THE GOD WHO IS THERE: Finding Your Place in God’s Story – D.A. Carson (2010)

This year I have been teaching my kids the game of baseball. When one stops to consider, there are a lot of rules in this game: three outs, nine innings, four balls, fly outs, tag outs, force outs, relief pitchers, pitch hitters, singles, doubles, triples, home runs, infield fly rule, ad infinitum.

For years I have also been teaching my kids about a much more important subject, namely, the Bible.  The Bible is a little bit like baseball.  Again consider, there is an awful lot of information in the Book!  Commandments and covenants, warnings and worship, promises and parables, sacrifices and substitution, prophets and predestination, tabernacles and temples.  You get the idea.  A little bit intimidating for a rookie Bible reader.

D.A. Carson invites readers to “Spring Training” in his newest book, The God Who Is There: Finding Your Place in God’s Story.  He assumes that many readers will “step up to the plate” with little or no knowledge of the Bible.  So unlike most of Carson’s other books, this little gem is designed specifically for new believers and folks who have never been to the “ball park”; folks who are new to the content of the Bible.

Carson begins where the Bible begins – “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”  His first pitch may be difficult for postmodern people to handle.   God made everything.  He is the Creator.  He is the first cause.  In many ways, the first chapter is one of the most (or perhaps the most important) chapter in the book.  Carson carefully and gently refutes evolutionary theory.  And he shares some simple and undeniable truths about God:

  • God simply is
  • God made everything that is non-God
  • There is only one of him
  • God is a talking God
  • Everything God makes is good – very good
  • God comes to an end of his creative works, and he rests
  • The creation proclaims his greatness and his glory

Carson continues by contrasting the Creator with the creature:

  • We are made in the image of God
  • We were made male and female
  • The man and his wife were innocent

The author clearly delineates the Creator-creator distinction and continues to articulate a biblical anthropology in chapter two.  Man has fallen and has rebelled against a good God.  He makes it clear that sin is more than merely “breaking rules.”  Carson writes, “What is at stake here is something deeper, bigger, sadder, uglier, more heinous.  It is a revolution.  It makes me god and thus de-gods God.”

Sinful man has been separated from God.  Therefore his greatest need is reconciliation and forgiveness.  We need someone to save us from our sins.  The rest of  the book unfolds how God saves sinful people.  Carson skillfully weaves his way through Scripture to demonstrate how God keeps his promise in Genesis 3 and Genesis 12.  The chapter titles give a general idea of the book’s flow:

  1. The God Who Made Everything
  2. The God Who Does Not Wipe Out Rebels
  3. The God Who Writes His Own Agreements
  4. The God Who Legislates
  5. The God Who Reigns
  6. The God Who is Unfathomably Wise
  7. The God Who Becomes a Human Being
  8. The God Who Grants the New Birth
  9. The God Who Loves
  10. The God Who Dies – and Lives Again
  11. The God Who Declares the Guilty Just
  12. The God Who Gathers and Transforms His People
  13. The God Who Is Very Angry
  14. The God Who Triumphs

This book has many strengths worth discussing.  But the chief strength is the author’s ability to present the biblical meta-narrative and make sense of the puzzle pieces that emerge in Scripture.  Carson make a compelling case for the Christian worldview and accurately describes the flow of redemptive history.

The God Who is There: Finding Your Place in God’s Story is a book that can be utilized at multiple levels.  Most importantly, the book should be utilized in personal evangelism and small groups.  Video content may be downloaded at http://www.thegospelcoalition.org.

Readers who have never “been to the park” should check out D.A. Carson’s book.  It truly is an invitation to the “big game.”

4.5 stars

Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault On Mind, Morals, and Meaning – Nancy Pearcey (2010)

Nancy Pearcey has done it again.  Her book Total Truth captured the attention of thousands and helped equip a new generation of thinking Christians.  While some consider the term “thinking Christian” somewhat of an oxymoron (think, “military intelligence,” or “jumbo shrimp”), nothing could be further from the truth.  Indeed, clear thinking  and warm-hearted devotion are crucial characteristics for anyone who professes faith in Christ.  Anyone who rejects the notion of a “thinking Christian” should pause and consider the thought process generated in order to make the claim!

