The Berenstain Bears Visit the Dentist

I just finished reading the book tonight with Grandma. It is all about sister bear who has a loose tooth. They go to the dentist for Brother Bear and for Sister Bear. Brother bear says that the Dr. Bearson will yank out sister's tooth but he really just pulls it off very softly. After Dr. Bearson pulls out sister's tooth, she puts it under her pillow. She goes to sleep that night. The next morning, she finds a dime under her pillow. She whispers down to Brother Bear and he just says ok and goes back to sleep. Then she runs into Mama and Papa's room and tells them.

I think my cousins would like this book and should read it.

Posted by Patience

The Tartan Pimpernel

Title: The Tartan Pimpernel
Author: Donald Caskie
Publisher: Birlinn
Number of pages: 271
Purchased: Gift from Dad and Mom
Recommended by: Iain Murray used an illustration from this book in a message.
Begun: 6-10-09
Finished: 7-8-09
Rating: ***

Review: Donald Caskie was the minister of the Scots Kirk (Scottish Presbyterian) in Paris at the time of the German invasion of France in 1940. This autobiography recounts his war-time experiences in the country of France. He walked from Paris to Tours with thousands of other refugees, diving into ditches whenever the German and Italian aircraft roared overhead spitting indiscriminate death all around him. In Tours he purchased a bike and rode to Bordeaux. From Bordeaux he was given a ride to Bayonne where the British offered him a ride on the last ship out of France. He refused, giving his place to a wounded soldier.

Caskie made his way to Marseilles where he took over the abandoned “British and American Seamen’s Mission.” From that base he helped 2,000 British soldiers escape from occupied France (2/3 of the total number that escaped).

The story is fascinating and sheds a lot of light on the human ingenuity that can be exercised in times of crisis. As Caskie observes, war brings out the best and worst in man, and both are seen in this book.

There are several remarkable stories of Providential control. In one prison (in Nice, France) Caskie engraved a portion of Scripture into the plaster wall. Later in another prison (in Italy) after being kept in isolation for about a month, another prisoner was thrown into his cell. This new comrade shared with Caskie that while imprisoned in Nice, he was about to commit suicide when reading a portion of Scripture engraved on the wall changed his mind.

Another remarkable intervention of Providence is seen in the way Caskie’s life was spared. He was condemned to death by a Nazi court in Paris and was awaiting execution when a German Lutheran pastor serving as chaplain to the Nazi troops, visited him in his cell. They shared communion together in the cell, and the German pastor told him: “There are opposing camps and God has placed us, one in each, but the link that binds us, my dear friend, is closer than the tie my nation has on me or yours on you. The cross indeed is the symbol of our common faith.” Some time following this meeting, that same pastor put a plea into Berlin that resulted in Caskie’s death penalty being removed.

I found this account of sacrificial risk more thrilling than any adventure story.

The Fight of Faith

Title: D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The Fight of Faith, 1939-1981

Author: Iain H. Murray
Publisher: Banner of Truth
Number of pages: 809
Purchased: May, 2005, $20 (BOT American headquarters)
Begun: 1-6-2009
Finished: 5-16-2009
Rating: ****


Review: The Fight of Faith is the second in a two-volume biography of Martyn Lloyd-Jones. I read the first volume, which was only half the length, last year . This one, to be sure, is truly a behemoth in size. However, I found the many hours I spent between its bindings (remember, I am a slow reader) to be not only profitable but genuinely enjoyable. The second volume picks up with ML-J’s pastorate in London (he had previously pastored in his native Wales). These were the war years and London felt the worst that the Hitler’s war birds could produce. (For 57 nights in succession, an average of 200 German bombers were over London every night.) ML-J originally came to Westminster Chapel as an assistant to G. Cambell Morgan. Morgan was not a Calvinist like his assistant, but in the words of ML-J at Morgan’s memorial service:

“We differed theologically, but we never discussed that; we believed in the same final authority of this Book. If one of us was a little bit Calvinistic in his preaching, the other was always Calvinistic in his praying! So we never quarreled at all, and we just said nothing more about it.”

The book details ML-J’s efforts to transform Westminster from a “preaching station” into a church family--something that remained a continual challenge in such a large, transitory city. It also explains his great influence in Britain and the English-speaking world beyond. I found the discussion of Lloyd-Jones’ battle with the rising ecuminism of his day to be extremely helpful and relevant even to issues today. His concerns were doctrinal to the core , and he was willing to stand alone in his defense of truth. However, he never saw himself as the crusader of a certain “party” or group and longed for the unity of all true Gospel believers. I would highly recommend this book, especially to Gospel ministers.

