Review of ACTUALLY, CLAMS ARE MISERABLE by Bryan Allain

Rating: 5 out of 5

Bryan Allain is a blogger who focuses on communicating through humor. His latest book ACTUALLY, CLAMS ARE MISERABLE is a testament to his ability to make people laugh. In this book Allain takes some of the most common phrases and clichés that people say that when you think about them don’t really make a lot of sense or when taken literally conjure up some pretty funny images. He tackles phrases such as:

“Don’t cry over spilled milk.”
“Yeah, but that’s like comparing apples to oranges.”
“The proof is in the pudding.”
“That’s not really my cup of tea.”

The book reads like a collection of thoughts by Allain on each of these phrases and clichés, and they had me laughing throughout. Allain really gets you thinking about what ideas some of these things conjure up. The part about comparing apples to oranges was one of my particular favorites. There are also some funny illustrations included with several of them.

ACTUALLY, CLAMS ARE MISERABLE is a light and funny read, and if you’re looking for something to make you laugh, Allain’s book is a good one.

Review copy obtained by the author through Story Cartel

Review of THE ONLY WISE GOD by William Lane Craig

Rating: 5 out of 5

If God knows the future, and what he knows will infallibly come to pass, how can human beings have genuine free will? THE ONLY WISE GOD by William Lane Craig is a book that strives to answer this fundamental question.

Craig is a well-known apologist and philosopher of religion, and this book, which was published in 1987, explores the nature of God’s foreknowledge. Craig explores the biblical witness to show that God has infallible knowledge of all things, including the past, present, and future. He also strives to show that God’s foreknowledge doesn’t have to result in fatalism where everything, both good and evil, is predetermined by God. Craig rejects foreknowledge that is based on foreordination. He shows from different fields that fatalism should be rejected.

Finally, Craig explores a couple of ways that God has infallible foreknowledge that preserves human freedom. He argues that though God’s foreknowledge is chronologically prior to our actions, our actions are logically prior to his foreknowledge. Basically, God knows that I will do something because I will do it. This is innate knowledge.

But Craig argues for a second model of God’s foreknowledge that preserves human freedom. This is the model known as middle knowledge. Middle knowledge suggests that God’s knowledge is divided into three logical moments. First is God’s natural knowledge, which is the knowledge of all possibilities. Second, God’s middle knowledge encompasses all the free choices that people would make under any given circumstances. Finally, the third moment is God’s free knowledge of the world that he has created. This is God’s knowledge of all things pertaining to this world he decided to create. Craig suggests that God utilized his middle knowledge of all the free choices people would make under any given circumstances to decide on the world and its world history that he would create. This preserves human freedom because God factored in all the free choices people would make when he planned out the world.

While I think there is some credit to be given to middle knowledge, I’m not sure I buy it with all its implications that Craig lays out. It seems to preserve freedom in name only, and it suggests that God couldn’t create a world free from sin. However, THE ONLY WISE GOD is a brilliantly argued book that should be read by anyone interested in the debate over God’s foreknowledge and the existence of human freedom.

Review copy provided by Wipf and Stock publishers

Review of READING THE GOSPELS WISELY by Jonathan Pennington

Rating: 5 out of 5

The Gospels of the New Testament give us the life and teachings of Jesus, and in the Gospel of Matthew in particular, Jesus says that whoever does the words that he says is like a wise man who built his house on a foundation of rock rather than a foolish man who built his house on a foundation of sand. If the Gospels give us the life and the words of Jesus, then according to Jesus, there is a wise way to read the gospels, and there is a foolish way to read the gospels. The wise way of reading leads us into deeper relationship with Jesus and results in personal transformation.

READING THE GOSPELS WISELY by Southern Baptist Theological Seminary professor Jonathan Pennington is an invaluable guidebook on understanding what kind of writings the gospels are, their purpose, and how to read them in a way that draws us closer to Jesus and transforms our hearts.

Pennington spends considerable time exploring the literary genre of the gospels and gives us a working definition of what the gospels are, “Our canonical gospels are the theological, historical, and aretological (virtue-forming) biographical narratives that retell the story and proclaim the significance of Jesus Christ, who through the power of the Spirit is the Restorer of God’s reign.” He explains why we need the gospels and why we need four of them. He also works to show that the teachings of Paul and other New Testament writers were built upon the content that would be recording in the four Gospels, so that there is no disconnect between, for example, the teaching of Jesus and the teaching of Paul.

Pennington briefly walks us through reading Scripture in general well, reading it historically, literarily, and theologically, keeping these three avenues in balance. He provides some illuminating discussion on authorial intent and the ways that the Author behind the author can intend meaning that the human author may not have consciously been aware of. This explains how people can come away from a passage of Scripture with two different ideas that may be both biblical and accurate. In this way, God uses Scripture to speak to different people in the contexts that they are in. He also proposes that meaning is bound up with application because Scripture is meant to be lived out and to transform us. Some may not agree completely with his discussion concerning authorial intent, but he argues it well, I think he may be on to something.

Finally, the heart of the book is looking at the Gospels as stories about Jesus and taking a narrative approach to reading the gospels. Pennington covers basic story structure and reveals how meaning is discovered in the midst of a story, even revealing that a different meaning may be deduced from each character in the story. He also shows that the characters in the story have character traits that are meant to be imitated or rejected.

