God’s Big Picture (a brief review)

What ties the various (and seemingly disparate) writings of Scripture together into a cohesive whole called the Bible? A couple of things:

1. Christians see God as the ultimate author. The scriptures are “God-breathed.”
2. Despite the wide range of material that the Bible covers, it has one supreme subject: Jesus Christ.

Beyond these observations, though, is there any particular theme that unifies the various parts of the Bible?

Some scholars have concluded that there are many separate strands running through the pages of the Bible, but warn against trying to force everything into one specific mold.

Vaughan Roberts, following Graeme Goldsworthy, argues instead that there is such a unifying concept: the kingdom of God. If we define the kingdom of God broadly as “God’s people in God’s place under God’s rule and blessing,” we can spot this concept without much difficulty throughout the Bible.

Roberts explains what the kingdom of God has looked like throughout the years of biblically recorded history. He begins with the Garden of Eden, and ends with the new heavens and new earth. By the end of the book, he has covered every major stage in between:

	God’s people	God’s place	God’s rule and blessing
The pattern of the kingdom	Adam and Eve	The garden	God’s word; perfect relationships
The perished kingdom	No-one	Banished	Disobedience and curse
The promised kingdom	Abraham’s descendants	Canaan	Blessing to Israel and the nations
The partial kingdom	The Israelites	Canaan (and Jerusalem and temple)	The law and the king
The prophesied kingdom	Remnant of Israel; inclusion of nations	New temple; new creation	New covenant; new king; great blessing
The present kingdom	Jesus Christ: new Adam; new Israel	Jesus Christ: true tabernacle; true temple	Jesus Christ: new covenant; rest
The proclaimed kingdom	The new Israel: Jew and Gentile believers in Christ	The individual believer; the church	New covenant; Holy Spirit
The perfected kingdom	Multi-national family of God	New creation, new Jerusalem, new temple	Throne of God and the Lamb; perfect blessing

I’ll admit that I was a bit skeptical at first of Roberts’ unifying theme. Forcing onto Scripture a structure that isn’t there struck me as unhelpful and unnecessary. But as I read his book, I realized that Roberts wasn’t really forcing his structure onto the Bible. The divisions do really seem to be there.

What we call the divisions is another matter. There are a couple of instances where I think Roberts sacrifices a bit of preciseness for memorability. That is, instead of using the most descriptive word for a heading, he opts for more memorable (i.e., alliterated) word.

I have no problem recommending this book. It seems to be well researched. It’s easy to follow. And it provides a good mental map of how the Scriptures tie together.

Tactics (a brief review)

In his book Tactics, Gregory Koukl unpacks several conversational guidelines designed to help his readers become diplomatic ambassadors.

The “modest goal” that Koukl aims for in his own conversations is this:

All I want to do is put a stone in someone’s shoe. I want to give him something worth thinking about, something he can’t ignore because it continues to poke at him in a good way.

One effective, low-risk way of “putting a stone in someone’s shoe” is by asking questions rather than making statements. When you ask questions, you don’t need to defend a position (you haven’t presented one). Further, your questions may cause the other person to examine his own position more thoroughly.

A couple of great questions you can use are:

• “What do you mean by that?”
  Ask this when you are trying to better understand what another person believes.
• “How did you come to that conclusion?”
  Ask this in order to find out why a person believes something.

Koukl spends about half of the book identifying and explaining various types of faulty reasoning. He gives these flaws names such as:

• Formal suicide — views that are internally contradictory and that self-destruct.
  Example: “There are no absolutes.” (Is this an absolute?)
• Practical suicide  — you can hold a view, but you can’t promote it.
  Example: “It’s wrong to say people are wrong.”
• Sibling rivalry and infanticide

Friendly, intelligent, respectful, and engaging throughout, Tactics offers something that few other apologetic books do: maneuvers that are specific enough to help you navigate purposefully through conversations, yet flexible enough to keep you from sounding like a parrot.

One minor criticism…

I can only guess why this may have happened, but the cover of the book clearly depicts elements from the game of chess — a chessboard, and in place of the letter “i” in the title, the silhouette of a pawn. Yet on pp. 26-27, Koukl explains the tactical method this way:

The tactical approach requires as much careful listening as thoughtful response. You have to be alert and pay attention so you can adapt to new information. This method resembles one-on-one basketball more than a game of chess. There are plans being played out, but there is constant motion and adjustment.

Manhunt (a brief review)

Inspired by Justin Taylor’s positive review of the book, I decided to give it a go.

What I learned was that you don’t need to be a Civil War buff (or even a history buff) to enjoy Manhunt. James Swanson’s ability to tell a riveting story will pull you through this 496-page historical account of President Lincoln’s assassination and the ensuing hunt for Lincoln’s killer. All you need to do is hang on.

Caution: minor spoilers ahead

I had not realized that the plot to kill Lincoln was part of a larger scheme to eliminate two other high-ranking government officials. Nor had I realized how close the plan came to succeeding.

Further, I was surprised by John Wilkes Booth’s ability to evade the authorities for nearly two weeks. If he had not made a few crucial missteps, who knows how long the manhunt may have lasted.