Pearcey’s newest masterpiece, Saving Leonardo is as the subtitle suggests a call to resist the secular assault on mind, morals, and meaning.  The primary assertion: “The only hope lies in a worldview that is rationally defensible, life affirming, and rooted in creation itself.”

THE THREAT OF GLOBAL SECULARISM

In part one, the author clearly articulates the necessity of a Christ-informed worldview.  She challenges readers: “Do you have the tools to detect the ideas competing for your allegiance in movies, school textbooks, news broadcasts, and even Saturday morning cartoons?”

Pearcey reveals the goal of the book at the outset: “The goal of this book is to equip you to detect, decipher, and defeat the monolithic secularism that is spreading rapidly and imposing its values on your family and hometown.”  As such, she calls Christians to abandon the “fortress mentality” that has been prominent for years; a mentality that gravitates to isolation from the world.  Rather, Christ followers ought to become familiar with their audience and engage with them on a worldview level.    “The first step,” writes Pearcey, “is to identify and counter the key strategies uses to advance the global secular worldview.”

Next, Christians must understand how secularism views the nature of truth.  Pearcey demonstrates how empiricism has spawned what we know today as the fact/value split.  This divided concept of truth is the most important feature of a secular approach to epistemology and is “the key to unlocking the history of the Western mind.”  The author is quick to explain the biblical concept of truth; a notion that was the theme of Total Truth: “Because all things were created by a single divine mind, all truth forms a single, coherent, mutually consistent system.  Truth is unified and universal.”

The fact/value dichotomy finds values in the so-called upper story (a scheme developed by Francis Schaeffer).  These values are private, subjective, and relative.  Values include religious claims and personal preferences.  Fact are found in the lower story.  These facts are public, objective and universal.  The author gives numerous examples of how the fact/value dichotomy is diametrically opposed to the biblical view of truth.  For instance:

  • “Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
  • “Science yields facts but not ‘value judgments’; religion expresses values but cannot ‘speak facts.'” – Albert Einstein

Clearly, values posed in the fact/value dichotomy are never considered to be true.  Rather they are expressions of an opinionated individual; i.e. a so-called “bigoted Christian.”

TWO PATHS TO SECULARISM

Part two uncovers two paths to secularism, namely, the Enlightenment and Romantic movements respectively.  The Enlightenment (or Analytic Tradition) is fixated on reason and relies on the scientific method.  Immanuel Kant plays a central role here with his nature/freedom dichotomy.  Various worldviews have been spawned as a result of Enlightenment thought including empiricism, rationalism, Darwinism, logical positivism, linguistic analysis, utilitarianism, and materialism.

The Romantic stream (or Continental Tradition) relies on story and is fascinated by myth and imagination.  Again, various worldviews have resulted including idealism, Marxism, deconstruction, phenomenology, existentialism, pantheism, and postmodernism.  Both streams are reductionistic and the author is careful to bring this point home repeatedly.

Pearcey dissects both streams carefully and skillfully.  Her depth and insight is very helpful and encouraging.  The final two chapters are the most helpful and practical.  The author prompts readers to give up the typical Christian fortress mentality:  “Christians must go beyond criticizing the degradation of American culture, roll  up their sleeves, and get to work on positive solutions.  The only way to drive out bad culture is with good culture.”

The author reminds Christian parents that they cannot protect their children from unbiblical worldviews.  But they can “help them develop resistance skills, by giving them the tools to recognize false ideas and counter them with a solid grasp of biblical concepts … Christians are responsible for evaluating everything against the plumb line of Scriptural truth.”

Nancy Pearcey is picking up where Francis Scheaffer left off.  And she gives Schaeffer the last word on the subject: “One of the greatest injustice we do our young people is to ask them to be conservative.  Christianity is not conservative, but revolutionary … We must teach the young to be revolutionaries, revolutionaries against the status quo.”

S

INSTRUMENTS IN THE REDEEMER’S HANDS – Paul David Tripp (2002)

Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands by Paul David Tripp is a superb introduction to biblical counseling.  However, Tripp’s book should not be confined to a mere counseling resource.  Rather, his work is about the simplicity of personal ministry.  It is call to live a life that is rooted in the reality of God’s Word.  Additionally, the book is “rooted in the belief that God has called and positioned all of his children to live as ambassadors.”

