Book Review: Counsel for Christian Workers (Charles Spurgeon)

117 pages

Counsel for Christian Workers is a practical help guide for Christians in the workplace. It contains  fifteen chapters of 6-8 pages each, and has the aim of giving godly wisdom and advice for Christians serving in either full-time or strategic Christian ministry. Basically it is useful for every believer!

Chapter headings include An Earnest Man, Workers who are Successful, Obedience, The Kind of Labourers Wanted and A Great Leader and Good Soldiers.

This is one of those books that, every few pages, has a sharp piece of wisdom to share. This is pretty common to the works of Spurgeon, the 19th century preacher and trainer of young ministers. Lectures to My Students is another very helpful book for pastors to have a look through. Spurgeon is rarely lost in the clouds when he writes theology. The impression one gets from reading his books is that his eye is always on the practical application of God's word to right living.

Some examples in this book:

Young men, if you become diligent...you are likely men to be made into ministers; but if you stop and do nothing until you can do everything, you will remain useless – an impediment to the church instead of being a help to her. (p10)

Be content, and labour in your sphere, even if it be small, and you will be wise. (p11)

Get full assurance of your own salvation. There is no weapon like it. (p13)

Some comments surprised. I wondered about his view of overseas Christian work given this comment:

You may imitate Andrew [the apostle not the blog author!] in not going far afield to do good. Many Christians do all the good they can five miles off from their own house, when the time they take to go there and back might be well spent in the vineyard at home. (p11)

There is also a chapter on evangelism in which Spurgeon gives practical tips for sharing Christian faith. For example, he suggests the shedding of tears can be a help! He shares the story of a man who was verbally abused for giving out a pamphlet on Christianity. The man cried in front of his abusers out of concern for them. Years later he is reunited with one of his abusers who has been converted! 

In Summary

Counsel for Christian Workers is a brief and practical book of godly wisdom to help Christians live and share their faith in Christ more effectively. You will see the occasional anachronism. You will also see the occasional pearl of wisdom learnt from years of committed ministry. If you have a young adult who is maybe thinking through how they can be serving God in their work, this book may be helpful for them. Having said that, I found it a useful book to reflect on too. 

The best little piece of wisdom I took away from this book was from a story Spurgeon tells of a Christian man who had been behaving poorly. I leave it with you.

This man had erred from right acting because he had erred from right believing. (p111-112)

Nifties: A Christian Take on 'Tolerance'

Tolerance is the buzz word of the day. Tolerance says that we need to be tolerant of everyone's opinions. Everyone should have an equal say and their views given equal airplay, as long as they are not detrimental to the common good.

But is this actually the case? How are Christians to keep talking about Jesus in a 'tolerant' society, when it seems that society is no longer tolerant of Christians sharing their faith in the public square?

The Intolerance of Tolerance by D A Carson is coming out this month. It's a book written for the layperson and addresses the questions written above. Will post a review after reading it.

Book Review: Gilead (Marilynne Robinson)

Someone wrote that this book simmers on 'slow burn'.

This is such a perceptive comment when it comes to this wonderful work of fiction. It feels like it has been written in the time of the great American novels like To Kill a Mockingbird, when novelists could take their time to establish their characters, the scene and location, and the atmosphere of their work.

In my church there is an Indiana man who is proud of the fact that as a teenager he was taught the art of telling stories. Storytelling is now integral to how he speaks. Gilead is a book about the art of storytelling as much as about the content of the story itself.  

                                                                                     Pages: 291


Gilead is actually not a book as such, but a letter written by an aged and dying pastor, the Reverend John Ames, to his infant son (after being widowed, Ames remarries later in life to someone much younger).

In the letter John Ames portrays the relationships between he and his father, and between his father and grandfather. All of them were pastors, and it becomes clear that grandad and dad have had a particularly difficult relationship.

