Mark Batterson. In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day: How to Survive and Thrive When Opportunity Roars. Multnomah, 2006. 182 pp.
What do you get when you combine fear, opportunity, history, distractions and doubt? A typical Christian who ignores a chance to do something significant for the kingdom of God due to insecurity and lack of genuine faith in God.
Mark Batterson has been released from the grip of fear and doubt by the experiences God has granted him. This young pastor writes about his insights in this simple but helpful book that harps on one theme: we have been called to take risks in our effort to transform the world for Christ. The author, who is one of the emerging voices in the post-Boomer church scene in America, provides numerous succinct thoughts about the real meaning of life and how to make the most of it.
Reviewed by George Barna.
Read the entire review.
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Dave Hunt & James White. Debating Calvinism: Five Points, Two Views. Multnomah, 2004. 432 pp.
One of the purposes of a debate in the formal sense of the word is to persuade. The object is to persuade the audience that your position is the appropriate view to adopt. Over several generations the debate over the theological views developed by John Calvin has become more and more heated. In response, James White (the champion of Reformed Theology) and Dave Hunt (the Opponent of Calvinism) have participated in a lengthy formal debate. The debate has been removed from the classical oral format and collected in the volume Debating Calvinism.
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Craig Groeschel. Chazown: A Different Way to See Your Life. Multnomah, 2006. 240 pp.
Even without the hint presented by the subtitle, just picking up a copy of Craig Groeschel’s book Chazown gives the reader a suggestion of something different. To begin with the title itself looks like a made up word. Chazown, Groeschel explains early on, is the Hebrew word (pronounced khaw – ZONE) that the writer uses in Proverbs 29:18, “Where there is no vision, the people perish” (KJV, emphasis mine). The word, he says, can be translated “dream, revelation, or vision.”
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C. J. Mahaney. Christ Our Mediator: Finding Passion at the Cross. Multnomah, 2004. 96 pp.
C. J.’s goal in this little book is to help his readers toward a deeper knowledge of the work of Christ. He makes it clear that he aims to follow Spurgeon’s famous line, “Abide hard by the cross, and search the mystery of His wounds.” The quote could be the theme of the book.
The gospel is the matter of first importance in Christianity. All of Scripture points to it, and all of history pivots around it. As Christians, though, it is easy to imagine that we need to move on to more challenging aspects of Christianity, even to think that, once we’re saved, we somehow mature beyond need for the gospel.
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John Piper. The Pleasures of God: Meditations on God’s Delight in Being God. Multnomah, 1991. 328 pp.
The Pleasures of God, one of Piper’s earliest works, is a theological book on the nature and work of God which is written for theologians, pastors, and laymen alike. Although it was penned a few years after Desiring God (1986)-the book for which he is best known-Piper says that logically The Pleasures of God paves the way as the theological ground work for which Desiring God is the application (9). “The good news of God’s gladness in being God” is how Piper summarizes what the book is all about.
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