The core truths of an ambassador summarize the primary tenets of the book:

1. We need God and his truth to live as we were meant to live.

2. Each of us has been called by God to be his instruments of change in the lives of others.

3. Our behavior is rooted in the thoughts and motives of our hearts.

4. Christ has called us to be his ambassadors, following his message, methods, and character.

5. Being an instrument of change involves incarnating the love of Christ by sharing in people’s struggles.

6. Being an instrument of change means seeking to know people by guarding against false assumptions, asking good questions, and interpreting information in a distinctly biblical way.

7. Being an instrument of change means speaking the truth in love.

8. Being an instrument of change means helping people do what God call them to do by clarifying responsibility, offering loving accountability, and reminding them of their identity in Christ.

Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands is an important resource.  First and most importantly, Tripp’s work is biblical.  This book is drowning in a sea of biblical truth!  The book is practical and offers many practical tools to enable ministers to help and encourage hurting people.  And the book is intensely personal.  Indeed, the emphasis on personal ministry (ministry that can be done by any Christ-follower) is one of the greatest strengths of the book: “In personal ministry we call people to exercise faith in new and deeper ways – to forsake things they have done for years and do things they have never done before.  We call them to new motives, purposes, and goals … We call them to give up things that have been precious, and to do all these things not just once, but with long-term commitment and perseverance.”

4.5 stars

ON GLOBAL WIZARDRY – Peter Jones, Ed. (2010)

Peter Jones understands postmodern culture and has a particular interest in warning the church about the pernicious influence of neo-paganism.  His newest book, On Global Wizardry, continues to alert Christ-followers and equips them to respond in a biblically appropriate way.

Jones edits this work and relies on a host of experts to assist him in confronting and responding to neo-paganism.  Jones sets forth the thesis: “If, as contemporary thought contends, all religions are the same, then the spirituality of all those religions is also essentially the same, whether in its Easter or ‘primitive’ versions or in its Western ‘interfaith version.”  Therefore, the reader must ask himself, “Will we worship Nature or the God who created nature?”

The topics include a description and response to a host of worldviews including Witchcraft, Chinese spirituality, Syncretism, Gnosticism, Kabbalah, Astrology, Shamanism, and more.

Andrew Young is a fine example of a Christian responding appropriately to neo-paganism:  He writes, “Mystical techniques and the inward journey have no place in true biblical spirituality.  If there is reality experienced in such things, it is a reality other than that promised in the gospel … Christian spirituality, consequently does not journey inward in search of an immediate experience of oneness with God.  Instead, through the indwelling Holy Spirit it looks toward Christ and through him to the Father.  Contemplative mysticism is not the path of biblical spirituality; faith-based relationship with the Triune God is.”

The final chapter by Jones is very helpful.  Dr. Jones  invites readers to discern truth from error by setting up an antithesis.  He illustrates by pointing to the apostle Paul who declares an antithesis in 2 Corinthians:

  • “What partnership has righteousness with lawlessness?”
  • “What fellowship has light with darkness?”
  • “What accord has Christ with Belial?”
  • “What portion does a believer share with an unbeliever?”
  • “What agreement has the temple of God with idols?”

Jones adds, “Human thinking is idolatrous or autonomous because it raises itself to the level of ultimate truth, a place only the mind of God can occupy.  As creatures, we see a miniscule piece of the cosmos.  Of God, we see nothing, except what God chooses to reveal.”

Every parent should read this book.  It steers clear from legalism.  It educates and informs.  It encourages cultural engagement.  And it challenges neo-paganism from many angles.  On Global Wizardry is a call for Christ-followers to reclaim lost ground.  It is time for the people of God to affirm and defend the Creator-creature distinction and penetrate a lost world with the saving message of the gospel.

4.5 stars

MANAGING PEOPLE IS LIKE HERDING CATS – Warren Bennis (1999)

Managing People is Like Herding Cats is a book that explores the principles of effective leadership at all levels.  Renowned leadership scholar and USC professor Warren Bennis writes, “Be humble.  Stop trying to ‘herd cats’ and start building trust and mutual respect.  Your ‘cats’ will respond.  They will sense your purpose, keep your business purring, and even kill your rats.”