Yet the letter is so much more than a family history. Perhaps reflective of its setting in Gilead, Iowa, in 1956, John Ames' letter is both reflective and delightfully meandering. Perhaps the reason for his careful, slow-paced writing is this:

One great benefit of a religious vocation is that it helps you concentrate. It gives you a good basic sense of what is being asked of you and also what you might as well ignore. If I have any wisdom to offer, this is a fair part of it.(p6)

Reverend John Ames indeed takes his time writing his story, and this is the 'slow burn' of the book. In cooking, a slow burn always gives meat that richer and more rewarding taste on the plate. So it is with John Ames' letter. I was mesmerised by his meandering descriptions and frequent asides as his letter unfolds.

A couple of examples:

I'm about to put on imperishability. In an instant, in the twinkling of an eye. 
The twinkling of an eye. That is the most wonderful expression. I've thought from time to time it was the best thing in life, that little incandescence you see in people when the charm of a thing strikes them, or the humour of it. "The light of the eyes rejoiceth the heart". That's a fact. (p61) 


There have been heroes here, and saints and martyrs, and I want you to know that. Because that is the truth, even if no-one remembers it. To look at the place, it's just a cluster of houses strung along a few roads, and a little row of brick buildings with stores in them, and a grain elevator and a water tower with Gilead written on its side, and the post office and the schools and the playing fields and the old train station, which is pretty well gone to weeds now. But what must Galilee have looked like? You can't tell so much from the appearance of a place. (205)

Along the way there is an unfolding subplot. It is the return of Jack, the son of John Ames' lifelong friend Robert Boughton, who is widowed and looked after by his daughter, Glory.

As Jack returns to the small town he carries a secret scandalous for a small USA town in the year 1956. Read the book to discover it. Jack's eventual confessional with the Reverend John Ames forms a climax of sorts to this book, and it's a credit to the writer that this finale shows clearly the wonderful grace of God found in Jesus Christ that is available to all people to receive. The book finishes with Ames' future death seen not with sadness but with hope and delight in his son.

Needless to say, as a believer I found great hope in this book.

Hope because firstly the book is the real deal, a genuine classic ( I don't use that term lightly). It's a book that has won a globally recognized secular award - The Pulitzer Prize for fiction. It's light years ahead of the sometimes-embarrassing fiction that can be found in our Christian bookstores. This book has serious credibility.

But the real hope in this book is that its serious literary credentials are matched by its beautiful Christian witness. Gilead carries a constant, gentle undertow of Christian grace. This is a book you can give to your most fussy literary friend or family member, not only for its literary value but for its Christian witness. I thoroughly recommend you do.          

One final point, more about myself than the book: I noticed my own impatience while reading Gilead. Its 'slow burn' manner made me impatient at times. I see this not as a criticism of the book, but as a marker for my own change in reading habits. As a pre-internet school student, I did take the time to read books such as To Kill a Mockingbird and Heart of Darkness, which were similar slow burners. However I notice now that as a 39 year-old reader I am far less patient. I've turned into a Facebook status update reader. To be disciplined enough to slow down and let a book like Gilead speak at its own pace was very difficult at times.

Another reason to close the laptop and open a good novel more often.        



 


 
   

 

Book Notes: Gilead and Hermenuetics

Still reading through Gilead. So far a slow-paced, delightful piece of fiction. Gentle storytelling. Hope to review it properly next week.

Also received a book on hermeneutics, or how we read the bible. This will be a 'get through a few pages every week' kind of book but this kind of reading is really important for anyone wanting to both read and teach the Bible to others. There is a lot of misunderstanding and even ignorance of the use of genre in the Bible out there. Will post interesting comments from this book over the year.

Rest day Sunday, see you again Monday!    

Book Review: Strengthsfinder 2.0 (Tom Rath)

174 pages/31 pages (see below for explanation)

Back again dear readers! A sluggish return from holidays but now ready to post again. And so, to begin with, a book review of Strengthsfinder 2.0.

