundamental anchor points. You might even wonder if you have been reading the Bible with one eye closed, and become determined to be more honest with Scripture and with yourself, even if you still can’t see what Mr Wright sees. Or, you are a high Presbyterian who believes that Baptists cannot be considered covenantal theologians, let alone in any way Reformed, and so you insist on referring to them as Anabaptists and dreaming of the day when a properly established Christian state is once again free to persecute such. It might not hurt you to read through some of the material recovering, interacting with and rehearsing some of the seventeenth century material and its underlying convictions, so that in the future your invective is marginally less marred by ignorance. Or, you are a persuaded cessationist, steadfast in your proper conviction that the apostolic gifts ceased with the office of the apostles while still delighting in and relying upon the continued operations of the Holy Spirit. Fair enough, but what about reading your differing brothers at their most intelligent and reasonable, so that you can at least understand why they believe what they say, can see the differences between what is claimed to be the case and what usually happens when someone lays claim to such gifts, and can more thoughtfully and graciously expose the exegetical flaws and practical dangers of their position?

Whatever our particular anchor points, it often does no harm to consider why someone would drop their anchor some little distance from our own. If nothing else, it might get your blood flowing. Who knows, you might even learn something? Better still, we should be deliberately searching out those who have gone before us with reputations for genuine godliness and sacrificial service who shake us out of our crassly comfortable little ruts and make us wonder whether or not we have ever grasped the greatness and the glory of the Lord.

So, let us get outside our own century and our own circle. Let us have lists with a little of a patristic flavour, with a few of the best medievals, a dose of the Reformers, a shot of the Puritans and their successors, a fillip of the eighteenth century men, a snack on the best that the nineteenth has to offer, and a smattering of the twentieth, as well as the low-lying fruit of the twenty-first. Let the breeze of the centuries waft over your souls. Roam the world where the truth has taken root – let the theologians of Europe and Africa and Asia and Australia, and perhaps even America, expand your sense as they wrestle with and apply theology in a context utterly unlike your own. Are you more of a historian? Read some biblical theology! Systematics your thing? How about some missiology? Linguistics float your boat? Dive into a few more biographies. Love your new Calvinists? Read some old ones – get into the Puritans! More of a Genevan? Have a dig around in the Calvinistic Methodists. Stuck in the sentiment of the Victorians? Take a bracing dose of a scholarly Scot. Mired in the multiplied divisions of the Puritans? Shake yourself loose with a canter through the church fathers. Plodding through the Princetonians? Dive into the Particular Baptists. Drowning in the Particular Baptists? Get stuck into the English or Continental Reformers.

As you think about your reading for the coming year, might I suggest that you take up something, early on, that is very much not what you would incline toward. Sprinkle a little seasoning into your reading, slide something spicy into your bland book pile, and add a little zest to your nightstand. Range righteously but rigorously through time and space and opinion. And perhaps, next year, you will produce some truly refreshing ‘best of’ lists that – in addition to blessing your own soul – will introduce the rest of us to a wider and more spiritually stimulating world.

Book news

I am glad to announce that The New Calvinism Considered: A Personal and Pastoral Assessment has now arrived. It is available direct from the publisher, or via Amazon.co.uk (paperback/Kindle) and Amazon.com (paperback/Kindle). It’s fairly brief, rocking up at 128 pages, giving an overall introduction, then considering the characteristics of the new Calvinism, offering some commendations, identifying some cautions and concerns, and closing with some suggested conclusions and counsels.

If you are interested in something else, or something slightly different, Reformation Heritage Books is due to publish another title, Life in Christ: Becoming and Being a Disciple of the Lord Jesus sometime toward the end of this month (Nov 2013). It is available for pre-order at Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com. This volume traces the trajectory of the Christian’s experience of God’s grace in Christ Jesus, considering the privilege and blessing of being a true disciple of the Lord. Confusion or error in these matters can dishonour God, undermine a Christian’s spiritual health, unsettle the church, and hold back the truth. We need to consider the many-sided jewel of redemption to be both enlightened and enlivened with regard to our identity as new creatures in Christ Jesus. When we better understand and appreciate our life in Christ, it will draw out our hearts toward God in Christ in thankfulness and love for his many mercies toward us.

As ever, enjoy!

For book nerds

Go here and follow the link.