The book contains three sections.  The first section explains the leadership crisis in America.  The author maintains that true leaders are a rare find today.  Leaders who stand on principle and cast vision are few and far between.  Central to this section is issue of trust.  The primary proposition is that leadership cannot exist in an environment of “non-trust.”  The author insists that leaders are highly focused, able to inspire trust and bring hope to a given organization.  They listen deeply to constituents which builds trust.  “Effective leaders put words to the formless longings and deeply felt needs of others.”  The essence of the first section is that America presently faces a leadership crisis.  Someone must stand in this leadership gap or the decline will continue.

Section two details the qualities of the kind of leader that is needed in this generation.  Bennis makes a sharp distinction between a leader and a manager.  The manager does things right; the leader does the right things.  The manager administers; the leader innovates.  The manager maintains; the leader develops.  The manager relies on control; the leader inspires trust.  The manager accepts the status quo; the leader challenges it.  Bennis maintains that our country needs a new generation of leaders, not managers if we have any hope of surviving.  He discusses four things people look for in a leader including 1) purpose, direction or meaning, 2) trust, 3) a sense of we-can-do-it optimism; and 4) results.  Further, he lists the four competencies of leaders including management of attention (they get everyone on the same page and working together) , management of meaning (they communicate the vision), management of trust and management of self (they are aware of their strengths and nurture them).  Finally, in a broad stroke of the pen, Bennis adds ten vital traits of dynamic leaders.  They include 1) self-knowledge, 2) openness to feedback, 3) eager to learn and improve, 4) curious, risk takers, 5) concentration at work, 6) learn from adversity, 7) balance tradition and change, 8) open style, 9) work well with systems, and 10) serve as models and mentors.

Section three is about change and leadership.  The author discusses how to avoid disaster during change.  Central to the discussion is transforming culture which is a key challenge that every leader faces.  Bennis adds, “Management is getting people to do what needs to be done.  Leadership is getting people to want to do what needs to be done.  Managers push.  Leaders pull.  Managers command.  Leaders communicate.”

Bennis has written a thought-provoking and challenging book.  While he writes from the perspective of a secular business professor, many of the principles can be directly applied to the church.  The distinction between a manager and a leader is very helpful.  His advice should be utilized in today’s over managed and under-led church.  Indeed, a leadership crisis not only exists on a national scale but in the local church as well.

4 stars

GOSPEL TRUTH, PAGAN LIES – Peter Jones (1999)

A few days ago as my family entered a bookstore, my eight year old son shocked and thrilled me when he asked, “Hey Dad, where can I find the Peter Jones books?”  My son is asking the question that scores of Christians should be asking.  Enter Gospel Truth, Pagan Lies by Peter Jones.

It is not trendy.  It never made the New York Times best sellers list.  It is probably not on the shelf of your local Christian book store.  (It wasn’t available at the store I was in). In fact, most people have probably never heard about Gospel Truth, Pagan Lies.  But this is a very important book that needs to be read.

Dr. Jones clearly unfolds the differences between biblical Christianity and paganism and calls Christ-followers to spiritual discernment: “We need to wake up.  Anti-Christian but very spiritual paganism is flooding our land.”  Jones notes, “There are only two kinds of spirituality – Christian or pagan.  The two systems have nothing in common, and are as different as the truth and the lie.  But paganism loves to disguise itself in Christian clothes.”

Jones unpacks the five tenets of monism and contrasts these erroneous components with a Christ-centered and biblically informed worldview.  I am intentionally omitting the specific points in this review in order to lure readers to Jones’ excellent work.

Gospel Truths, Pagan Lies should be required Christian reading.  Parents need to read it for the sake of their children.  Young people need to read it in order to recognize the errors of monism and how these lies have infiltrated their culture.  Jones reminds us, “Paganism is like a downward spiral.  In the vortex at the bottom is Satan and the worship of evil … Biblical theism is like an upward spiral that brings us into the light of God’s presence.”

5 stars

TRUE BIBLICAL SPIRITUALITY

“Mystical techniques and the inward journey have no place in true biblical spirituality.  If there is reality experienced in such things, it is a reality other than that promised in the gospel … Christian spirituality, consequently does not journey inward in search of an immediate experience of oneness with God.  Instead, through the indwelling Holy Spirit it looks toward Christ and through him to the Father.  Contemplative mysticism is not the path of biblical spirituality; faith-based relationship with the Triune God is.”