A Brief Intro to the Book

It is what it says. Classic marketing. A group of folks at US company Gallup (the author calls the researchers 'scientists'), led by 'the Father of Strengths Psychology' Donald O Clifton (quoting the author again with the capital letters his), researched a list of the 34 most common talents. This book is really about finding your particular top five talents and how to 'action' them in your life.

Initial Reaction: Irritation

Why? Well, the book is 174 pages long, but actually it is only 31 pages long. Let me explain.

The 31 pages gives a context to why the group of 'scientists' developed the test. And I must tell you, I liked reading this a lot. Their big leadership/life idea is this:

You cannot be anything you want to be - but you can be a lot more of who you already are (p9).  

I happen to agree with that statement. Hear me out here. A gift I know I personally have is the ability to research. One gift I know I don't have is accountancy. So to make me work my way up to 'mediocre' from 'rubbish' in the accountancy stakes seems pointless. Better would be to help me develop my natural ability to research so that it is even more effective.

HOWEVER - this book talks about this for only 31 pages. It then describes all of the 34 talents. THAT would be ok except that the whole point of buying the book is that you cannot find out your five talents from Gallup until you have unsealed the special code to access the Strengthsfinder 2.0 test online! The Strengthsfinder website then punches out a report for you about your top five strengths and how to action them further. Your online report's descriptions of your talents basically matches what the book says about them, although the book adds a couple of quotes of people who have each talent. The book then goes on to describe all 34 talents; the report describes only your own.              

So to cut a long story short: why produce a book when really the website does it all anyway? I would have been happy to simply pay - say - $20.00 and do the web test. The information is pretty good and my fellow pastor and I are going to talk about our results together and how to action them in our respective church settings. I don't need an extra book which is basically a 31 page booklet plus excess material I don't really need. I honestly felt hoodwinked into buying the book.    

But - The Positives

As I said above, the web test and resulting reports are pretty good. I'm glad I have them. They outline in some detail the characteristics of my top 5 talents. I showed the report to my wife and she more or less agreed with what it said. My top 5 talents were 'learner', 'harmony', 'adaptability', 'intellection' and 'consistency'. To know more about them read the book!

So Overall - 

The information is very useful. No doubt about it.
I would have paid $20 to do the test without a book.
But the book costs about $30.
You can't do the online test without the access code sealed at the back of the book.    
The book itself really isn't worth the money, but for having the code.

That is my overall take on this book, and now it is your dilemma as to what to do from here.
 

Holidays Approaching, Book Reviews Upon Return!

So my family and I are on hols from tomorrow afternoon. We're going to take a few books with us, although with four kids I'm not sure we'll get much reading time!

Here are a couple we'll be taking with us:

 My wife will do a guest book review of One Thousand Gifts which looks like a very interesting topic. I'll have a review of Gilead, a Pulitzer-Prize winning novel. So see you again on Monday week (Jan 30) for more Christian book blogging.   

Book Review: Home Tonight: Further Reflections on the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Henri J.M. Nouwen)

This book is (as mentioned in a previous post) a collection of Nouwen's conference notes from a three-day workshop he ran following his recovery from a nervous breakdown. It's been edited into book form by Sue Mosteller of the Henri Nouwen Society. The book is divided into three parts entitled 'Leaving and Returning Home', 'The Invisible Exile of Resentment', and 'Home is Receiving and Giving Love'. Each part has three chapters with workshop exercises at the end of each chapter under the headings of 'Listening', 'Journaling', 'Communing' and 'Practices'.

Right, that's enough of the intro. A previous post talked about my interest in stories of the broken-hearted, and so I will direct you there to give you the brief history of Nouwen's personal situation behind the writing of this book.    
  
Following his breakdown Nouwen found a path to recovery in meditating on the parable of the prodigal son from Luke 15. In particular, he became entranced by the painting of the parable by Rembrandt which you see below.

Things I Liked About the Book 
Personal Self-Discovery and Biblical Insight  
Nouwen gives us a very frank self-assessment. His academic background in Psychology gives him a really fascinating insight into his own behaviour and the parable too.

