My history professor said, "If I could require everyone on this campus to buy and read one book this year, It would be Bonhoeffer by Metaxas... Bonhoeffer got it [the Christian life]!"
I put it in my book que and my wife gave it to me for our first anniversary. Praise the Lord for wives! It is the best book I've read all year. It is also the longest book I've ever read cover to cover at 500+ pages.
I've been drawn to Bonhoeffer my entire Christian life. His incredible declaration, "When Christ calls a man He bids him come and die," from The Cost of Discipleship has been quite formative in my walk with Christ.
With the amount of pages Metaxas devotes to Bonhoeffer, he goes into great depth explaining not only Bonhoeffer's noteworthy life, but the context of that life. Significant portions of the book cover things like assassination attempts on Hitler, Luther, Barth, the Theological landscape of 1930's Germany, and much more German history. Even though Metaxas does this, the book reads so smooth.
One reviewer noted, "A captivating and inspiring read from start to finish."
If you aren't familiar with Bonhoeffer (and even if you are) I highly encourage you to give this book a chance. It isn't a book for the light reader but I don't regret a single session of reading I devoted to it.
Two things that I was blown away by were Bonhoeffer's education and learning about his last 48 hours on earth. I also enjoyed the two collections of pictures from Bonhoeffer's life, many of which were taken by Metaxas himself.
"Buy it. This book could change your life." -- James N. Lane
Sunday 25 September 2011
Saturday 24 September 2011
Erasing Hell by Francis Chan.
I just finished this book by Francis Chan and Preston Sprinkle. It's called "Erasing Hell: What God said about eternity, and the things we made up."
It was beneficial to learn some things about hell from the book, but I think the most powerful portion of the book dealt with a sovereign God whose ways are not our ways, and whose thoughts are not our thoughts.
He does things we might not do.
He thinks in ways we might not think.
His sense of justice might not match up with our understanding of justice.
This video sums up the portion of the book that I was struck by. Enjoy.
Obviously there's a lot of debate about hell thanks to Rob Bell and "Love Wins".
Francis writes the book as an attempt to understand what scripture clearly teaches on the subject. He does a great job. I learned a lot. I'm not going to give away some of his conclusions, but it is very cool how he humbly and openly approaches the Bible and exegetes rather than eisegetes.
It is a very short readable book that is worth the 3-4 hours it probably took to read.
although the book is about hell, I'm largely walking away with a larger view of God.
He's Bigger,
Stronger,
Wiser,
Higher,
More Just,
and more Loving than I can comprehend from my perspective.
It was beneficial to learn some things about hell from the book, but I think the most powerful portion of the book dealt with a sovereign God whose ways are not our ways, and whose thoughts are not our thoughts.
He does things we might not do.
He thinks in ways we might not think.
His sense of justice might not match up with our understanding of justice.
This video sums up the portion of the book that I was struck by. Enjoy.
Obviously there's a lot of debate about hell thanks to Rob Bell and "Love Wins".
Francis writes the book as an attempt to understand what scripture clearly teaches on the subject. He does a great job. I learned a lot. I'm not going to give away some of his conclusions, but it is very cool how he humbly and openly approaches the Bible and exegetes rather than eisegetes.
It is a very short readable book that is worth the 3-4 hours it probably took to read.
although the book is about hell, I'm largely walking away with a larger view of God.
He's Bigger,
Stronger,
Wiser,
Higher,
More Just,
and more Loving than I can comprehend from my perspective.
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