– Andrew Young, Cited in On Global Wizardry: Techniques of Pagan Spirituality and a Christian Response, Peter Jones, Editor

THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE – John Frame (2008)

The Doctrine of the Christian Life by John Frame is the third installment in his Lordship series.  The preceding work, The Doctrine of God is the most influential book I have read to date, outside the Bible.  Every seminary student and pastor should carefully read The Doctrine of God.  The contents are sure to revolutionize one’s life and ministry.

The Doctrine of the Christian Life is a superb addition to the Lordship series.  Since the book is nearly 1000 pages, this format makes it impossible to review this work in a comprehensive way.  Hopefully, a few highlights will lure some prospective readers in.

Dr. Frame’s book may be considered an extended meditation on ethics.  Frame utilizes his well-known triperspectival framework.  Ethics is viewed through three lenses, namely, the situational (the history of ethics), existential (Christian ethics), and normative (the ethical pattern of the ten commandments).

The author links ethics with divine lordship in keeping with the overall tenor of the series.  The Lordship attributes are control, authority, and presence.  Our God controls and accomplishes all that he intends.  Everything he ordains come to pass. Frame argues, “Control means that God makes everything happen.”

God’s authority is “his right to tell his creatures what they must do … authority means that God has the right to be obeyed, and that therefore we have the obligation to obey him.”  Additionally, “God’s authority is absolute.  That means, first, that we shouldn’t doubt or question it … The absoluteness of God’s authority means that his lordship transcends all our other loyalties … God’s authority covers all areas of human life.”

God’s presence is the profound reality that he promises to be with his people.  Frame adds, “When God takes us to be his people, he fights our battles, blesses us, loves us, and sometimes gives us special judgments because of our sins.”

These lordship attributes govern the ethical life of a Christ-follower:

  • “By his control, God plans and rules nature and history, so that certain human acts are conducive to his glory and others are not.”
  • “By his authority, he speaks to us clearly, telling us what norms govern our behavior.”
  • “By his covenant presence he commits himself to be with us in our ethical walk, blessing our obedience and punishing our disobedience.”

Dr. Frame adds, “Three lordship attributes, three mandatory responses: faith, obedience, worship.  These responses are the foundation of our ethical life.  Faith corresponds to control, obedience to authority, and worship to presence.”

In part two, the author reviews non-Christian ethical frameworks.  Perhaps most helpful is the section describing how unregenerate people are both rational and irrational at the same time.  Arguing with Cornelius Van Til, the author writes, “They [unconverted people] claim that their own reason has ultimate authority (rationalism), but they acknowledge nothing that will connect human reason with objective truth (irrationalism).”

Part three summarizes Christian ethical methodology in a very comprehensive fashion.  Dr. Frame utilizes the normative, situational,  and existential perspectives to drive home the basis for Christian ethics.

Part four is an excellent summary of the ten commandments that readers should turn to again and again for fresh perspective on the decalogue.  Perhaps most helpful here is the assertion that “grace precedes and motivates works.”

Part five is a section on Christ and Culture.  The author defines culture and answers the question, “What role (if any) should a Christian have in culture?”  Dr. Frame’s answers are illuminating and motivating.  His answers are worth the price of the book in my estimation.

Finally, Dr. Frame ends on a practical note.  Part six focuses on personal spiritual maturity and includes a helpful section on progressive sanctification.

The Doctrine of the Christian Life is not for the faint at heart.  But it is highly recommended.  I will utilize this resource for many years to come.  And I can’t wait for the final installment of the Lordship series, The Doctrine of the Word of God.

5 stars

WHAT IS SPIRITUAL WARFARE?

Do a quick search on any online bookseller or browse the shelves at a large bookstore and you will undoubtedly be confronted with a plethora of books on spiritual warfare.  Unfortunately, many of the popular books being published on this subject are unhelpful at best and unbiblical at worst.

What is Spiritual Warfare? by Stanley D. Gale rises above the ridiculous and introduces readers to a basic biblical framework for understanding spiritual warfare.  Gale rightly acknowledged the existence of an unseen realm by making an appeal to the Nicene Creed.

The author introduces our archenemy, the devil and makes it clear that he appeals to “remaining sin in our flesh through the trappings of a falling world.  His battle rages for our mind, heart, and will, and the frontlines of spiritual battle.”  The enemy  seeks to deceive, tempt, and accuse believers.  Gale’s treatment of Satan’s goals and objectives is noteworthy.  Unlike many works on spiritual warfare, Stanley Gale refuses to give Satan center stage.

