Regnum Caelorum

A Memoir of Early Days Frederick Buechner I don't read many autobiographies; this is the first one I've read in years. A friend of mine recommended Buechner's memoirs to me, and this is the first in a series of books in which Buechner reflects on the meaning of his life. He's convinced that God speaks in our lives, and the task before us is to learn to hear His words in and to us. In reading of his life, Buechner hopes that we to will catch glimpses of God's words to us and in us. The Sacred Journey describes in vivid detail the first 27 years or so of his life, focusing mostly from about the time of his father's suicide to his conversion experience. In hearing his story, we have the opportunity see the wonder of how God works in us, beautifully narrated in elegent prose. I highly recommend this book.

The Covenant Story of Redemption Michael D. Williams This book is a fine introduction to reading the Bible as redemptive history, and it rightly focuses on God's plan of redemption for the entire cosmos, not just for human souls. It is good to see a book written for your average student of the Word that looks at redemptive history in that way. It is well written, relatively concise (for the breadth of what he's seeking to cover) and filled with good theology. I wrote of another book earlier, entitled The Drama of Scripture , that covers basically the same ground, but in far more detail. That book also gives a you a good history of the Bible, and is therefore a better book to book in that regard. Yet for a brief overview of the Bible's redemptive history, this may be the best place to turn.

A Life Story Frederick Buechner This is one of the more intriguing books I've read recently. As you might imagine from the cover, it's a book about Jesus, and throughout the book, he's giving us a portrait of his "face"--his presence among us. Buechner is a wonderful writer, and his prose is simply filled with beautiful descriptions of certain aspects of his life and ministry for us. For instance, referring to Jesus' statement, "as you did it to one of the least of my brethren, you did it to me," he writes, "Just as Jesus appeared at his birth as a helpless child that the world was free to care for or destroy, so now he appears in his resurrection as the pauper, the prisoner, the stranger: [he] appears in every form of human need that world is free to serve or ignore" (p. 92). It is pure joy at times just to read his prose and fall in love with the Christ who saved our souls. Yet at other times, he seems to toss that faith to the winds....

How Jesus Wants to Change the World Allen Mitsuo Wkabayashi There are lots of books on the Kingdom of God out there to read. Most of them are either highly academic and difficult to read or they simply have poor view of the kingdom of God. This book is probably the first book with great kingdom theology that is accessible to just about any reader who would be interested in reading about the kingdom of God. The basic premise of the book is that the gospel is bigger than what we give it credit for. We tend to think of it as what we need to believe to get to heaven, but such thinking (as true as it is) alone does not compel us to live a life of mission. Allen is seeking to give us a fuller picture of the kingdom (or, better, reign) of God--that God "has broken into history in the person and work of Jesus Christ. The blessings, power and justice of the future kingdom of God have reached back into the present and taken root in our world" (p. 145). God's reign in this wo...

Finding Our Place in the Biblical Story Craig G. Bartholomew Michael W. Goheen There are lots of ways to talk about the teachings of the Bible. Most often the teachings are summarized in terms of systems of doctrine. This books is an attempt to organize the Bible in terms of acts of a Biblical drama. The Bible is a grand story, a drama of redemption in which the world was created good to reflect his glory, but mankind sinned and caused the fall both of our human nature and the world we live in. The Scriptures are the drama of God's redemption not only of us, but of the world we live in. Every single one of us has a story--our lives are in the process of telling a story. Yet we also view ourselves as being situated within a larger story--a story from which we derive meaning for our lives and interpret what happens in the world. "Basic stories are in principle normative --they define starting points, ways of seeing what is true--and they are comprehensive , since they gi...

A Breviary of Sin Cornelius Plantinga, Jr. Finally a book about sin that refuses to limit itself to abstract formulations of theological terms. Finally a book about sin that surfaces then inner recesses of the heart to demonstrate in concrete terms the reality of the sinfulness behind all our thoughts, words and deeds. The most helpful aspect of this book, I believe, is the way he fleshes out his definition of sin as a disruption of shalom . When a boy steals a radio for instance, there is a sense in which the boy has broken God's law, and there's a sense in which that act reveals his pride and selfishness. Plantinga's work shows that his act as well demonstrates the fact that the boy considered his desire for that radio as more imporant than the shalom of his classroom. Sin is what vandalizes the shalom of the world. It seeks to disrupt and introduce chaos into the created order. From the initial sin of Adam and Eve to the ways we continue to sin individually, cor...