Owning books

And so I continue to prefer printed copies of the important books and the much-loved books, the ones I want to drive deep into my mind and heart, the ones I want to pour [sic] over, to absorb. I love my Kindle for light reading, for enjoying a good novel or a Christian living kind of book. But books that I am going to return to again and again and books I would want to leave behind as part of my legacy, those are volumes I still want to have in printed editions, sitting in my office, accessible to all, able to outlive me, able to represent me.

Tim Challies muses about books and true ownership.

The life of books

Books have not been around forever. There are other ways to put words together on paper, papyrus, or cow’s hide. So it’s possible something else will come along to take the book down from the shelf. But it won’t be the iPad I’m using right now. It won’t be the laptop on which I’ve written books and blogs and sermons. In a virtual world, with all its ethereal convenience, there will be many–an increasing number I predict–who long for what is real. Something solid. Something you can hold. Something that hangs around even when you are finished with it. Something like a book.

Yes, yes, a thousand times, yes. As you may by now have gauged, I agree with Kevin DeYoung.

Review: “My Life & Books”

My Life & Books: Reminiscences of S. M. Houghton

S. M. Houghton

Banner of Truth, 1988, 160pp., cloth, £7

ISBN 9780851515373

I had known only of Mr Houghton’s reputation as a stickler for accuracy in matters editorial when I picked up this volume. The volume communicates this preciseness of character in its formal but not cold tone and its careful but not dry style. Over the course of ten brief chapters he outlines his life by reference to books purchased, read and enjoyed. All else is made, in essence, colourfully incidental to and illuminative of the amassing of the Houghton library. One salivates over the environment in which, with good theology largely disregarded, and real bookshops the only place to find such material, magnificent tomes might be obtained for a pittance by the intelligent and diligent. Hearing of certain purchases made for pennies, we might say with Wordsworth, “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive”! For Mr Houghton – though remaining a teacher of history and Scripture for most of his life – was a vigorous participant in the dawn of the new interest in the Puritans, a major contributor to the labours of the Banner of Truth Trust in the early years, and a significant figure in those circles. Closing with an account of the author by Iain Murray, this little volume shows us the value and joy of a life devoted to the God of the Bible, the Bible God gave, and those works which faithfully and earnestly elucidate the Word and illuminate the Lord. Though it might appeal more to the bookish, it is recommended to all.

• Westminster Bookstore
• Amazon.co.uk
• Amazon.com

Blessings with hindsight

I distinctly remember it. I was sitting among a group of young people, some of whom were professing Christianity, some of whom were wrestling with God, and some of whom were neither. We were, most of us, in our mid-teens, and many of us had come from homes in which we heard and saw the gospel more or less clearly, more or less often. I cannot remember how the conversation turned as it did, but at one point a clear consensus quickly arose. Pretty much everyone who had been brought up under some degree of genuine Christian influence was wishing that they had lived utterly apart from God. A lot of this had to do with assurance: I think that the feeling was that when you have lived under a degree of restraint, knowing the truth by intellectual instruction if not by spiritual apprehension, there was a felt reduction in the degree of conviction of sin and a corresponding difficulty in discerning the transition from darkness to light. So far, so fascinating (perhaps).

I have learned some things, I hope, over the years since. Among them is the fact that outward restraint is no measure of heart sin, and that there is more than enough iniquity in the heart of the child trained up in a Christian home under the gospel to breed more than enough conviction of sin. The person who thinks otherwise merely needs a more accurate, Spirit-wrought sense of sin: the problem here is not so much reality as perception. I have also learned that the reason why some of us were confused is because not all of us who spoke were genuinely converted: some of those present were discussing the validity and reality of what they had never actually experienced or still needed to experience, as subsequent history has revealed.

But the point I wish to make runs along a different track. There we were, possessed of the incalculable blessings of growing up with parents who sought to teach us of Christ, who trained us and restrained us, holding back some of the worst excesses of our unregenerate hearts, who sat week by week under the faithful preaching of the gospel of Christ Jesus, who had pastors and other mature saints who taught and demonstrated the truth as it is in Jesus . . . and we were complaining that we wished we had been utterly destitute of any such influences, allowed to run in our own way absolutely, given over to sin.