Significantly, Jesus Christ receives center stage in this short treatment  on spiritual warfare.  The author focuses on the promise of a Redeemer in Genesis 3:15 and unpacks his unique mission, namely, to “destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8).  The author walks the reader through redemptive history and showcases the role that Christ plays as our prophet, priest, and king.

Gale turns the attention of the reader to the battle plan.  The essence of that plan is the pursuit of holiness.  Believers pursue holiness by practicing progressive sanctification and keeping in step with the Spirit.  Gale clearly sets forth the position of every believer.  We must stand.  We must not stand by in a passive fashion.  Rather, we choose to abide in Christ and claim his promises in the heat of battle.  The author adds, “Much of spiritual warfare simply involves living out that gospel of the kingdom against the efforts of our enemy the devil, with the goal of growing in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ.”

The author continues by unpacking the spiritual weaponry of every believer.  We have revealed truth.  “Spiritual warfare involves not being taken captive by the teachings of this world or distortions of God’s Word but instead taking captive every thought to the obedience of our Lord Jesus.”  Therefore, we must live in obedience to God’s Word and the lordship of Christ.

The second spiritual weapon is prayer.  Prayer expresses our allegiance to the king and his kingdom.  The author writes, “Prayer is a staple of spiritual warfare to enable us to abide in Christ, that we might stand firm and be strong and lay siege.”

The third spiritual weapon is covenant community.  We are not left alone to fend for ourselves.  Rather, we stand arm to arm with the people of God.  We purpose to obey the king and glorify our great God in heaven.

Stanley Gale has written an extremely helpful booklet.  Again, the focus is never on Satan.  The supreme focus is on Christ and his redemptive work on the cross for sinners.  Gale’s work would be of value in a small group setting or personal discipleship.

4.5 stars

WHAT IS VOCATION? – Stephen J. Nichols

What is Vocation? This question is rarely asked anymore and Stephen J. Nichols laments this reality in the latest installment of the Basics of the Faith Series by Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing.

Nichols begins by alerting readers to the definition of vocation: “The English word vocation comes from the Latin word vocatio or, in the verb form, vocare.  Its root means “calling.”  Early in church history most applied the word in an exclusive sense which was confined to church work.  Others in medieval culture simply worked.

Luther gave new meaning to the idea of vocation and held that each person should embrace his or her calling – all to the glory of God (soli deo gloria).  Nichols adds, “All work – all types of work, not just work done in the service of the church – was a calling.”

Nichols points out that some evangelicals are still stuck in medieval culture by insisting that the idea of “calling” is limited exclusively to church, a trend that needs to be reversed if we are to embrace the biblical notion of vocation.

The next section includes a helpful discussion that develops a biblical and theological framework for work.  The story begins in the garden where we come face to face with what theologians refer to as the cultural mandate (Gen. 1:26-28).  Here we are called to have dominion over and subdue the earth.

The fall distorts the original intention in the creation mandate and the promised seed (protoevangelium) emerges in Genesis 3:15 where Christ “undoes what Adam did and reunites us to God and brings in the kingdom, the consummation of which is portrayed in Revelation 22:1-5.”

Nichols takes a clear position on the whole idea of vocation as defined by the biblical plot line: “The biblical story line of creation, fall, and redemption – is the theological framework in which we begin to understand our purpose in life.  It is also the context through which we understand work as vocation.  Without it, work is just work – just putting in time.”

The author includes a helpful section concerning rest which is the final component in the theological framework for the biblical idea of work or vocation.  God presents the proper pattern of work and rest and he works for six days to create the universe and rests on the seventh.  “We need to pay attention,” Nichols writes, “to the boundaries that God has ordained for us.  We need to be attuned to the healthy rhythms of work and rest.”

Nichols discusses “how not to work” versus “how to work.”  In a discussion on Ephesians 6:5-9, he writes, “We are to render ‘service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man’ (v. 7).  This relates directly to calling.  When work  is understood as a calling, it is understood as a calling from  God.  He is ultimately the One we work for.”

The author has done a fine job explaining vocation from a biblical perspective.  He alerts the reader to the importance of doing everything to the glory of God.  Highly recommended!

5 stars