5 things I like about playing basketball

1. Trying to shoot the ball consistently and accurately
2. Feeling the size, shape, and texture of a good quality basketball
3. Being the lone defender on a 2 on 1 breakaway
4. Playing with other competitive guys who value fun and exercise over winning
5. Watching 3-point shooters when they are on their game

5 things I like about Governor Tim Pawlenty

Minnesota’s governor, Tim Pawlenty, spoke for about an hour this morning at Medtronic. I’ve had a chance to hear him personally three times now. (I believe that’s three times more than I’ve heard all of Minnesota’s other governors combined!) My impressions are that Governor Pawlenty is:

1. A sharp thinker
2. Articulate
3. Energetic
4. Friendly
5. Humble

5 things I like about D.A. Carson

1. He is credible. He has clearly done his scholarly homework.
2. He chooses his words carefully.
3. He captivates his audience.
4. Both his vocabulary and the way he carries himself have something British about them — dignified without being pompous.
5. He maintains the major themes of the Bible, even while focusing on the details.

Geekspeak (a brief review)

If you’ve ever needed inspiration on how to estimate better, let Dr. Graham Tattersall be your guide. Using a couple dozen intriguingly odd examples, Dr. Tattersall talks you through a logical process for coming up with in-the-ball-park solutions.

For example, without using much outside reference help, you can learn the approximate answers to questions like these:

• Are you as powerful as a washing machine?
• How heavy is your house?
• How many piano tuners are there in Boston?
• How long would it take to send your body to Mars?
• How much land is needed to bury the dead each year?
• Is a storm more powerful than an atomic bomb?
• How many flies would it take to pull a car?
• How much does the moon weigh?

 

Geekspeak is a fun, stimulating intro into the (somewhat) practical side of geeky math.

Made to Stick (a brief review)

Why are certain urban legends memorable while most (even important) business communications are not? What is it exactly that makes something “stick” in our brain?

Dan Heath and Chip Heath explore these and similar questions in their book, Making Ideas Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. They explain six priciples that increase the liklihood of a message being heard and remembered.

• S — Simple: Find the core of your message and compact it into a proverb-like saying.
• U — Unexpected: Get audience attention by surprise, and hold their interest by creating a mystery.
• C — Concrete: Help people remember by making abstractions concrete. 
• C — Credible: Help people believe by using convincing details, accessible statistics, and testable credentials. 
• E — Emotional: Make people care. 
• S — Stories: Use stories as simulation and inspiration. 

The Heath brothers relate these principles using the principles. The book is filled with dozens of simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, emotional stories. I found the book to be both an informative and enjoyable read.

5 reasons why I like working at Medtronic

1. Working with so many smart people helps keep my pride in check.
2. Getting paid during vacations and holidays beats the alternative.
3. Being incented to live a healthy lifestyle reinforces common sense.
4. Moving to different locations every year adds variety to my work day.
5. Being part of an organization whose goal is to help people live longer, more enjoyable lives gives meaning to my work.

The Reason for God (a brief review)

The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism is Timothy Kellor’s recent work that addresses several of the common doubts and reservations that people (including Christians, at times) have regarding God and Christianity.

It is a culturally-aware, contemporary explanation of Christianity that doesn’t condescend, but respectfully analyzes and instructs. The book is divided into two parts: The Leap of Doubt, and The Reasons for Faith.

The Leap of Doubt 

Since all doubts are actually a set of alternate beliefs,  honest skeptics must “learn to look for a type of faith hidden within their reasoning.” Keller explains:

“You cannot doubt Belief A except from a position of faith in Belief B. For example, if you doubt Christianity because ‘There can’t be just one true religion,’ you must recognize that this statement is itself an act of faith.”

The specific doubts that Kellor examines are: 

• “There can’t be just one true religion.”
• “How could a good God allow suffering?”
• “Christianity is a straightjacket.”
• “The church is responsible for so much injustice.”
• “How can a loving God send people to Hell?”
• “Science has disproved Christianity.”
• “You can’t take the Bible literally.”

The Reasons for Faith 

In the second half of the book, Kellor presents a positive case for how Christianity makes the best sense of the world around us. Rather than talking about “irrefutable proofs” for the existence of God, he instead offers “strong clues”—a sign to me that he understands his audience. After considering “the knowledge of God,” “the problem of sin,” “the (true) story of the cross,” and “the reality of the resurrection,” he concludes by describing what he calls “the dance of God.”

“God did not create us to get the cosmic, infinite joy of mutual love and glorification, but to share it. We were made to join in the dance. If we will center our lives on him, serving him not out of self-interest, but just for the sake of who he is, for the sake of his beauty and glory, we will enter the dance and share in the joy and love he lives in. We were designed, then, not just for belief in God in some general way, nor for a vague kind of inspiration or spirituality. We were made to center our lives upon him, to make the purpose and passion of our lives knowing, serving, delighting, and resembling him. This growth in happiness will go on eternally, increasing unimaginably (1 Cor. 2:7–10).”

A note about the title of the book

Had I not already been familiar with Tim Keller’s theology, I suspect the title — The Reason for God — would have alienated me. I would have supposed that the book was an attempt to explain the reason why God exists (as if God needed a reason to exist, and as if humans could decipher the alleged reason). However, since I knew this is the type of interpretation that Keller did not intend, I was intrigued. I knew what the phrase didn’t mean, but I didn’t know what it did mean. After mulling it over, I have concluded that Keller means one of two (or both) things:

1. The Reason (that is, the reasoning faculties) for God (that is, in the service of God). Another way of putting might be: The Mind for God.
2. The Reason(s) for God — “strong clues” for believing in the existence of God