Descartes' Bones

Title: Descartes’ Bones

Author: Russell Shorto
Publisher: DOUBLEDAY
Number of pages: 257
Purchased: 12/2008
Begun: 12/20/2008
Finished: 6/6/2009 Rating: ***


Review: This book, published in October 2008, provides (in the words of its subtitle) “A Skeletal History of the Conflict between Faith and Reason.”

Russell begins with an overview of “The man who Died” (chapter 1). Descartes lived in a an age of many scientific discoveries. However, he perceived them to be without any unifying foundation. The crises he experienced was a loss of meaning, and he began a quest for truth, for something to believe in. He was resolved to slash every idea until he came to a proposition that was impossible to deny. Aristotle, Aquinas, Plato, the Hebrew prophets and the Apostle Paul were all regulated to the same dustbin. Even his own senses could not be trusted since senses can deceive. There might be a tree in front of me, or I might be just dreaming that that is a tree.

“At the end of this remorseless reduction there is only one thing that remains, one proposition that can’t be denied, one sound, as it were, in the universe, like the lonely ticking of a clock. It is the sound of the thinker’s own thoughts. For can I doubt that thoughts are occurring right now, including this one? No: it’s not logically possible.” Hence the conclusion: “Cogito, ergo sum,” or, “Je pense, donc je suis,” or “I think, therefore I am.” This was way more than a slogan. As Shorto explains, it declared that “the mind and its ‘good sense’--that is to say, human reason--are the only basis for judging whether a thing is true…. Human reason supplanted received wisdom. Once Descartes had established the base, he and others could rebuild the edifice of knowledge. But it would be different from what it had been. Everything would be different.”

Following the overview of chapter one, the majority of Shorto’s book is devoted to a description of the peregrinations of the French philosopher’s bones down through the centuries following his death in 1650. The story is fascinating, not only because the skull was separated from the bones sixteen years after Descartes’ death (and followed a completely different trajectory through different countries), but because of the recurring connection that Descartes’ bones had with the developing ideas and events of the “modern” world that Descartes’ philosophy had produced. Thus, in an odd way, Descartes’ skull and the ideas which emerged from it keep intersecting.

This is a fascinating read, because it is on the one hand a non-fiction historical detective story, and on the other hand a philosophical analysis of modernity. Descartes introduced “modernism” which eventually gave way to “postmodernism.” The postmodern world ended, according to Shorto, on September 11, 2001. He borrows from the German philosopher Jurgen Habermas the term postsecular to describe the next stage in the evolution of Western society. This is a stage in which the two radical extremes--radical secularists (such as Christopher Hitchens and other “radical Enlightenment” warriors) and the “theological camp” (people “at the fringes of Western society who [refuse] to go along with the basic ideals inherited from the enlightenment,” who reject homosexuality, etc., and who value supposed divine revelation over human doubt)--are brought into the “moderate Enlightenment camp” in which it is recognized that “scientific and religious worldviews aren’t truly inconsistent but that perceived conflicts have to be sorted out.” (He explains how the American Revolution was the result of “moderate Enlightenment” thinking, and the French Revolution the result of “radical Enlightenment” thinking.)

Our understanding of the relationship of faith to reason and reason to faith have titanic implications to our own personal worldview. Understanding how these two have related throughout western history helps us better relate to the millions around us who, indifferent as they may be to the doubts concerning the authenticity of Descartes’ skull, are nonetheless the products of the doubts that skull produced.

Here a video of the author explaining the thesis of his book, at the book’s official website.

Dick and Jane and Friends

I got this book last fall from Daddy. I started it in November of 2008, and I finished it on March 7, 2009.

My favorite, favorite person in this book is Dick. This is the biggest book I've ever read. It has 193 pages. Baby Sally is a little girl. There are a couple stories where we see that Spot digged in the ground. Puff is their little cat. There is a story of Spot and Puff and Little Tim that is a bear that she really loved and cared for. And one morning or one day (I don't know), Spot, Tim and Puff and baby Sally went out. And they went jumping, and they got on the railing and they jumped off.