Honestly, I understand the wish, but it is misguided. As I say, there is no need for us to live an outwardly, utterly Godless life in order to know ourselves sinners. Furthermore, I now thank God for the fact that I was so restrained, that my personal history is not more littered with extravagant external sins (there are more than enough), that the Lord removed at various times either the inclination or the opportunity, and laid upon my heart some of those constraints which – though substantially external in themselves – nevertheless were the means of keeping me from greater wickedness.

Then, another, more recent and positive memory: as I read books and blogs and watch videos and attend conferences and so on, I am sometimes struck by the apparent simplicity of a point being made (and subsequently applauded as profound), by the apparent confusion that reigns about points of doctrine which seem to me to be obvious, by the sense of novelty that surrounds material that I consider to be eminently familiar. Error may be no less enticing and engaging, but at least the truth is already in place by means of which to identify and expose the errors. These benefits hit me forcibly a few weeks ago, for example, during a discussion on the Trinity. It was not that it seemed ‘old hat’ to me; rather, as the speaker progressed, I had the sense of being on ground both common and familiar, and – when the time for discussion came – I found myself slightly ahead of the game, my point of departure different from at least some of the others participating. Or, more recently, I was left staggered at the theological naïveté of some of those participating in conversations to do with the Elephant Room. Were the issues not clear? Was the truth not known?

Does this mean that I am unusually brilliant? Am I blowing my own trumpet? Should I thank God that I am not like other men? Not a bit of it. I wish, rather, to record my gratitude to God for three particular blessings which were a means of laying such a foundation, and to encourage others to value and extend them.

The first is the blessing of godly parents. The value of the instruction and example of godly parents is too easily overlooked by those who are growing up under that influence, and who are often inclined to kick against the goads. Parental government may feel oppressive, aggressive, restrictive, excessive. Family worship, reading the Bible, prayer, catechesis, responsibilities required and restraints imposed, facing sin and resolving tensions – all may seem utterly burdensome and unnecessary. Nevertheless, if the Lord God is pleased to work salvation and apply the blood of Christ to the heart of such a child, the perspective ought to shift. All of a sudden, that framework of knowledge is imbued with a genuine (though incomplete) understanding. Those heavy chains of restraint are perceived in time to be God’s gracious means of keeping us from wickedness and even death. That drip-drip-drip of accurate and faithful instruction has laid a foundation all unnoticed, and provided a basis for further study and deeper appreciation which is hard to replicate except by the most eager latecomers to the gospel (sadly, there are many such who quickly outstrip those whose privileges ought to provide for their fast and straight progress in godliness, both doctrinal and practical).

The second is the blessing of faithful churches. Notice that they are not perfect churches. How I used to buck at some of the hypocrisy and shallowness that I saw growing up in a faithful church! How I used to wonder at the gravitas some people assumed in public and around “grown-ups”! Those people would often forget a child was watching and listening, and could see what they were really like in the attitudes, actions, antics and allowed life of their homes (I still know people whose boast of high standards of conviction and behaviour practiced in their homes, when I remember something very different, is grievous). But such – although they provide much fuel to the cynical fires of jaded youth – are not all that the church is. Again, we should not underestimate what is taking place as the Word of God is faithfully expounded Lord’s day by Lord’s day, morning and evening, in a particular place; as truehearted believers welcome children into their homes and hearts, and love them and care for them and teach them; as various workers labour to communicate something of Christ’s saving excellence to those under their care. Again, that inheritance – which may lie fallow for years or even decades – provides a phenomenal head-start if the Lord God is pleased to bring it to life by his Spirit. A bedrock is in place upon which future building can immediately take place.

The third is the blessing of good books. You do not need to be a great reader to benefit from the availability of the rich resources of good Christian publishing. Recognising that not everything is good, and that a sifting and selecting process has gone on even in providing that which is good, nevertheless the wealth of instruction and admonition and exhortation and correction to be obtained in reading is unimaginable. The man or woman who reads – and particularly who reads faithful old books – has an advantage, for there is nothing new under the sun, and the experience and understanding of those who have gone before is made readily available to anyone with the inclination to find or make the time and expend the energy on obtaining it. Why learn all your own lessons all over again when you can take a shortcut and learn them from wise men who walked the same paths in previous generations? This is not an argument for unthinking assimilation, but for aggressive engagement and interaction with the best of the past as a way of understanding and navigating the present. As Samuel Davies said, “I have a peaceful study, as a refuge from the hurries and noise of the world around me; the venerable dead are waiting in my library to entertain me, and relieve me from the nonsense of surviving mortals.” To have walked these ways in the company of faithful guides equips the saint today to serve God with a readiness and insight not available to those who have been deprived of the riches of a library.

