The corruption of mankind as exhibited by children. This was a rather disturbing story, mostly due to its realism. There are so many good themes to provoke conversation found in this book. Highly recommended to read as part of a group.
Needed something to read while waiting at the bank. It’s not entirely clear which audience was targeted for this book. Conceptually it’s rather basic, but the delivery is more than most new converts are going to grasp. I read this to det…
Oberman is known for his work on Luther and for illuminating the period between the middle ages and the Reformation. This particular work is a collection of 10 essays (originally written in German) which focus primarily on Luther, though…
I first read The Stranger in 2001. I enjoyed it then, but have much more appreciation for it the second time around. The young Monsieur Meursault is the main character. In all things, he is very intentional in his indifference. The story…
It’s not easy to find good material on Jan Łaski (pronounced Yan Waski) and his part of the reformation. This book is an adaptation of Springer’s PhD dissertation and is a fairly basic overview of Łaski’s work in London (as the Strangers…
‘This Present Darkness’ was Peretti’s first novel, written in 1986 (the same year that gave us Alf, Ghostbusters, and Teen Wolf). The narrative and dialogue are reflective of this age. Also reflected in the story is Peretti’s goofy AoG/P…
The reviews for this book or nearly unanimously positive. So it was with enthusiasm I picked up ‘The Alphabet of Grace’ hoping to experience the greatness described in those reviews. I finished in it in couple hours and was left confused…
Despite what appear to be a few historical errors and distortions (and overall sparse use of footnotes to support the text), this was a pretty spectacular biography of Calvin.
Supremely strange title for a book that is more-or-less a brief survey of Calvin’s Institutes, with a few pieces of history to anchor its context (the Servetus affair as an example), coupled with a bit of biographical material on Calvin….
Matthew McMahon’s biography of Calamy was great. Calamy, not so much.
“Therefore although the law is a perfect copy of the Covenant of Works, yet being given to another end it cannot disannul the Covenant of Grace that was confirmed bef…
This is undoubtedly the best presentation of the baptistic approach to the old and new covenant. The argumentation is not persuasive, but if you want to understand baptist federalism, this is the place to go.
This has always been my favorite book of Dostoevsky. However, reading it again after 20 years, I found it so much more enjoyable the second time around.
The chapter on Psalm 119 was spectacular and inspiring. The rest, as is common among this tradition of counseling, was rather shallow (identify presenting problem, address, but it seems never explore why it is a PP in the first place).
19th century summary and defense of Presbyterian polity and distinctives. If you’re already familiar with the tradition, there’s not a lot of depth that will likely glean new insights. The chapters on ordination and modes of baptism were…
There were moments when this story was in the 4-5 star range, but those moments were brief. Overall, it gets bogged down in the minutia of zoological details that I found distract from the story.
It’s been over two decades since I read Hawthorne’s Scarlett Letter. It was in college where I had little interest in fiction. Ryken’s analysis of the book was spectacular and offered some profound insight into the characters of this sto…
Humphreys makes a rather persuasive argument for the Last Supper occurring on Wednesday, reconciling all sort of chronological challenges the traditional view raises.
I think I have greatly underestimated Kafka due to my inability to appreciate the insights he has into the human soul. I read The Metamorphosis a few decades back and thought it utterly absurd and an entire waste of time. Perhaps this mi…
It’s not easy to find a good commentary on the Book of Jonah. So I took a chance with this one today and found it was packed with all sort of gems! I would have rated it 5-stars, but it was just too short.
I hear a lot of references to Livingstone from the American pulpit. So not having much familiarity, I read this book and watched a number of biographies. I very much enjoyed the first hundred pages of the book which deal mostly with Livi…
I’ve always enjoyed Ravi. He seems to have an endless list of fascinating stories from his life’s experience. This book is similarly filled with anecdotes, but it’s hard to understand where he intended to go with it. The book seems to la…
Too much more could be said to rate this above three stars. Some of the analogies are rather weak (eg, what if language was copyrighted?!) Even so, it’s a quick read that has a general argument that is persuasive.
While there are certainly some redemptive aspects to this book; overall, O’Collins liberal leanings often undermine much of what he has to say. This is strange, because he identifies as a Jesuit and I’ve never read a Jesuit this liberal….
An excellent summary of paedobaptism and credobaptism. A helpful historical summary and presentation of strengths and weaknesses of each view. This would be a great book to read in a group as it raises some fine points for discussion.
This is my second book of Crisp’s, the former being one of his books on the Trinity. This book on Christology was much better, much deeper in analysis, with really solid reasoning. Crisp is very gracious. He interacts with a number of Ch…
If there were half stars, I would have gone with 3.5.
DeYoung writes on an important topic and although it will likely be familiar to Christians of minimal maturity, it is still a wonderful subject to continually contemplate.
Although Gordon displays some rather gross generalizations (anecdotal evidence derived from a supremely small sample space), much of what he says does parallel my experience. The explanation he provides also rings true, at least intuitiv…
There is some value to this book if you have little familiarity with Presby history. Smylie writes from an apostate perspective that identifies itself as Presbyterian, so his focus in the latter portions sway toward that direction. Even …
Ware attempts to tackle the subject of subordinationism within the Trinity. His position is that Christ is eternally generated (whatever that means) and thereby eternally subordinate. He writes at the popular level and almost seems entir…
This was the best book I’ve read on the subordination debate. Erickson gives the most balanced and fair approach of any other author I’ve read on the subject. Though he sides more with Giles on the complimentarian side (which he calls eq…