Malc

A succinct yet stellar treatment of work that is badly needed in the church and in Western society as a whole.

I read this book after a somewhat tumultuous team transition in my own full-time job as a junior software developer. While in the end, it was a very good thing, the circumstances leading up to it were frustrating and stressful. Some of those circumstances linger in various forms. My desire to go work every day has suffered as a result.

This book is the shot of adrenaline that I need in this slump right now. Bahnsen has done here a wonderful job of defending vocational work in the context of a world that really does see it merely as a necessary evil. I haven't read enough of the Reformers to get a good idea of how the original "Protestant work ethic" was presented, but this book no doubt presents it very clearly. And while Bahnsen primarily focuses on the aforementioned vocational work, I feel encouraged knowing that my "work outside of work" is also a good, biblical activity.

It’s challenging in a few places, but he’s right. We could use some more reflection and critical thinking on something so important. I highly recommend this book.

This review is full of blatant spoilers! TL;DR: the book is great, I recommend it.

Vision of the Future is the excellent conclusion to the setup of Specter of the Past and much of the New Republic entries in the Expanded Universe in general. The story contained within these two books is both compelling and realistic - of course citizens of the New Republic will use one atrocity as an excuse to revive their own old grudges! Zahn plays with a philosophy of judgement and who should be held responsible for something done by people possibly long-dead. I found it fairly remarkable how many favorite New Republic characters turn out to dislike different alien races, but he also doesn't shy away from the thought that common "sins" in those alien cultures play into such attitudes.

Imperial rule is given a much more sympathetic view in this duology than it was ever given in the original movie trilogy. The noble character of Admiral Pellaeon and various planets joining the Empire under "Thrawn" all back up Zahn's clearly-communicated idea that Imperial rule now is very different than Imperial rule under the Emperor. Even the political philosophy of the Empire's more authoritarian rule is given a slightly sympathetic twist due to the chaos brought on by the Caamas Document Crisis. Clearly, though, the Empire still has much work to do when blatantly evil and corrupt political leaders like Moff Disra remain in power.

Reading this book as an adult, it's clear which EU stories Zahn was fond of and which he disliked. Plot points from the X-Wing novels (which I have not read at the time of this review's writing) are given respect and built on. Zahn's later direct collaborations with Michael Stackpole make it clear that he enjoys that writing.

However, Zahn dedicates practically Luke's entire arc in this duology to fixing his character from the wild deviance of previous entries. While a criticism of those particular stories is out of the scope of this review, Zahn definitely sets things back on track. Rather than have try to do everything himself with the incredible Force power he's capable of wielding, Luke elects to give people more agency and deliberately limit his power. Instead of exhibiting the destructive pride that moves one to unilaterally declare himself a Jedi Master, Luke shows tremendous restraint and humility in this book. And Zahn really proves that this is who Luke is supposed to be by citing the original movie trilogy numerous times. I must say that I had a bit of a chuckle at Mara's possible retcon of the Emperor's clones in Dark Empire: "Personally, I’m not convinced it was really him." Really, the only thing that Luke did that was out of character was to kiss Mara (on the lips!!) as she slept. That's just straight-up gross.

The Nirauan plot with The Hand of Thrawn fortress was an absolutely perfect setup for not only Survivor's Quest and Outbound Flight, but also the New Jedi Order books and the Yuuzhan Vong invasion. "There are a hundred different threats out there that would freeze your blood if you knew about them," Stent says, and he couldn't have been more dead-on. Although it seems that Zahn didn't necessarily have the Vong specifically in mind for this, it still serves the purpose of foreshadowing them. It's a peek into a far graver threat than an evil empire or a civil war: an extragalactic invasion. The fact that Thrawn was so focused on this threat that he cloned himself really sends home how important this is to him.