Are there dangers here? To be sure. It is all too easy to be like a crown prince who has become accustomed by long exposure to the beauties and glories of the palace royal, but who has thereby lost his appreciation of the excellence of its galleries and the effectiveness of its armouries, and has so failed to value them accordingly. When he comes of age, he is all too inclined to cast away what his forefathers won with blood, sweat and tears. This is a travesty. We ought to be appreciative inheritors, not losing our sense of joy and the stimulating freshness of discoveries of fresh depth, but neither confusing that with an obsession with novelty.

But are there lessons here? I hope so! First, to parents: invest in your children. Do not make them little Pharisees, by any means, but model God’s grace in Christ and pour into them those truths and train them in that conduct which, enlivened by the Holy Spirit, will equip them for godly life in a fallen world. Second, to churches: keep preaching and teaching. Do not fall prey to all the fads and fashions that sweep the evangelical world, but go on drip-feeding and praying for those who may, under God, provide the future membership and leadership of faithful churches. Hammer home saving and sanctifying truth week by week and day by day: never underestimate the deposit that is being built up in the hearts even of your youngest hearers. Thirdly, to all: get some good books and read them. Read them in family devotions, at the bedside, in an armchair. Read them in the mornings and evenings, alongside and with your Bible to illuminate and explain and apply. Read them on the train. Read them (carefully) in the bath. Provide them and recommend them to others. Start libraries. Lend them and give them. Read them together and alone. Read them with pencil in hand. Read them actively: engage and argue with them, and learn from them. Mine the past in order to provide for the present.

These are not, for the most part, blessings which we get for ourselves. We do not appoint the families into which we are born, the churches in which we might grow up, or the books made available to us in our youth. We only realise in later life the blessings that our heavenly Father intended for us. That is why we cannot boast: “For who makes you differ from another? And what do you have that you did not receive? Now if you did indeed receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?” (1Cor 4.7).

So, we cannot get them for ourselves, and we do not merit them by our own efforts, but we can give them, and we can – with hindsight – learn to appreciate what we ourselves were given before, and how to pass them on to others.

Help: which book?

I hope to sit down in the not too distant future with a young person who is kicking quite hard against the goads. This person has a number of alleged reasons for rejecting what is understood by the person to be the gospel, including what are considered rational reasons, but there is also some spiritual tension present.

This intelligent young person would like (has agreed?) to read some books that raise these issues (not my suggestion), and is then willing to discuss those issues with me.

I should like to hit this on two fronts. I have some thoughts on good, current volumes that will raise and address some of the broader charges being made against the truth, but I also want to something positive to raise my own issues.

I am therefore looking for a good, pithy volume that will bring the gospel to bear in a way intended – under God – to instruct, challenge and enlighten. I can think of several older volumes intended for awakened sinners, as well as some that are designed to address cavils and challenges while presenting the truth, but I am not sure that that is where I am. However, something like Peter Jeffrey’s I Will Never Become a Christian might be a rather blunt instrument for this operation. While I acknowledge that there is plenty out there in this general area, I am not sure what is best for scratching this particular itch.

So, any thoughts?

What would you recommend? What have you used in similar circumstances to present the gospel simply, purely, and potently, with a view to salvation?

Paternal pride

Yesterday my sons were playing in a tent in the living room. They were preparing this den for the long winter ahead, and William, the younger, was harvesting the necessaries with some direction from Caleb. Caleb offered this splendid advice, which made my heart swell with paternal pride:

We need to put books in our tent. We can’t live without books.

What joy to hear such truth from one so young . . .

Aah, sweet obsession . . .

HT: Chris Brauns.

Books better than ebooks

Tim Challies:

I am often asked about my reading habits and, in particular, whether I now prefer to read e-books or plain, old-fashioned “real” books (of the printed variety). For a time I went back-and-forth on this question, sometimes preferirng to read on a device and sometimes preferring to read a book. But at this point my mind is largely made up. Today I want to share 5 ways in which books are better than e-books, 5 ways in which I’ll transition from paper to pixels only with a lot of kicking and screaming.

