What's In Our Library? #2

Good & Angry: Redeeming Angry, Irritation, Complaining and Bitterness by David Powlison

For this review of Good and Angry, I will quote for you the entirety of chapter two, titled “Do You Have a Serious Problem with Anger?” Here is the entire text, unabridged and unedited:

“Yes.”

End of chapter. If you read the rest of the book, you'll find out why you have a serious problem with anger.

This book offers two unique contributions to the discussion about anger. First, it helps define anger with greater clarity. Anger, Powlison writes, is “at its core very simple. It expresses, ‘I’m against that.’ … [It is] active displeasure toward something that’s important enough to care about” (p. 39). The second contribution is that it unpacks the implications of this definition with regard to our often skewed and selfish preferences that motivate our anger, and then it shows us the righteous anger of God.

As he unpacks the problem of anger, Powlison pulls no punches: “This book will prove to be about your anger” (p. 3). His aim is clear. This book was not written so you would gain authoritative knowledge about the subject of anger but to help you deal with your anger. If you read with a humble heart and a willingness to learn, you will understand that your bitterness, complaining, cold-shouldering, and outbursts all stem from a heart not satisfied with God as King. Anger rebels against a belief in God’s governance and God’s goodness.

This perspective (that God is King and God is good) is the strength of the book. Powlison writes with tenderness, wit, and great insight into the human condition. But he is not willing to cower from the truth of God’s word in the face of prevailing cultural ideas about anger. So when the truth about anger is addressed, he does so with an unwavering commitment to what God says about anger.

If you pick up this book, be prepared to address some of the most probing questions and concepts that get at the core of your sinful anger. At the same time, be ready to be refreshed with the redeeming mercy of God, who is not content to leave us untouched by his goodness.

Thoughts for Young Men by J.C. Ryle

J. C. Ryle published this address for young men in 1888, but do not be mistaken: the wisdom in this book is so pure and biblically saturated that you do not need to be a young man to benefit from it. When I was halfway through reading this short, 75-page book, I commented to my wife, “I don’t know what is in the rest of the book, but I know it’s going to be good, because every page so far has been good.” J.C. Ryle identifies your heart’s sluggardly, sin-disposed, world-following condition with the precision of a world-class cardiologist and calls you to follow Christ with the passion of a zealous pastor. To illustrate this to you, I opened the book at random and found this morsel of wisdom on the page in front of me:

“Young men, be not deceived. Think not you can, at will, serve lusts and pleasures in your beginning, and then go and serve God with ease at your latter end.… O daresay you are reckoning on late repentance. You know not what you are doing. You are reckoning without God. Repentance and faith are the gifts of God, and gifts that he often withholds, when they have been long offered in vain. I grant you true repentance is never too late, but I warn you at the same time, late repentance is seldom true. I grant you; one penitent thief was converted in his last hours, the no man might despair; but I warn you, only one was converted, that no man might presume.”

Though it was written in the 1800s, time has stolen none of its thunder. Ryle’s heart beats for young men he knows are capable of pursuing Christ despite the low expectations the world has for them. With godly wisdom, Ryle exhorts teenagers and young adults to cast aside the dangers of their hearts, the world, and the devil by seeking Christ and living for him. Young men needed these exhortations then, and they need them today. Whether you are young or old, if you would like to be encouraged to live a godly life by one of the 19^th century’s most important pastors, pick up this book, read it slowly and read it prayerfully, and then pass it on.

This book may not be for everybody because of its daunting size. But whether you're a scholar and big book-reader or not, we all have the calling to be faithful to God's word, and this book can be a resource that may aid you in that endeavor.

Read This First by Gary Millar

Read This First: A Simple Guide to Getting to Most from the Bible, by Gary Millar, is a helpful, concise, easy-to-read introduction on how to read your Bible. Millar “aims to help people who would like to read the Bible but don’t really know where to start or how to go about it” (p. 8). This book is designed for believers who feel a bit lost when they open their Bible or who have an interest in reading the Bible but are put off by its size, age, or religious language. If you struggle to understand the Bible, or if you know an unbeliever who may be interested in reading the Bible but is intimidated by the task, this book would be worth picking up.

Through his seven brief chapters, Millar helps his readers overcome their fears of reading the Bible, gives good reasons to read it, and walks through a straightforward starter methodology to rightly understand what you read. He operates under the assumption that “the Bible was written to be understood by ordinary people like us” (p. 26). We should come to the Bible expecting to understand, but we need a couple of pointers in the right direction to rightly understand it. While acknowledging some things in the Scriptures are difficult to understand, he helps to relieve our fears and steer us right when he states, “the single most helpful principle for reading the Bible I know: the main things are the plain things, and the plain things are the main things” (p. 60).

Millar’s advocacy for reading the Bible is rooted in a right perspective of the excellency of the Bible. The author is unabashed in his declaration that the Bible is God’s Word to us. He writes, “I think you should read the Bible because it’s unlike any other book you will ever see or handle; when you read the Bible, you read the words of God” (p. 13). Because the Bible’s words are God’s words, we do not have the liberty to make them mean what we want. Rather, “the Bible means what God meant it to mean” (p. 68). He adds, “The purpose of reading the Bible is ultimately to hear God speak to us…. The most important question we can ask ourselves after reading the Bible is ‘What is God saying to me through this?’” If you want to hear God speak, open your Bible, read, and understand what you read. If you need help with that, do what this book tells you: Read This First, and you will be glad for the help.

Grasping God's Word by J. Scott Duvall and J. Daniel Hays

This book is big. It looks like a textbook because it is a textbook. Grasping God's Word: A Hands-On Approach to Reading, Interpreting, and Applying the Bible, by J. Scott Duvall and J. Daniel Hays, is for the Bible student—either the kind who has to turn in homework for a professor or the kind who studies the Bible not to get a grade but to get to know God. This book is designed to help anyone serious about studying the Bible learn how to rightly interpret God's Word.

A book like this is necessary because God takes his word seriously and expects his people to understand what he has spoken. Bad interpretations of Scripture can lead to misunderstanding God, his gospel, his Son, or his people. We must therefore be diligent to rightly approach God's word. This book will help you do that.

Scott and Hays lead the student through some of the elementary principles for how to study the Bible properly. They cover topics such as context (how the passage you read fits in with what surrounds it), word studies (how to rightly understand what a word means in the Bible), how to cross the cultural bridge from the world of the Bible to our world, how to understand different genres in the Bible (law, poetry, prophecy, gospels, epistles, etc.).

Despite the size and scope of the book, the authors keep the material engaging with lively illustrations that bring clarity to their interpretive principles. Consider this example from a chapter on context where a young man seeks to determine whether he should propose marriage to his girlfriend. He comes across John 13:27 and considers it to apply to his situation: "What you are about to do, do quickly." He is now convinced he should get married. But this young man misses the point that Jesus was speaking to Judas about his betrayal! Scott and Hays remark, "Every violation of context is a dangerous matter. By honoring the context of Scripture, we are saying that we would rather hear what God has to say than put words in his mouth" (p. 150).