There's a lot more good that I could say about these novels. Their painstaking faithfulness to Lucas' original trilogy and even the begrudging tolerance of the EU's worst content show a great deal of respect for source material; Zahn knows that he is writing in someone else's universe, not his own. The writing of Moff Disra's "Sinister Triumvirate" perfectly encapsulates Sith traits, especially distrust. Han & Leia are the perfect couple.

A couple minor criticisms:

• Luke and Mara's romance felt just a little bit off. This may be due to the lecture Mara gives Luke about his prior EU escapades. This might be less of a Zahn issue, because he really did need to address that in some way, but maybe it could have been written slightly differently due to the time spent on it. It does at least make sense that their relationship is able to really kick off after all the elephants are addressed.
• Ghent's arc was great, but it hits a bit of a dead end at the Ubiqtorate base. It's excellent that he was willing to sacrifice his life - tremendous character development - but the book clearly hinted at the fact that he could have been killed because of his exact location on the base. His part just ends rather abruptly, and it would have been nice to see it buttoned up more cleanly.

I've written far too much already. SOTP/VOTF tell a truly quality story worthy of the name Star Wars.

The teachings of this book are essential for Christians to understand marriage. I think practical marriage books are useful, but I would take this over any of them any day. The truth of theology of the body is absolutely rich and makes a great deal of sense. You can extract some remarkable truths from the laws of nature, and when paired with Scripture, they clearly ring true.

I'm not a Roman Catholic, and I am not sure what to think about the sections on celibacy, but otherwise this is great. Very challenging for my own marriage, and a lot worth considering and taking in. I will definitely read the complete TOB document at some point.

A gripping memoir with a dash of apologetics. I read it in just a few days, but would have sat down and read in one session if I could have. Absolutely excellent!

A rather laborious read that I had to slog my way through. This is a long book; my copy clocked in at 491 pages, excluding the appendices with various notes and extra content. That's not to say that a long book is a bad thing, but it feels like it was avoidable for this title. By the end, I had the distinct impression that Colson liked the sound of his own voice (or rather, indulges in his own prose). I don't know if that's completely fair for me to say, but this book was just dry for the most part. Much of what he had to say surely could have been condensed and edited.

There are a handful of excellent chapters that recount stories from various people to show how the arguments of the book play out in the lives of real people. These were by far my favorite parts, and I'm glad they were included.

I do think Colson is a bit historically and theologically dishonest in a few places. While this isn't particularly surprising since he spearheaded "Evangelicals and Catholics Together", I am disappointed about it regardless. In Chapter 31, "Saved to What?", Colson writes:

In the very midst of the Reformation battles, a group of Catholic and Protestant leaders, including a cardinal from the Vatican, met at Regensberg, Germany, in the Colloquy of Ratisbon. The group reached an agreement on the doctrine of justification, which had been the great opening wedge of the Reformation (though discussions foundered on other issues, such as the Mass). One of the Protestant participants wrote a letter to a friend, in which he said, "You will be astonished that our opponents yielded so much... [they] have thus retained the substance of the true doctrine." The writer of that letter was a young aide to the Protestant negotiators. His name was John Calvin.

In his quoting of Calvin, Colson conveniently left out a dry remark about the stubbornness of the opposing party. The full quote reads (emphasis mine):

You will be astonished, I am sure, that our opponents have yielded so much... Our friends have thus retained also the substance of the true doctrine, so that nothing can be comprehended within it which is not to be found in our writings; you will desire, I know, a clearer exposition, and, in that respect, you shall find me in complete agreement with yourself. However, if you consider with what kind of men we have to agree upon this doctrine, you will acknowledge that much has been accomplished. [source: https://www.reformation21.org/featured/the-regensburg-colloquy-1541.php]

Colson also neglected to mention what was to soon follow this colloquy. Only four years after, the Roman Catholic Church would call the Council of Trent from 1545-63. Session 6, Canon 9 declares:

CANON IX.-If any one saith, that by faith alone the impious is justified; in such wise as to mean, that nothing else is required to co-operate in order to the obtaining the grace of Justification, and that it is not in any way necessary, that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will; let him be anathema. [source: https://history.hanover.edu/texts/trent/ct06.html]

So, it matters little what agreement was reached at Ratisbon if an official council of the RCC undid it almost immediately after. Colson fails to mention this, and instead insists that we need to embrace mere Christianity and embrace the truths of Scripture and ancient creeds (ignoring the fact that Scripture is interpreted very differently among evangelicals and Catholics). The creeds part even I agree with, but I was/am irritated by the lack of academic sincerity on his other points. Both churches can absolutely work together, and do, but pretending that we actually agree on justification is pretty ridiculous.

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I know I harped on him a lot for these few things, but it's really not a bad book; it's a majority good. I just think it should be condensed and historically accurate.

I intensely relate with Alisa! She isn't satisfied with listening to the talking heads or reading about the summaries of primary sources, but rather reads them all herself. Her relentless pursuit of truth is so admirable to me, and I deeply respect her for the journey she went through and the way she fought to find the answers to these harrowing questions. I also yelped with glee when she said she was going to read the church fathers - that's something I would do! All these things make for a book that straightforwardly refutes deceptive progressive doctrine with common-sense, biblical, and historical arguments.

I really do love the memoir style that was attached to something primarily apologetic, but the narrative does seem to take a backseat and feels a little disjointed. Other than that, I loved this book and recommend it.

An excellent high-level overview of worldview history from a Christian perspective.

I went into More Than a Battle with somewhat low expectations due to the astonishing amount of completely useless information concerning this topic on the Internet. No online resource covering this topic ever covered it to the breadth and depth of what it truly needed to be. I'd never actually consulted a book, though, on this topic.

In short, I was legitimately blown away by this book. It is like breathing fresh air after being stuck somewhere with terrible ventilation. Dr. Rigney gets to the bottom of the fact that lust is a symptom of other sin rooted deep inside someone's heart. He promotes an approach that is truly holistic, covering all the practical bases but also the foundational spiritual truths as well.

There is clearly a great deal of practical application history that Rigney has backing his words. There are nuanced points in here that one would never think to talk about unless they have actually experienced or counseled anyone on it. For example, he addresses the pain of a sensitive conscience that feels a need to confess every detail in order to feel clean. This is a point I've not seen in any book related to guilt or forgiveness, so it was a moment of unique joy to see such an issue addressed!

On that note, worth mentioning is the fact that Rigney does not promote the terribly harmful viewpoint that men are predisposed to lust and have to avert their eyes to prevent the automatic sin that will occur if they see anything remotely sexual. He is one of few voices that I hear promoting this important truth. Drawing a distinction between temptation and sin is extremely important and it is a central point of one of the chapters of this book. Temptation and intrusive thoughts are often (if not always) one and the same. It is a liberating truth for all, but especially for men.

The book was also saturated with Scripture that was expounded and applied very well. This is definitely staying on the bookshelf.

I read this book as a guy getting married in less than a week. I'm familiar with Sheila and Keith's ministry: both the Bare Marriage blog and especially The Great Sex Rescue. Much of what they have to say through these pipelines is a great asset to the church, even though I disagree with their egalitarian theology.

Much of the Good Guy's Guide (GGG) was review for me, thanks to the Gregoire's aforementioned other work. But there was so much new content worth reading in here! There were two particularly heart-touching stories that actually made my jaw drop in the car as I listened to them. Sheila & Keith are fighting an uphill battle in this book -- they have to work against popular yet harmful teachings on sex, even from within the church. The GGG, particularly as written for husbands, is focused on the wife and how we as men can work with her to achieve marital & sexual satisfaction.