The worth of books

An aside from William S. Plumer in his rich commentary, Studies in the Psalms (Banner of Truth, upon whom we humbly urge a reprint):

When some one admired Leighton’s library, he said: “One devout thought is worth more than it all.”  He was right. (360)

Spurgeon on reading

Charles Spurgeon, as so often, makes a good point well.  Here, in a sermon on 2 Timothy 4:13 about Paul’s cloak and books, he speaks of the value of being a reader.  Trevin Wax got here first with a slightly updated version of this quote.

We will look at [Paul’s] books. We do not know what the books were about, and we can only form some guess as to what the parchments were. Paul had a few books which were left, perhaps wrapped up in the cloak, and Timothy was to be careful to bring them. Even an apostle must read. Some of our very ultra Calvinistic brethren think that a minister who reads books and studies his sermon must be a very deplorable specimen of a preacher. A man who comes up into the pulpit, professes to take his text on the spot, and talks any quantity of nonsense, is the idol of many. If he will speak without premeditation, or pretend to do so, and never produce what they call a dish of dead men’s brains – oh! that is the preacher. How rebuked are they by the apostle! He is inspired, and yet he wants books! He has been preaching at least for thirty years, and yet he wants books! He had seen the Lord, and yet he wants books! He had had a wider experience than most men, and yet he wants books! He had been caught up into the third heaven, and had heard things which it was unlawful for a men to utter, yet he wants books! He had written the major part of the New Testament, and yet he wants books! The apostle says to Timothy and so he says to every preacher, “Give thyself unto reading.” The man who never reads will never be read; he who never quotes will never be quoted. He who will not use the thoughts of other men’s brains, proves that he has no brains of his own. Brethren, what is true of ministers is true of all our people. You need to read. Renounce as much as you will all light literature, but study as much as possible sound theological works, especially the Puritanic writers, and expositions of the Bible. We are quite persuaded that the very best way for you to be spending your leisure, is to be either reading or praying. You may get much instruction from books which afterwards you may use as a true weapon in your Lord and Master’s service. Paul cries, “Bring the books” – join in the cry.

For bibliophiles (tongue mainly in cheek)

Nathan Bingham quotes William Symington to demonstrate that the making and buying of many books is indeed an ancient disease (please note that Symington was mainly joking when he wrote this):

The love of books is with me a perfect mania. When I see anything particular advertised, I immediately conceive a wish to have it – I persuade myself that really I ought to have it – and between the desire to have it and the reluctance to pay for it I am on the fidgets day and night. Then some demon or other whispers, “Your credit is good, it is a good while to the month of May, before then you will have had your purse replenished with next half year’s stipend” – the temptation succeeds; and off goes a post letter for the desired article, all objections, financial as well as others, being unceremoniously sent about their business. In this way I have nearly ruined myself – and the worst of it is that I am nearly incorrigible. Unlike other sinners, misery does not lead me to repent – or if I do repent, I do not at all events reform. Can you tell me what is to become of me? The jail I suppose.

Google books unbound

Several bloggers are pointing to this warning about the shortcomings of Google books.

Burning books?

Scott Clark alerts us to a pulping of a four volume encyclopedia on Christian Civilization.  The thing is, it is too Christian.

The once and future book?

Justin Taylor makes paper-bibliophiles everywhere mourn with his suggestion that the age of the e-book may truly be dawning.  He points us to a long essay by John Siracusa:

If you remain unconvinced, here’s one final exercise, in the grand tradition of a particular family of Internet analogies. Take all of your arguments against the inevitability of e-books and substitute the word “horse” for “book” and the word “car” for “e-book.” Here are a few examples to whet your appetite for the (really) inevitable debate in the discussion section at the end of this article.

“Books will never go away.” True! Horses have not gone away either.

“Books have advantages over e-books that will never be overcome.” True! Horses can travel over rough terrain that no car can navigate. Paved roads don’t go everywhere, nor should they.

“Books provide sensory/sentimental/sensual experiences that e-books can’t match.” True! Cars just can’t match the experience of caring for and riding a horse: the smells, the textures, the sensations, the companionship with another living being.

Lather, rinse, repeat. Did you ride a horse to work today? I didn’t. I’m sure plenty of people swore they would never ride in or operate a “horseless carriage”-and they never did! And then they died.

Update: there’s more.

