Month: March 2018

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Immerse: The Reading Bible | Book Review

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Most Americans own a Bible, but few read it. According to the American Bible Society’s State of the Bible 2017 (SOTB), 87 percent of U.S. households own at least one copy of the Scriptures. Unfortunately, only 50 percent of U.S. adults read the Bible, listen to it or pray with it at least three or four times a year. How can we help people move toward greater Bible engagement? There are many ways to answer this question, but I want to focus on a new Bible product I believe merits attention. It’s called Immerse: The Reading Bible, which Tyndale House … Continue reading Immerse: The Reading Bible | Book Review

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The Case for Miracles | Book Review

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On Pentecost Sunday evening, 1981, a young woman walked down the aisle of Wheaton Wesleyan Church in Wheaton, Illinois. Church attendance wasn’t uncommon in that city, which housed the headquarters of many evangelical institutions, including Wheaton College. And yet, this young woman’s steps elicited gasps from those in attendance. Why? Because Barbara — that was the young woman’s name — had been diagnosed with progressive multiple sclerosis 16 years earlier. She hadn’t been able to walk for seven years. Indeed, at that point, the progression of her illness was so severe that she was in hospice care at her home, … Continue reading The Case for Miracles | Book Review

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Do Miracles Really Happen? | Influence Podcast

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Easter is a few days away. Around the world, Christians will celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This event, so pivotal to Christian faith, is a reminder that Christianity is an inherently supernatural religion. Unfortunately, in the modern era, many disbelieve in miracles, their skepticism fueled by appeals to science. So, the question naturally arises, do miracles really happen? To answer that question, I interviewed Lee Strobel about his new book, The Case for Miracles. Strobel began his career as the award-winning legal editor for The Chicago Tribune. After his conversion from atheism to Christianity, however, he turned his attention to … Continue reading Do Miracles Really Happen? | Influence Podcast

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Small Church Essentials | Book Review

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“Your church is big enough,” writes Karl Vaters in Small Church Essentials. “Right now. Today, at its current size.” Vaters’ statement goes against the grain of what many ministers have been taught, explicitly and implicitly, about church growth. “A healthy church will grow numerically,” they’ve been taught in so many words. “If yours isn’t growing, you’re doing something wrong. Here’s how to break the ____ barrier” (fill in the blank with a large number). The intent of this teaching is good, of course. Church growth aims at increasing a church’s size by increasing the number of people it wins to … Continue reading Small Church Essentials | Book Review

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The Character Gap | Book Review

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The cover of Christian B. Miller’s book, The Character Gap, has a picture of Gandhi at the top and Hitler at the bottom with a graded spectrum between them. The picture is fitting, for one of Miller’s central theses is that most people are neither as bad as we could be nor as good as we should be. We are, instead, a muddle. The question that arises, then, is how we can become better than we are. Miller is A. C. Reid Professor of Philosophy at Wake Forest University and Director of the Character Project. Funded by the John Templeton … Continue reading The Character Gap | Book Review

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The Future of the Global Church | Book Review

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Patrick Johnstone is best known as editor of the first six editions of Operation World, a prayer guide for Christians interested in fulling the Great Commission (Matthew 28:16–20). Now in its seventh edition, and edited by Jason Mandryk, Operation World presents data on the geography, peoples, economy, politics, and religion of the regions and countries of the world, which is drawn from sophisticated databases maintained by WEC International, an interdenominational missions agency. This data helps readers pray intelligently about the needs of those regions and countries throughout the year. In The Future of the Global Church, Johnstone has drawn on … Continue reading The Future of the Global Church | Book Review

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Extraordinary Women of Christian History | Book Review

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“One Half of the World does not know how the Other Half lives,” wrote Benjamin Franklin in Poor Richard’s Almanack. That is certainly true of church history, the standard volumes of which are dominated by accounts of the thoughts and deeds of men. Ruth A. Tucker’s Extraordinary Women of Christian History tells readers about the “Other Half” of Christendom by means of biographical snippets of famous Christian women. Tucker has served as a professor of church history at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and Calvin Theological Seminary. She is best-known for her biographical approach to both the history of Christian missions … Continue reading Extraordinary Women of Christian History | Book Review

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Missional Public Opinion Researchj

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Twenty-some years ago, I served as a counselor at a weeklong Christian summer camp for abused and neglected children. For chapel, one evening, a puppet evangelist told the story of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac (Genesis 22) as an example of the Father’s willingness to sacrifice His Son for us. A graduate student in theology at the time, I remember thinking there was something wrong with the ventriloquist’s analogy. Wouldn’t Jesus be like the ram God provided, not Isaac? I thought. Then I noticed how quiet, still, and wide-eyed the kids were. Slowly, I realized that many of these kids … Continue reading Missional Public Opinion Researchj

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Global Renewal Christianity, Volume 1: Asia and Oceania | Book Reviewk

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Global Renewal Christianity is a four-volume series of books commissioned by Empowered21 and edited by Vinson Synan and Amos Yong. It consists mostly of papers presented at scholarly meetings convened by Empowered21 in Oxford, England (2012), Sydney, Australia (2013), Quito, Ecuador (2014), and Jerusalem, Israel (2015). The overarching purpose of those scholarly meetings, according to the Series Preface, was “to study the past, present, and future of the Empowered movements on every continent and from as many nations as possible” (xv). The final, edited version of the papers have been gathered into four volumes: Asia and Oceania (Volume 1), Latin … Continue reading Global Renewal Christianity, Volume 1: Asia and Oceania | Book Reviewk