Book Reviews

PrintBeth Barr is a history professor at Baylor University who specializes in medieval studies. Admitting she is not a theologian, but rather a historian (p. 205) (a fact mentioned literally dozens of times and virtually in every chapter), nevertheless Barr believes her background in history places her in a position to clearly see what most Bible scholars and theologians have not, which is that biblical womanhood is not biblical at all, but a plot to suppress women. Biblical womanhood, Barr states has been built “stone by stone by stone throughout the centuries” (p. 205) and is a capitulation to culture and sin rather than a scriptural truth. Complementarianism is an interpretation of Scripture “that has been corrupted by our sinful human drive to dominate others and build hierarchies of power and oppression” (p. 7), or so is Barr’s contention. Some definitions are in order. As Barr uses the terms, biblical…(Read More)

PrintKevin DeYoung has written a concise, readable and accessible explanation and defense of the complementarian position. He states, “This book is about the divinely designed complementarity of men and women as it applies to life in general and especially to ministry in the church” (p. 15). To this thesis he …(Read More)

PrintAfter 72 years of communist rule, which had brought persecution and suppression for everyone including Christians, the Soviet Bloc began to loosen its grip on its people. In 1989, a couple of years before the collapse of the Iron Curtain, another wall was torn down—that of religious freedom. That year, …(Read More)

PrintDarrell Harrison serves as Dean of Social Media at Grace to You while Virgil Walker is the Executive Director of Operations for G3 Ministries. Together they produce the extremely popular podcast, “Just Thinking”. This book, by the same name, covers many of the subjects these men address weekly on their …(Read More)

PrintJim Hollingsworth is a retired building contractor who has obviously devoted much time and energy to researching the issue of climate change.  He does not dispute the fact that the earth is warming; as a matter of fact, it has been doing so since the last ice age about 10,000 …(Read More)

PrintLaurence M. Vance’s short but scholarly booklet traces the origin of chapter and verse insertions into the biblical text.  While these divisions have been maligned by some (p. 5), they have proven to be extremely beneficial to the readers of Scripture.  As might be suspected those who first thought of …(Read More)

PrintSince ten percent of the New Testament consists of Old Testament quotes and allusions (pp. i, v), the question arises as to how these quotes are to be interpreted. In particular, when the New Testament authors use Old Testament quotations which are at variance to the apparent meaning of the …(Read More)

PrintThe Pleasures of Reading, in short, is a pleasure – if you love to read. Alan Jacobs is a professor of English at Wheaton College, and this book obviously flows out of his passion for literature, but he takes a different approach to reading from that of many others. Where …(Read More)

PrintPastor Nate Pickowicz has written a simple guide for reading Scripture that both informs and encourages Bible study. The author claims the discovery of John MacArthur’s Bible reading plan revolutionized his own approach to the Bible (pp. 9, 31-34). Before this discovery his own biblical reading program was virtually nonexistent …(Read More)

PrintThe Wisdom Pyramid is modeled after the well-known food pyramid. While the food pyramid was developed as a guide for nutritional eating, the wisdom pyramid offers a plan for a “better diet of knowledge and better habits of information intake” (p. 12, cf. p. 17). The food pyramid suggests a …(Read More)

PrintAs a longtime missionary in Spain, Frank Benoit has witnessed the encroachment of Pentecostal/charismatic views concerning the sign gifts since 1994. Not satisfied in his efforts to find a readable challenge to these views, nor an approachable explanation of cessationism for the average believer, he decided to write this book …(Read More)