Critical reading

To make the most of our reading, we need to be critical readers in the best and fullest sense of the word, engaging with the text rather than having it simply flow around or over us.  I remember borrowing a book from a friend a few years ago, and being struck by the manner in which he was wrestling with the text, investigating, questioning, arguing and commending the book as he went.  My own system for reading developed further after that experience, as I sought to be an active rather than a passive reader.

Justin Taylor has recently posted two helpful pieces drawing on Morton Adler’s How To Read A Book.

In one, he identifies a passage concerning critical evaluation that had a significant impact on him:

Every author has had the experience of suffering book reviews by critic who did not feel obligated to do the work of the first two stages [see below] first. The critic too often thinks he does not have to be a reader as well as a judge. Every lecturer has also had the experience of having critical questions asked that were not based on any understanding of what he had said. You yourself may remember an occasion where someone said to a speaker, in one breath or at most two, “I don’t know what you mean, but I think you’re wrong.”

There is actually no point in answering critics of this sort. The only polite thing to do is to ask them to state your position for you, the position they claim to be challenging. If they cannot do it satisfactorily, if they cannot repeat what you have said in their own words, you know that they do not understand, and you are entirely justified in ignoring their criticisms. They are irrelevant, as all criticism must be that is not based on understanding. When you find the rare person who shows that he understands what you are saying as well as you do, then you can delight in his agreement or be seriously disturbed by his dissent. (pp. 144-145)

Taylor ties in this principle with the golden rule: suggesting that this “is really the answer to the question: How, when reading, do I do unto others as I would have done unto me, and how do I love my neighbor as I love myself?”

In another post, Taylor provides Adler’s framework of three stages for analytical reading, answering the questions (1) What is this book about as a whole? (2) What is being said in detail, and how? and (3) Is it true? What of it?

Stage 1: What Is the Book About as a Whole?

Rule 1. You must know what kind of book you are reading, and you should know this as early in the process as possible, preferably before you begin to read. / Classify the book according to kind and subject matter. (p. 60)

Rule 2. State the unity of the whole book in a single sentence, or at most a few sentences (a short paragraph). State what the whole book is about with the utmost brevity. (pp. 75-76)

Rule 3. Set forth the major parts of the book, and show how these are organized into a whole, by being ordered to one another and to the unity of the whole. / Enumerate its major parts in their order and relation, and outline these parts as you have outlined the whole. (p. 76)

Rule 4. Find out what the author’s problems were. / Define the problem or problems the author has tried to solve. (p. 92)

Stage 2: What Is Being Said in Detail, and How?

Rule 5. Find the important words and through them come to terms with the author. / Come to terms with the author by interpreting his key words. (p. 98)

Rule 6. Mark the most important sentences in a book and discover the propositions they contain. / Grasp the author’s leading propositions by dealing with his most important sentences. (p. 120)

Rule 7. Locate or construct the basic arguments in the book by finding them in the connections of sentences. / Know the author’s arguments, by finding them in, or constructing them out of, sequences of sentences. (p. 120)

Rule 8. Find out what the author’s solutions are. / Determine which of his problems the author has solved, and which he has not; and as to the latter, decide which the author knew he had failed to solve. (p. 135)

Stage 3: Is It True? What of It?

General Maxims of Intellectual Etiquette

Rule 9. You must be able to say, with reasonable certainty, “I understand,” before you can say any one of the following things: “I agree,” or “I disagree,” or “I suspend judgment.” / Do not begin criticism until you have completed your outline and your interpretation of the book. (pp. 142-143)

Rule 10. When you disagree, do so reasonably, and not disputatiously or contentiously. (p. 145)

Rule 11. Respect the difference between knowledge and mere personal opinion, by giving reasons for any critical judgment you make. (p. 150)

Special Criteria for Points of Criticism

Rule 12. Show wherein the author is uninformed.

Rule 13. Show wherein the author is misinformed.

Rule 14. Show wherein the author is illogical.

Rule 15. Show wherein the author’s analysis or account is incomplete.

For more fulsome notes on the book, we are directed to Brian Fulthorp’s series.

I was interested to note the overlap with John Updike’s rules for reviewing.  He wrote:

My rules, shaped intaglio-fashion by youthful traumas at the receiving end of critical opinion, were and are:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation–at least one extended passage–of the book’s prose so the review’s reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending. (How astounded and indignant was I, when innocent, to find reviewers blabbing, and with the sublime inaccuracy of drunken lords reporting on a peasants’ revolt, all the turns of my suspenseful and surpriseful narrative! Most ironically, the only readers who approach a book as the author intends, unpolluted by pre-knowledge of the plot, are the detested reviewers themselves. And then, years later, the blessed fool who picks the volume at random from a library shelf.)