My favorite story is about two boats who were racing. One was Dick's--the yellow boat, and one was Jane--the middle sized girl. And her boat was blue. And Baby Sally--the youngest--had like a little train thing that could hook onto a train and drive it. But when she put that thing into the water, it sank. And Dick knew that that would happen and he got a stick and apparently got it out while the wet water was dripping.

I would sometimes read this book in my mind, sometimes to my sister. I would sometimes read it to my daddy. And I would sometimes read it to my mommy. I love almost all the stories because they are very special to me.

The J. I. Packer Collection

Title: The J. I. Packer Collection: Selected & Introduced by Alister McGrath
Author: J. I. Packer edited by Alister McGrath
Publisher: IVP
Number of pages: 284
Purchased: $14.95 with book money from Friendship Baptist Church missions conference, April 2008.
Recommended by:
Begun: 11/24/2008
Finished: 3/3/2009
Rating: ***

Review: Alister McGrath (professor of historical theology at Oxford University and author of J.I. Packer: A Biography) has collected 16 separate essays by Packer and arranged them in chronological order, the first dating from 1954 and the last from 1998.

If one were to organize these essays thematically, they would testify to Packer’s statesmanship in three different areas.

1. Statesman for Christian apologetics. Here is where Packer is at his best: defending the historic, evangelical faith. His genius mind is not shrouded, as others are, in verbose terminology and syntax, but exposed in his crisp and elucidating explanations of the doctrine of Scripture (“Revelation and Inspiration,” 1954), the exclusivity of the Gospel (“Christianity and Non-Christian Religions,” 1959; “The Problem of Universalism Today,” 1969; “Is Christianity Credible?,” 1981), the deity of Jesus Christ (“Keep Yourselves from Idols,” 1963; “Jesus Christ the Lord,” 1977; “A Modern View of Jesus,” 1987), penal substitution (“What Did the Cross Achieve?,” 1974) and “the divinely executed retributive process that operates in the world to come,” i.e. “the reality of hell” (“The Problem of Eternal Punishment,” 1990)

Here we find him taking his enemies head on. (Of Dr. Robinson’s book he said, “It is just a plateful of mashed-up Tillich fried in Bultmann and garnished with Bonhoeffer. It bears the marks of unfinished thinking on page after page.”) He stands up even to his friends. (In defending the doctrine of eternal punishment, he specifically mentions John Stott and said that he, among others, “appear[s] to back into [the belief in annihilation or conditional immortality] in horrified recoil from the thought of billions in endless distress, rather than move into it because the obvious meaning of Scripture beckons them.”) One thing is clear: Packer is not the man to mess with!

2. Statesman for theological spirituality. A major emphasis in Packer’s writings comes from a failure that he observed in seminaries to make any real connection between Christian theology and Christian living. He opposes the approach to theology that “separates the questions of truth from those of discipleship; it proceeds as if doctrinal study would only be muddied by introducing devotional concerns; it drives a wedge between theology and doxology, between orthodoxy and orthopraxy, between knowing true notions about God and knowing the true God himself, between one’s thinking and one’s worshiping. Done this way, theology induces spiritual pride and produces spiritual sleep. Thus the noblest study in the word gets cheapened. I cannot applaud this.” The problem, as Packer saw it, was found in the “cultural assumptions, especially within the western academy, which have forced theology to see itself as an academically neutral subject, not involving commitment on the part of its teachers or students, which is primarily concerned with information about abstract ideas.”

In contrast, Packer says we should approach theology “so that our thinking about [God] becomes an exercise of homage of him.” Packer’s goal was to “arrange a marriage” between systematic theology and spirituality. “Properly understood, theology embraces, informs and sustains spirituality.” Out of this flowed, of course, his most famous book, Knowing God (1973). The articles pertaining to the topic of theological spirituality in this collection are “On Knowing God” (1975), “An Introduction to Systematic Spirituality” (1990), and “Evangelical Foundations for Spirituality” (1991).

3. Statesman for ecumenical “great-tradition Christianity.” In later life, Packer saw the difference between Protestant churches and the Church of Rome overshadowed by and a new and greater division within Christianity: a division between those who “honour the Christ of the Bible and historic creeds and confessions” on the one hand, and “theological liberals and radicals” on the other. Why should not conservatives form an alliance across the denominations to fight this radicalism? “Domestic differences about salvation and the church should not hinder us from joint action in seeking to re-Chrstianize the North American milieu.” This is what motivated him to sign the document “Evangelicals and Catholics Together” (ECT) in 1994 and to speak at the Aiken Conference, organized by leaders within the Orthodox Church, in 1995. (The essay he gave at that event is published in this book as “On from Orr,” 1996.)

