Books

One of our very own Sharper Iron contributors, Andrew Comings, has recently published his first work of fiction. Following this review we will include a brief author interview which highlights the motives behind this new and exciting project.

Book Review

David Livingstone meet Indiana Jones. The famed missionary explorer and the world-renowned, cinematic adventurer come to mind as one reads Andrew Comings’ new book The Astonishing Adventures of Missionary Max (Engage Faith Press, 2012).

In a fast-paced, engaging manner, Comings masterfully weaves his tale set on the fictional island of Cabrito. Political intrigue, a mysterious past, shady villains and maniacal kingpins — the story doesn’t follow the script one imagines for a typical missionary adventure tale. And Max is no missionary-want-to-be, he comes across as a man’s man who is forced into staying on Cabrito to make a difference.

The twists and turns of the plot, characters with depth and reality, and a locale where almost anything can go, keep one guessing throughout the book. Surprises abound as we come to terms with Max’s true identity, and learn more about his newfound friends. There is a romantic angle, too, but like the rest of the book – its a little complicated. The book stays suitable for teenagers, and perhaps older elementary children, although some of the themes will be over their heads.

The story is well crafted and one wouldn’t know it is Comings’ first book from reading it. It is a work of Christian fiction, however, and this comes through with its pointed message of forgiveness and reconciliation. And Max even shares his personal testimony in one scene. Yet this aspect of the book isn’t handled in a sloppy manner, and Comings manages to keep the story from becoming preachy in a stilted sense.read more

No book has been the subject of more fanciful interpretations than the book of Revelation. Various interpreters throughout the ages have wrestled with how to understand the many foreign and vivid images. It is no wonder then, that so few have gone on to explain to the average Christian what it might mean for their lives. As such, the discussion of the book of Revelation has been dominated by proper interpretive method at the expense of practical and contemporary significance. Revelation was after all written to seven churches and it is for the church today.

With a desire to let the text speak for itself and using a level headed approach, James Hamilton Jr. has written the newest commentary in Crossway’s Preaching the Word series titled Revelation: The Spirit Speaks to the Churches. Hamilton is associate professor of biblical theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and pastor of preaching at Kenwood Baptist Church in Louisville, KY.

Structure

The structure of the book is simple. Having preached through Revelation twice, Hamilton’s commentary is both the fruit of experience and a desire to bring the truth and relevance of Revelation, amidst its hard to interpret sections, to the everyday life of the contemporary believer. Each chapter is written in the form of a sermon with introduction, main point, a preview of the chapter, the overall context of the section in the book of Revelation, the body of the commentary and then a conclusion to bring it all together.read more

I have handled my fair share of textbooks over the years. I’ve also used a variety of Bible commentaries, Bible dictionaries, theology resources and biblical study tools. But I have never come across a more comprehensive and accessible resource for handling the Word of God than Invitation to Biblical Interpretation: Exploring the Hermeneutical Triad of History, Literature, and Theology by Andreas J. Köstenberger and Richard D. Patterson. This new 900 page book has truly set a new standard when it comes to Christian academic resources. In its thoroughness and detail, usability and accessibility, scholarship and piety, this work is simply unmatched. And I am not alone in this assessment, the book’s opening 13 pages contain no less than 39 endorsements from a wide range of leading evangelical scholars. And the fact that this is a hermeneutics textbook makes such widespread acclaim all the more surprising.

While the book is designed for the classroom, I read through the book from the standpoint of an educated layman looking for a resource on interpreting Scripture. This book proved to be more than just a resource tool, it is a virtual stand-alone hermeneutics course in and of itself, with a limitless supply of suggested books and articles for additional reading and self-study.read more

Previously, we have reviewed volumes 1 and 2 of the Ancient Christian Doctrine series from IVP. This series of five volumes is a commentary on the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed. The commentary in each volume is drawn from writings from the patristic period of church history: AD 95-750. Among the purposes of the Ancient Christian Doctrine series is “showing how the new ecumenism is today being nourished and renewed by the ancient ecumenical consensus” (p. vii). For those who bristle at the mention of “ecumenism” (a word sprinkled liberally throughout the book’s editorial matter), Oden takes care to contrast “the true meaning of ecumenism” as found in the Fathers versus “a century of often dubious modern ecumenical experimentation” (p. xiv). Oden, at the forefront of the paleo-orthodoxy movement, unsurprisingly states that the “ancient faith is the rightful patrimony of all global Christians today, whether Protestants, Orthodox, Catholic or charismatic,” adding that “there is a dawning awareness among Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox laity that vital ecumenical orthodox teaching stands in urgent need of deep grounding in its most consensual classic Christian sources” (p. xv). While not agreeing fully with Oden’s statement, I believe there is an uneasy awareness among Christians that biblical illiteracy is on the rise and that fewer Christians understand and are able to articulate foundational doctrines.read more

While the statistics on how many marriage end in divorce are often inflated (especially for Christians), there is no way to overestimate the effects it has on the children of divorce. While one or both parties in the marriage are hurt through the divorce the children are hurt the worst. The parents have the power of choice in their hands and the children are, in a very real sense, powerless victims of that choice.

Too often in the discussion of how to help children of divorce the focus is on how these children can be healed by intervening in their lives through social, educational and psychological help. According to Andrew Root this is fatally flawed and very short sighted. In his book The Children of Divorce: The Loss of Family as the Loss of Being, Root persuasively argues that divorce rips through the soul of a child and has its greatest damage on their being.

Root argues that the identity of a person is shaped by the community in which they grow up in. The family unit (made of father and mother) is the foundational community (the community within community) in which a child’s identity is shaped. When that biological community is torn apart so is the child’s identity. The result is that the children of divorce experience a true identity crisis. Root states:read more