Ah, summer sabbatical–more time to breathe and more time to read.
1. Perspectives on the Sabbath: Four Views, edited by Christopher John Donato (B&H Academic, 2011). A great overview of four major positions on the Sabbath: the seventh-day view (Skip MacCarty), the Christian Sabbath view (Joseph Pipa), the Lutheran view (Charles Arand), and the Fulfillment view (Craig Blomberg). The tone is charitable and all four contributions are thoughtful and articulate. On the downside, at 420 pages the book was too long. The Lutheran view was not much different than the Fulfillment view, except that Arand made his argument from Luther and the Lutheran confessions. I would have liked to see the book at least 100 pages shorter. The responses could have been edited and the final remarks (surrenjoinders) went much too long (20 pages in some cases). This made for a lot repetition. But still a very useful book.
2. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans: Exposition of Chapter 6, The New Man (Banner of Truth, 1972). Lloyd-Jones was a great preacher and this volume retains the feel and form of his sermons, a series of expositions he gave on Friday nights to a packed house in London. I found MLJ particularly insightful on union with Christ and the theology of the old man/new man (which he sees as a position changed more than a nature replaced). You don’t have to agree with every exegetical point or imitate his methodical preaching pace to find the Doctor invariably worth reading. This book is a good reference, an example of good preaching, and a means for spiritual growth.
3. John Owen, Communion With the Triune God, edited by Kelly Kapic and Justin Taylor (Crossway, 2007 [1657]). I tried reading this a couple years ago in the Banner of Truth edition. This new version by Crossway is much improved. The type is easy to read, archaic spellings have been updated, Latin phrases have been translated, paragraphs have been broken up, and headings added. Best of all, there is a 33-page outline at the beginning of the book which summarizes Owen’s complex argument and will help the reader stay on track. This is a well-deserved classic, but not for the faint of heart. I skimmed parts and slowed down over the most interesting sections (which meant the stuff on sanctification for me). Kelly Kapic’s introduction is also superb.
4. Walter Marshall, The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification: Growing in Holiness by Living in Union with Christ (Wipf and Stock, 2005 [1692]). Marshall wrote to combat the error that says even though we have been justified by a righteousness produced totally by Christ, we must be sanctified by a holiness totally produced by ourselves. This is certainly an error and Marshall writes forcefully (and repetitively) against it. His emphasis on union with Christ and faith in the process of sanctification is admirable. But at times it almost sounded like holiness would come automatically once we really believed enough. The irony is that in wanting to ground our assurance in nothing but faith, you can end up wondering whether you really have good enough faith to be saved.
5. James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales, Those Guys Have all the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN (Little, Brown and Company, 2011). I confess I had a hard time putting this big book down (over 750 pages!). I use the word “confess” on purpose, because I’m still not sure I should have read the whole thing. There were gratuitous profanities on every page and stories of sexual sin in every chapter. The sins were not described in a lurid way, but neither was their any real redemption for most of the persons involved. This is a coarse book about coarse people. Which is a shame, because the story of ESPN–the personalities, the risks, the triumphs, the failures, the sporting moments–is fascinating all by itself.
I grew up watching Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann do their thing (better than anyone before or since) on SportsCenter. I’ve logged hundreds of hours in front of ESPN so almost everything here was relentlessly interesting. But the book felt like a cheap way to make a buck. It read like a bunch of adults prompted to tattle on each other (which is saying something because most of these folks seem to assume that everyone on the planet gets smashed, sleeps around, and drops f-bombs every other sentence).
To make matter worse, the book isn’t actually a book. It’s a collection of transcribed interviews with very minimal explanation in between. There’s little effort to put the story of ESPN into a cohesive narrative, little effort to sort through what is true in everyone’s opinions, little to do more than let the famous people from ESPN tell stories. The worst page turner I’ve ever read.