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author’s ouevre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it’s his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser. Do not accept for review a book you are predisposed to dislike, or committed by friendship to like. Do not imagine yourself a caretaker of any tradition, an enforcer of any party standards, a warrior in an ideological battle, a corrections officer of any kind. Never, never (John Aldridge, Norman Podhoretz) try to put the author “in his place,” making him a pawn in a contest with other reviewers. Review the book, not the reputation. Submit to whatever spell, weak or strong, is being cast. Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.

Interesting here is the notion of avoiding being some objective arbiter, defending no tradition, enforcing no standard, fighting no battle, correcting no error.  Does this really provide for interesting reviews?  Furthermore, I am not sure that any Christian reviewer can afford that perspective: by very definition, we are engaged on matters of truth and error, poison and tonic.  Surely reviews – in keeping with other writing, and not overlooking or ignoring the golden rule – are necessary opportunities for the very thing that Mr Updike would deny?

Spare $295000?

Could this be a case of wanting for the sake of having?  Shame it’s going as a job lot – it sounds like there are countless tasty nuggets in there, some to be gleaned, and others potentially to be sold off.

I can’t see many minister’s wives being happy with this many concubines . . . and who would have the space?

HT: Tim Challies.

Commenting on commentaries

A gentleman by the name of John Dyer has recently gone live with a fascinating and potentially very helpful site reviewing and recommending commentaries for Bible study, the aim being to enable Bible students at all levels to make good, informed decisions about which commentaries they should purchase and use by providing a constantly updated bibliography of commentaries on each book of the Bible and collecting reviews, ratings, and prices of commentaries from a variety of sources.  Worth keeping an eye on.

HT: Tim Challies.

Matthew Poole’s “Synopsis Criticorum”

For those interested in such things, Green Baggins informs us that the Matthew Poole Project is pressing on with its ambitious project to translate Matthew Poole’s entire Synopsis Criticorum (essentially a conglomeration of the best commentators in existence in Poole’s time). All of Genesis is available, and now the first volume (of two) of Exodus is available. I cannot vouch for this personally, but anyone who has used and appreciated Poole’s own comments will be interested in the wealth of study that lies behind them.  These volumes are available as hardbacks for about £20 each, or can be downloaded for about £5.

Books by and on John Calvin

Giving me a sense not unlike the proverbial child in a sweet shop (i.e. candy store), I was delighted to hear that Reformation Heritage Books have opened a Calvin 500 section flogging all manner of things by and on the great Reformer.

Sadly, I am also unlike the child in the sweet shop, in that this sweet shop is a long way away, and – not unfairly – charges a fair bit for shipping its sweets to the UK.  Nevertheless, worth knowing.

HT: Calvin500.

“Man Overboard! The Story of Jonah”

Man Overboard! The Story of Jonah by Sinclair B Ferguson

Banner of Truth, 2008 (112pp, pbk)

Regular readers of this blog will doubtless be delighted to discover that I was able to obtain this volume without sacrificing my second-best pair of trousers.

A slim 100+ pages, this book consists of eleven brief chapters outlining the history of Jonah.  We are first introduced to the prophet, a man whose past ministry was owned of God (2Kgs 14).  We see him turning tail on God and his call, and heading in the opposite direction.  We wonder at how God used the rebellious prophet even in his disobedience, and marvel at the great grace of a great God (more marvellous than the greatness of Jonah’s fish).  We trace the change of heart that Jonah had in the belly of the fish as God deals with him in merciful wrath.  We consider the sign of Jonah, the foreshadowing of Christ that is seen in him.  We observe the Word of God running powerfully through Nineveh as the repentant prophet declares God’s impending judgment, and watch as a city falls to its knees before the Almighty.  We crease our brows in bewilderment as an angry prophet butts heads with God himself, the vengefulness, selfishness and bitterness of his heart erupting at the moment of grace’s great triumph.  We gaze at God’s further lessons to this man wrestling with the corruptions of his own heart.  Then, finally, we pause at the tantalising open-endedness of this history and face the uncomfortable demand that we answer the question that God puts to Jonah: we find ourselves at the end in the prophet’s painful shoes, facing the same God, and probed by the same challenge.

