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In Attributes of God, Blog, Book Reviews on
April 14, 2024

The Kindness of God

We live in a rather cruel world, don’t we? This isn’t exactly a surprise. Ever since the Garden of Eden, our earth has been permanently marred and mutilated by sin and the sinful choices of mankind. But this doesn’t make it any easier to watch the horrible events that take place on a daily basis. To watch young women with bright futures be assaulted or murdered by wicked criminals. To watch foreign military forces bomb civilian areas in neighboring nations. To watch our loved ones become so hopeless that they turn to drugs, drinking, debt, or even their own death.

When we observe all that happens in our world as it rotates on its axis, it can be difficult to look upon all that cruelty, wickedness, and sin and remember the goodness and kindness of God. It calls up that age-old question we all consider from time to time—“How can a God that is truly good allow such bad things to happen?” But Nate Pickowicz wrote his newest book, The Kindness of God, to remind us of how we can see and behold God’s kindness in nearly every aspect of our lives.

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In Blog, Book Reviews, Spiritual Disciplines on
November 21, 2023

Memorizing Scripture

I’ve always been a competitive person, even as a child. I always wanted to win. I always wanted to be the best. And this manifested itself in many areas of my life—in my schoolwork, in playing games with family and friends, and in memorizing Scripture.

I grew up going to church every Sunday, and our children’s ministry did weekly Scripture memory challenges. There was a different verse each week, and if you recited the verse to your Sunday School teacher, you could pick a small candy or prize from a treasure box. Then, if you recited a certain number of verses throughout the year, you could win a special trophy to commemorate the achievement. Like I said, I was a competitive child who was very reward-motivated, so I did my best to memorize as many Bible verses as I possibly could so I could get a lot of treasure box prizes and eventually earn a nice, big trophy at the end of the year (and I succeeded at this for multiple years).

While I am thankful to have gone to a church that prioritized children learning and memorizing Scripture (there are some verses I memorized as a child that I can still remember today!), I’m afraid this method of rewarding the quantity of verses recited gave me and likely many other children the wrong impression of the purpose of Scripture memorization. As Glenna Marshall writes in her new book, memorizing Scripture is about more than information or recitation—

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In Blog, Book Reviews, Jesus on
August 14, 2023

The Character of Christ

Many have tried to argue that the Bible is a guidebook, a road map to this thing called life. If you follow its directions and obey its instructions, then you will be a successful Christian and be well on your way to “good and faithful servant” status.

Of course, this isn’t quite accurate. The Bible is a lot more than just a record of dos and don’ts. It’s the inspired and inerrant Word of God, God’s story of His redemption of mankind. Yes, it contains instruction and guidance, but it also includes hero stories, and handwritten letters, and fulfilled prophecies. Scripture is more than a bunch of rules; it’s a multi-genre book the reveals to us the nature, character, and desires of the God who creates, sustains, and saves us.

And yet, we—especially those of us living in a Western context—still tend to treat what’s written in the Bible as a to-do list, checking off the commands and behaviors that we’re pretty good at and toiling to please God in the areas in which we are lacking. This habit can easily cause us to overlook certain aspects of the Christian life or become weary when we find ourselves unable to overcome our vices. But Jonathan Landry Cruse argues in his book, The Character of Christ, that instead of crossing off items on our scriptural to-do list, we ought to fix our eyes of Jesus and imitate Him.

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In Blog, Book Reviews, Busyness on
July 17, 2023

All Who Are Weary

Busyness seems to be the hallmark of our society. Everybody is busy. Everybody is quickly moving from one thing to the next, barely having a moment to just pause and take a breath. Our daily schedules are packed full, and if we aren’t constantly doing something, we feel as if we won’t be able to accomplish everything we need or want to do.

But after a while, this constant busyness begins to weigh us down. We become tired, weary, burdened by all the priorities and responsibilities we’ve put upon ourselves. And when we allow this weariness to fester in our lives without seeking any rest or relief, it often morphs into anxiety, depression, or a host of other negative side effects.

As believers, we don’t have to sit in this weariness. We don’t have to stay in the anxiety and depression because we have a Savior who loves us, and cares for us, and who has offered to take our burdens upon Himself. What exactly does this look like? Well, Sarah Hauser elaborates on this process in her new book, All Who Are Weary.

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In Apologetics, Blog, Book Reviews on
June 19, 2023

The Reason for God

We live in an age of skepticism.

Faith is seen as something ridiculous, something to be laughed at, despite the fact that all of us put our faith in something, whether that be God, a politician, or the chair we sit in every day. People want facts, proofs, guarantees, which is admirable in a sense. They don’t want to believe in something just because it’s believed by their parents or was taught to them as children. They’re looking for studies and data, something to back up what they believe. And for many, this means throwing faith to the wayside.

But these same people need faith, perhaps more than they know. They might scoff at this notion, but the truth is that faith is not just a blind belief in fairytales. It’s a trust in what’s been revealed to us as truth. Faith may carry a different connotation in our culture, but it can actually be both logical and intellectually satisfying. Though atheists and agnostics may think otherwise, there is good reason to believe in God, the Bible, and the gospel, and this is what the late Tim Keller explored in his book, The Reason for God.

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