READING THE GOSPELS WISELY will help you to wrestle through how you read the Scriptures and what you’re trying to accomplish from studying them. It’s a great introduction to the gospels, and it will help you to read for transformation in the midst of growing deeper in your relationship with Jesus. It’s one of the most illuminating books I’ve read this year and one I’ll go to again and again.

Review copy provided by Baker Books

Review of GRACE by Max Lucado

Rating: 5 out of 5

Max Lucado’s latest inspirational book GRACE: MORE THAN WE DESERVE, GREATER THAN WE IMAGINE expounds upon the topic of God’s grace in a way that only Lucado can. Lucado launches into this book with the assumption that we all hear all about grace all the time, but we often don’t truly understand it because to understand it, we must be changed by it.

Lucado looks at grace as revealed through the pages of Scripture, and he does it in a way that is fresh and draws you in. He has a way of writing in a way that produces an emotional impact. Reading GRACE will help you grasp how spiritually bankrupt we are and how incredible God’s love for you is. Lucado is careful to show that there is nothing we can do to merit God’s favor; in fact, we only do the things that make grace so necessary. God’s grace is so incredible because it is freely given though we deserve far less.

I’ve loved Max Lucado’s writing ever since I became a believer and I always experience a freshness about God’s grace when I read on of his books. He does a brilliant job of painting a beautiful and humbling picture of God’s grace.

Review copy provided by Thomas Nelson through the BookSneeze program

Review of JESUS: A THEOGRAPHY by Frank Viola and Leonard Sweet

Rating: 4 out of 5

JESUS: A THEOGRAPHY by Frank Viola and Leonard Sweet is a unique approach to telling the story of Jesus. Viola and Sweet seek to combine Scripture and findings in historical Jesus studies to create a reader-friendly biography (or theography) of Jesus' life. The main thrust of the book, however, is to show that all of Scripture centers on Jesus.

The book begins before the beginning, describing Jesus as the second person of the trinity in eternity past, before the creation of the world. The authors seek to reveal Jesus as the infinite hero of the story God is telling through creation. The rest of the book looks at key moments in Jesus' life as recorded in the gospels.

The strength of this book lies in its Christocentricity. The book is truly about Jesus and about illuminating Scripture's comprehensive focus on Christ.

Some concerns I had with the book were areas where the authors seem to allegorize Scripture, finding Jesus in areas of the Old Testament that clearly aren't about him. For example, the authors compare the creation narrative to Jesus' life in a way that is merely speculative. There are other areas of speculation throughout the book, but overall it's a good illumination of the life of Jesus.

Review copy provided by Thomas Nelson as a part of their BookSneeze reviewer blog program

Review of Red Rain by R.L. Stine

Rating:3 out of 5

After a deadly hurricane rips through the island that travel blogger Lea Sutter is visiting, Lea finds two twin boys in the midst of the devastation who have lost everything in their lives. Moved with compassion for the boys, she makes a sudden decision to take them off the island and adopt them. Her husband and two children are unhappy with her decision, but they try to make the best of it. But where did these boys come from? Something about them is off, and soon the Sutters' lives begin spiraling out of control. Children begin disappearing, and Mark Sutter is wanted for murder. The story progresses to a shocking conclusion as Lea discovers the truth about the boys and what happened on the island.

I loved reading the Goosebumps series of books by R.L. Stine when I was younger, so I was excited to read his new adult novel RED RAIN because he had in mind those of us who grew up on his children's books and are adults now. While the story was intense, I have to admit that I was disappointed with RED RAIN. It felt as if Stine was taking the type of horror stories he's accustomed to writing, but adding coarse language in the dialogue of his characters and sexuality. 

In addition, the story itself felt a little unoriginal. It seems like the evil twins narrative has been done. There are a couple of twists at the end, but they were predictable in light of things we learn in the beginning of the story. The character of Lea is interesting in the way that she seems oblivious to everything that's going on around her. The scene between Mark and his assistant felt incredibly out of place and unnecessary to the story.

The story is a horror story, and it features some scary elements to it. The twins are definitely creepy, and I would give it to Stine that he knows how to tell a suspenseful story. If you're a Goosebumps fan or even if you're not, you might find RED RAIN to be a good story. Unfortunately, I can't say that I did.

Review copy provided by Touchstone Books

Review of The High Calling's Weekly E-Newsletter

The High Calling is an online magazine with a focus on seeing your vocation as a calling from God. The team at The High Calling want you to find God in your work in a way that is more than just about evanglism, and they want you to be encouraged to honor God in your daily work.

The online magazine features articles and interviews, as well as videos, designed to encourage you in your work. One of the features of The High Calling is their weekly e-newsletter. The e-newsletter is a summary of the best content featured on the site from the previous week. The e-newsletter features "an audio message from Howard Butt, several articles from The High Calling, a new video from The High Calling, and several community articles from around the community and other important sites."

An example of content featured in the e-newsletter is an article titled "Micromanagement: Leadership Style or Pathology" about micromanagement in the workplace and whether or not it might be a legitimate leadership style needed in certain contexts at certain times.

The High Calling is a great resource if you're a Christian who works. The only criticism I would have is that the articles I read, which were only a few, seemed a little light on God content. 

You can sign up for The High Calling's e-newletter on their website in the sidebar.

Review of THE SHEPHERD LEADER AT HOME

Review of THE INFINITY RING: A MUTINY IN TIME by James Dashner