Book Reviews

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 podcast. Their direct, biblically-based, no nonsense approach is refreshing and, for those in their crosshairs, shocking. As Tom Ascol writes in the introduction, these men do not nuance or shy away from volatile subjects (p. 2). Their emphasis is that Christians need to step-up but before they do they need to think, and that thinking must “be deeply informed and shaped by the Word of God” (p. 3). As Black conservative evangelical leaders who are part of the SBC’s Founder’s Movement, they have a unique perspective and a hard-to-ignore voice on many volatile subjects challenging America, as well as the…(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)

PrintWhile many Christians are disappointed with, critical of, or apathetic toward the church (pp. 11-16), Megan Hill counters by claiming the great need today is to recapture the New Testament teaching on the church (p. 13).  Quoting Martin Lloyd-Jones she writes, “If only we could see ourselves in terms of …(Read More)

PrintVoddie Baucham titles his book Fault Lines because of the similarity he sees between the geological fault lines that result in physical earthquakes and the social/political/ecclesiastical fault lines that have been developing within our society for decades, and which are now erupting in numerous ways. Baucham is not writing in …(Read More)

PrintTom Ascol, in his recommendation of this short volume, writes that it will be “the first book I recommend to believers who want a trustworthy introduction to [the social justice] movement.” Ascol’s endorsement would summarize my thoughts as well. Jeffrey Johnson highlights many of the key issues in the social …(Read More)