Even though some might say that the key to a good sexual relationship is a variety of physical things (technique, frequency), it's abundantly clear in this book that the foundation of a good sex life is a good marriage. If we as husbands are not honoring our wives and sacrificing ourselves daily for them, then that's going to have a negative impact on the sexual part of our relationship. The Gregoires describe sex as a thermometer, not a thermostat, for a marriage. And, when we do have that foundation, the care and sacrifice do not stop in the bedroom. We have to make the effort to understand our wives as our own body.

The only reason I dock half a star is for somewhat of a lack of biblical exegesis/citations. This book isn't meant as a comprehensive treatment on marriage as a whole, but they barely touched 1 Corinthians 7, which is probably the most useful teaching on sex specifically in the entire Bible. I suspect that they may have laid off on a lot of Scripture to make the book appealing to both egalitarians and complementarians, since their theology would presumably bleed through in many places. But, I'd prefer a larger amount of honest treatment and usage of Scripture, even if it is from another perspective.

It's clear that, after this reading, all the GGG really teaches is another point of the ultimate command: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and your neighbor as yourself." Our wives are fundamentally different from us, and anatomy is only the tip of the iceberg. It's as simple as communication, patience, and kindness. If we obey the commands of God, our whole life will be better; the marriage bed is no exception to this.

As an aside, I found the honeymoon appendix at the end of the book to be a useful addition.

This is a really good outline to start, but I think it definitely needs more fleshing out, especially when Scripture is just rife with talk about self-denial and not loving worldliness. This may be me more at fault than the book. I will definitely give The Things of Earth (the unabridged version of this book) a read.

Literally life-changing. Scripture makes it clear that we are to forgive, but I was having a hard time figuring out what forgiveness actually looked like in a practical sense. Keller pulls together all of Scripture's talk of forgiveness and presents it in a brilliant exegesis that blew me away. His exposition of the parable of the unforgiving servant alone was worth the price of this book for me and the example of Corrie ten Boom drove me to tears (then all over again when my pastor retold it some months after I finished this book).

There are several appendices at the end that give practical tools for the actual procedure of forgiveness and reconciliation. These were also very useful to me and offer an applicable "how-to" for everything discussed in the book. This is a truly wonderful piece of work to add to the shelf of any Christian.

A brilliant exhortation that's been extremely formative to my pattern of thought in the faith. It's nothing but pure orthodoxy when Pastor Chan says that lukewarm Christians are actually not Christians at all, but the fact that he has to add a warning before that truth shows how desperate the situation in the modern American church really is. I think this book should be read not as telling you to do the exact same thing as many of the examples, but instead really counting the cost of following Christ and how you can apply that radical worldview to your own life. Will be reading Bonhoeffer’s "The Cost of Discipleship" as a follow-up to this.

Really loved everything this book had to say about the church and has led to my own de-construction of our modern church in America. However, I'm at a loss with what to do with this information, and I would have loved it if Pastor Chan went into more detail on how your average Christian can act on it.

As someone belonging to a generation of believers in constant anxiety about “God's will” for them, this is refreshing. This book may come off to some as a dry or impersonal approach, but frankly, this is how we ought to be making decisions as Christians the vast majority of the time. I absolutely believe in “writing in the sky” truly happening to some people, because you can't put God in a box - the Scriptures show that much very evidently. But superstitious, ritualistic thinking has infiltrated the thought patterns of many Christians (including myself) and some corrections are necessary. My prayers are now less oriented toward God revealing His will to me and more toward asking for wisdom, discernment, and the strength to resist sin. So helpful!

A great, short overview of how we as Christians ought to understand God's forgiveness, even if we don't feel forgiven some of the time. I wish Dr. Sproul went more into how sins against others plays into this - i.e. being unsure whether to confess a certain thing to another person. Otherwise, this was really helpful.

My first exposure to the history of the Reformation. I really enjoyed reading this and it educated me a great deal on the things that my more historically-knowledgeable Christian brothers and sisters talk about.

A great work of fiction that simultaneously speculates on what the eternal state will be like.