N. T. Wright
"Bestselling author and leading Bible scholar N. T. Wright breaks down the barriers that prevent us from fully engaging with the story of Jesus in the Bible. By appreciating the historical complexity of reading a 2,000-year-old story and the distorting effect of two millennia of debate over these stories, Wright reveals a breathtaking vision of Jesus that more than matches the needs and complexities of our time."
Wright does a great job of helping the reader understand the historical context of what Jesus did and said, but I spent the whole book holding Wright's words at arm's length. You see, early on, he would put affirmations of Jesus' identity as Son of God and Messiah in quotation marks...as if he had a different definition for those terms. And I practically held my breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop and for him to clearly state an opinion on Jesus' deity/humanity...but that clarity never came; or else I missed it because of how long it took me to get through the book in spurts and sputters. I certainly think having the word "simply" in the title is misleading.
56/5: He took upon himself (this is one of the most secure starting points for historical investigation of Jesus) the role of a prophet, in other words, of a man sent from God to reaffirm God's intention of overthrowing the might of [the] pagan empire, but also to warn Israel that its present way of going about things was dangerously ill-conceived and leading to disaster.
Philip Gulley
"We are transported to 1970's Danville, Indiana, the everyone-knows-your-business town where Philip Gulley still lives today, to witness the uproarious stories of his young life, including an infatuation with his comely sixth-grade teacher, his dalliance with sin - eating meat on Friday and inappropriate activities with a mannequin named Ginger - and his checkered start with organized religion: 'Sister Mary John had shown us a flannel graph of the apostles receiving the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. They looked quite happy except that their hair was on fire.... I was suspicious of a religion whose high point was the igniting of one's head, and my enthusiasm for church, which had never been great, began to fade'."
Gulley was recommended to me by a friend, and I am truly grateful. He is funny, clean, and writes in short chapters...a perfect combination. This book held particular interest for me because I grew up in the Northeast corner of Indiana, just four years ahead of the author, and there were a truckload of similarities. I'm looking forward to borrowing the rest of his works - both memoirs and light fiction - from the library...you'll be seeing more from me about his guy.
56/5: Then we noticed it smelled nice, so we put it in glass bottles and sold it as aftershave.
Max Lucado
"In more than thirty years - as an author, pastor, husband, and father - Max Lucado has fielded a lot of questions. Questions born of doubt and pain or just plain curiosity. Big questions about life and faith, heaven and hell. Closer to home dilemmas about sex, managing money, or raising kids. This book gathers Max's responses to the most-often-asked questions. They're vintage Lucado. Simple without being simplistic. Knowledgeable without being know-it-all. Direct but compassionate, honest, and authoritative..."
This was a perfect book for my reading style: one- or two-page answers that stand on their own so I could pick up the book on my way to the restroom or while waiting for my popcorn to pop. But I must admit, while the questions rang true and were able to be related to, the answers were sometimes more poetic than practical. Lucado's chief role as a local pastor really came through, to the point of sometimes taking too much for granted. For example, I don't think any of my atheist friends would get much from his seven-paragraph answer to "How can we know God truly exists?" But for people of faith, with a predisposition for believing the Bible, this is a good resource for some clear ways to think about some real-life issues.
56/5: When you can't sleep, don't count sheep - read Scripture.