Nouwen is just so good at understanding himself, even if he isn't so good at being able to change his behaviour. He is very honest in saying 'I have carried within me the pain of loneliness and a nagging need for affection...I was always yearning for intimacy in my life' (xvii). Nouwen had always found it 'difficult to love freely without being selfish and demanding' (8). Growing up, he says 'I wanted to be a pagan so I could do all the things I wanted to do and not feel guilty' (20). Carrying such baggage and being such an intense person, Nouwen seems inevitably bound to reach the personal crisis in his life that he describes.

By addressing his own weaknesses so well, Nouwen can direct floodlights onto the parable of the prodigal son, giving us much greater depth and detail into each of the characters within it .

The younger son in the parable disrespectfully leaves his father, taking his share of his father's inheritance. The son then shamelessly squanders his father's wealth. With nothing left, the younger son realizes he must return to his father to survive. Yet despite his shameful behaviour and wasteful living, the son always knows that  

"I'm still the child of my father and of my mother. I still belong to my family. I still have a home where people who know me are alive." (p23)  

With this insight Nouwen points the reader to Jesus:

He claimed himself in truth, so that whether people wanted to be with him, listen to him, make him king, reject him, beat him, spit on him, or nail him to the Cross, he never lost the truth that he was God's beloved child (p25). 

An interesting observation Nouwen makes from the younger son's plight is that when we are sensitive to our own journey in Christ, we can soon see that 'we are leaving and coming back [to our Father] every day, every hour' (p26). We undertake a constant series of departures and returns from God although we always know we are members of God's family because of Jesus.

Nouwen then moves onto the older son's part in the parable. Nouwen himself was the oldest of eleven children, so he feels a definite affinity with the older son here. He makes a powerful point about the older son which may well apply to most of us as well:

We work tirelessly to present ourselves in a good light before others in the false belief that our identity comes from who we are in their eyes, or from what we do or what we have (p37).

Nouwen says that the common problem believers make in their lives is to keep thinking that they can find the first love (that is, the unconditional love of God in Christ) in their day-to day relationships with others. Nouwen says that the people in our lives can only give us a second love: that is, a love that is imperfect and conditional. Only God can love us unconditionally. To give an illustration of this, Nouwen talks about his own situation:

When I hoped for total self-giving and unconditional love from another human being who was imperfect and limited in ability to love, I was asking for the impossible (p33).     

Nouwen then spends time talking about the resentment and sense of obligation that drives the elder son in his service to his father, providing a parallel to the attitude of many believers today in their service and relationship to God.

It is very powerful and helpful for both pastors and anyone spending time in this parable to read the insights Nouwen has here. I was voraciously taking notes and pondering Nouwen's thinking in my own life.  

Some Irritations with the Book

I did have some issues with the book, but really they were more about the editing of the book than what Nouwen wrote about.

On virtually every page there is a sidebar with quotes about understanding the self. However they are not taken just from Nouwen's works but from a whole variety of different people including Desmond Tutu, Jean Vanier (founder of L'Arche), Gandhi and a sufi amongst others.

I found the quotes really distracting as they took me away from the intensity of the book's flow. I felt uncomfortable also with some quotes coming from people who were not Christians in a book that talks about the God of the Bible giving the author his means of survival and strength through his breakdown. Quotes from sufis and from Gandhi seemed inappropriate and watered down the gospel insights of Nouwen. In fact, in my opinion quotes from anyone except Nouwen were unhelpful, although well intended. So all in all, thumbs down to the quotes! The book easily holds its own without them.    

Conclusion
If you want to really get a handle on the parable of the prodigal son from Luke 15 and where you may fit within each of the characters within it, this is a very helpful book. Nouwen's own journey from breakdown to recovery, interwoven with his meditation on this parable, makes for a very moving and meaningful reading experience. The workshop activities at the end of each chapter give a great opportunity for practical application of Nouwen's biblical insights into your own life.  A wonderful book to read, dear pastors.