Missional-Life

My desk often looks a little untidy! I’m a multiple pile type of guy. Today as I was sat doing some work I looked around at the current piles on my desk and thought that they sum up much of what I’m thinking and working on at the moment:

Pile 1

Man Overboard! (Sinclair Ferguson)

The Message of Jonah (Rosemary Nixon

Jonah (RT Kendall) personalised with a full cup of coffee by my good friend Rob T

Jonah (John Calvin)

Pile 2

Christ and Culture Revisited (Don Carson

The Reason for God (Timothy Keller)

Counterfeit Gods (Timothy Keller)

Pile 3

Gracism (David Anderson)

Letters Across the Divide (David Anderson & Brent Zuercher)

Grace for Muslims? (Steve Bell)

Pile 4

The Deliberate Church (Dever & Alexander)

Leading with questions (Marquardt)

Pile 5

Vintage Church (Mark Driscoll)

Church Planting (Timothy Keller)

The Mission of God (Christopher Wright)

Pile 6

Don’t waste you life (John Piper)

On Monday I’m on holiday for 2 weeks. Below is the stock of book that I’m taking with me to plough through.

How Long, O Lord? Reflections on suffering and evil (D. A. Carson)

Shepherds After My Own Heart. Pastoral traditions and leadership in the Bible (Timothy S. Laniak)

Biblical Eldership. An urgent call to restore biblical church eldership (Alexander Strauch)

Planting Churches Changing Communities (David Stroud) – NEW

Preaching to a Post-Everything World. Crafting biblical sermons that connect with our culture (Zack Eswine)

How to Read a Book. the classic guide to intelligent reading (Mortimer J. Adler & Charles Van Doren)

Suffering and the Sovereignty of God (John Piper & Justin Taylor)

The Week. The best of British and Foreign Media (for a bit of light reading)

THE DIFFICULT DOCTRINE OF THE LOVE OF GOD

With only 103 pages this book at first glance looks lightweight. Do not be deceived! This book deals with some mammoth theological challenges!

D. A Carson opens the book by saying…

“On learning the title of this series, ‘the difficult doctrine of the love of God’, you might well be forgiven for thinking that the 1998 W. H. Griffith Thomas lecturer has taken leave of his senses. If he had chosen to speak on ‘The difficult doctrine of the Trinity, or ‘The difficult doctrine of predestination’, at least hi title would have been coherent. But isn’t the doctrine of the love of God, well, easy compared with such high-flown and mysterious teachings?”(p9)

Carson goes on and shows how the love of God is at the very centre of some monumental and humungous theological challenges. He also demonstrates so clearly that to have a deficient theological framework for understanding the love of God will inevitably lead to a domino effect of distortion on other massive theological issues such as the sovereignty of God and a right understanding of the wrath of God.

There are four chapters in the book:

1. On distorting the love of God
2. God is love
3. God’s love and God’s sovereignty
4. God’s love and God’s wrath

This book is short but every page is a sirloin steak of theological brilliance!

Please visit my amazon site to purchase a copy… buy now