Books in June (2023)
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If you’re looking for past book reviews, there’s now a link at the top that just lists book review posts. Here’s the books I finished this month:
The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis. Review.
The Prodigal God, Timothy Keller.
Keller's "classic" treatment of the parable of the two sons, in which he shows in particular how this text is a profound treatment of grace, is aimed at the 'older brother', is fatal to religion, and leads us into the joy of the Father's feast through our true older brother, Jesus.
The Psalter Reclaimed, Gordan Wenham. Review.
The Prodigal Prophet, Timothy Keller.
I started reading this after I listened to a few of Keller's sermons on Jonah and this really is a wonderful book in which Keller opens up Jonah and finds so many dimensions, showing us the grace of God and his workings in Jonah, and how this applies to our hearts in various directions.
After Whiteness: An Education in Belonging, Willie James Jennings.
It's hard to describe this book, it resists easy summary. It's about education, theological education specifically, and whiteness, and the way whiteness shapes education, and how we might dream and build beyond that. It's a book born in the pain of decades of serving in education, and the stories of faculty and students and their sufferings, and their unrealised hopes and dreams.
Paul and the Law, Brian Rosner. Review.
Rhythms of Grace, Mike Cosper.
It's a little weird reading a book by Mike Cosper that would cite Driscoll approvingly, but this was 2013 and he'd probably change that if he could. Anyway, this is a book about worship, both in the broad sense and the 'church service' sense. It traces a biblical theology through-line of worship, reflects intelligently and theologically and what happens (and ought to happen) in the 60-90mins of a church service, and offers some good guidance.
The Emotional life of our Lord, B.B. Warfield.
This book examines all the language in the New Testament, specifically the gospels, that speaks to Jesus and emotions. One fault of the (Crossway) version that I read is that all the Greek is stripped out, which is really annoying because how can I evaluate Warfield's comments on the meaning of this word or that word, when you don't have a word to hang it on? Still, I appreciated the bringing together of all this in one long-form essay (it's a short book), and while I disagree here and there, I was the better for having reflected on the whats and whys and whens and wherefores of Jesus' emotions.
God of Vengeance? Erich Zenger, Review.
The freedom of self-forgetfulness, Timothy Keller.
Look, it barely counts as a book but in three brief chapters he makes a simple but profound case. How can you stop worrying about what others think of you and even what you think of yourself? Because in Christianity the verdict comes before the performance. In Christ we are accepted, declared righteous, affirmed, filled up, made whole and solid. And then we live out of that verdict, not for that verdict.