The author sets out plainly the discovery that Jonah makes of the heart of God, a discovery that often discomfits and angers him, only to find the same grace that he resents being shown to others rebuking, guiding, correcting and restoring him.  With wit, insight and sensitivity both to the mind and heart of his subject and his readers, Ferguson guides us through the experience of the prophet, teaching us directly and incidentally about God and men, and pulling back the curtain of our own hearts in ways necessary if not always pleasant.  There are few Christians who have not had their Jonah moments, or even Jonah months and years, and here we find fresh grounds for repentance, and lessons to learn that we not walk that foolish way again, God helping us.

Preachers will need to be careful in their use of this volume: like so many apparently simple treatments of Biblical books, you start off with a guide and end up with a master.  It is the sort of book that might leave you wondering, “How could I be clearer or better structured than that?  What other applications might I want to make?”  A wonderful resource, one would wish to be helped rather than hogtied by its sense and structure.

I had some questions about the author’s discussion of ‘revival’ in Nineveh.  I would suggest that it was Jonah who was in degree revived and restored to fellowship with God while in the belly of the fish.  I do not wish to pick holes, but the work of God among the heathen city that Jonah describes may be a wonderful and deeply desirable effect of true revival, but it is not itself revival.  It was the revived Jonah (though with much work still to be done in his heart!) who preached, and saw the grace of God having a stupendous effect on previously utterly stony hearts: Nineveh was not revived, but converted!  This is a minor gripe, but I make it because too often the church of Christ seems smugly to imagine that we are healthy and vibrant (I by no means accuse Sinclair Ferguson of such an error), and that revival is something that happens to the unsaved out there somewhere.  This is not the case: revival is the often painful, always humbling, utterly God-exalting reality of God drawing near to his people, of their seeing their sin and his majesty, his glory shining in the face of Christ Jesus.  One of the effects of a revived church is generally kingdom expansion, as restored and reinvigorated saints preach a gospel known and felt: in that sense, Nineveh enjoyed the fruits of one man’s revival.  But the world benefits when the church is revived, and – in that – I stand with the author in his hope.

It may be that you would need to sell your second-best pair of trousers to obtain this book.  Do not pause for long before you accept that it would be a price worth paying, for the good of your own soul, and – God willing – the extension of Christ’s kingdom.

“Feminine Appeal: Seven Virtues of a Godly Wife and Mother”

Feminine Appeal: Seven Virtues of a Godly Wife and Mother (expanded edition) by Carolyn Mahaney

Crossway, 2004 (188pp, pbk)

As these more recent reviews might suggest, I am currently doing some background and wider reading with a view to making some book recommendations for a ladies’ conference at which I am preaching in a month or so’s time.  Feminine Appeal will most assuredly be on the list.  Mrs Mahaney, it would seem, has for some time been developing the substance of Titus 2.4-5, and the seven central chapters of this work expound the seven matters in which older women are instructed to admonish the younger: loving their husbands; loving their children; exercising self-control; pursuing purity; working at home; being kind; and, being submissive.

Fairly heavily littered with examples (including from the author’s own married life), this is an excellent and solid treatment of the subject matter.  Mrs Mahaney recognises that the Biblical roles which most women will assume as wives and mothers are of weighty significance, but that many women enter into them with minimal preparation.  As such, this book is both an exhortation to older women to mentor the younger, and a primer in such mentoring; in the absence of such a mentor, this book itself provides a sort of distance-learning mentoring relationship.

Planting the cross of Christ very firmly and repeatedly at the centre of a Christian woman’s roles, and emphasising repeatedly that the pursuit and attainment of these qualities is not possible apart from the grace of God in Christ, the author carefully, deliberately, earnestly takes us through the seven virtues of Titus 2.  The organisation of different chapters is homiletically helpful, often with key points strung together.  The foundation is carefully laid, the superstructure solidly erected, and the furnishings of application well made.  This is not a cheesy ‘how to’ book, but rather demands prayerful thought and attention from the reader: while there are often helpfully specific examples, it is the application of principle across the board for which Mrs Mahaney calls and for which she pushes.  As with so many such books, this one also comes with a study guide and discussion questions designed to encourage digging into the heart of the reader.

There is nothing novel or gimmicky about this volume: it is highly recommended as a vigorous treatment of a vital topic.