Towards the end of his essay he asks, “Can conservative Protestants, Eastern Orthodox, and Roman Catholics of mainstream type join together in bearing witness to all that I have spoken of? I urge that we can, despite our known and continuing differences about the specifics of the salvation process and the place of the church in that process” (emphasis mine). There was only one hindrance: “To be sure, fundamentalists within our three traditions are unlikely to join us in this, for it is the way of fundamentalists to follow the path of contentious orthodoxism, as if the mercy of God in Christ automatically rests on persons who are notionally correct and is just as automatically withheld from those who fall short of notional correctness on any point of substance. But this concept of, in effect, justification, not by works, but by words--words, that is, of notional soundness and precision--is near to being a cultic heresy in its own right, and need not detain us further now, however much we may regret the fact that some in all our traditions are bogged down in it.”

It is on this point, in my opinion, where the great Packer fails, and does so miserably. I am reminded of Peter in Galatians 2 who began to undermine the Gospel for which he had fought so valiantly to uphold. Packer has fought valiantly to uphold the truth of the Gospel. We should never forget our debt. Sadly, he undermined through his actions much of his life’s labor. We should never forget the danger of doing the same.

Conflicting Mission Paradigms

Title: Paradigms in Conflict: 10 Key Questions in Christian Missions Today
Author: David J. Hesselgrave
Publisher: Kregel (2005)
Number of pages: 368
Purchased: 9/30/07 MSBC Missions Conference ($16)
Recommended by: Bob
Begun: 12/03/2008
Finished: 1/21/2009
Rating: ***


As his titles suggests, Hesselgrave’s desire is to compare and contrast ten (sometimes complementing, but always conflicting to various degrees) approaches to missiological issues. They are as follows:

• Sovereignty and Free Will: An Impossible Mix or a Perfect Match?
• Restrictivism and Inclusivism: Is This Missions Trip Really Necessary?
• Common Ground and Enemy Territory: How Should We Approach Adherents of Other Faiths?
• Holism and Prioritism: For Whom Is the Gospel Good News?
• Incarnationalism and Representationalism: Who Is Our Missionary Model—Jesus or Paul?
• Power Encounter and Truth Encounter: What Is Essential in Spiritual Warfare?
• Amateurization and Professionalization: A Call for Missionaries or a Divine Calling?
• Form and Meaning: How Does the Inspiration of Scripture “In-form” Contextualization and Make It “Meaning-full”?
• Countdowns and Prophetic Alerts: If We Go in Force, Will He Come in Haste?
• The Kingdom of God and the Church of Christ: What on Earth is God Building—Here and Now?

These are individually written chapters and while they overlap, they do not necessarily build on each other. This makes the writing style, ease of understanding, and level of interest a bit uneven. I found his sovereignty/free will chapter to be the least helpful, but most of the others were very helpful and insightful.

Creating Common Ground
In the chapter on common ground/enemy territory, he discusses “problematic, plausible, and positive” approaches to establishing common ground. Among the “positive approaches,” he suggests engaging in Biblical theology (“communicating that larger story and not just fragments of it or lessons growing out of it,” 109) and missional theology in which the missionary discovers how biblical concepts function within the beliefs and practices of the non-Christian respondents -- i.e. how are they receiving what I teach and interpreting it? In this vain, he calls on missionaries “to take an untiring and genuine interest in the religion, the ideas, the sentiments, the institutions of the people among whom they work. It is that kind of ‘close-up’ indigenous understandings and practices that the missionary must take into consideration if the gospel is to be contextualized effectively” (110). The last of the positive approaches to seeking common ground is what gets the most emphasis: “If there is any one key that unlocks the door to common ground it is ‘missionary self-exposure’ ” (111). “Clearly, what is common to all of us is our sinful state before a holy God” (ibid).

Waiting for His Coming
Another very helpful discussion (found in the chapter on countdowns/prophetic alerts) was Hesselgrave’s analysis of Christ’s perspective on His second Coming as described in Matthew 24:43-25:13. There are, he says, three parts to the answer.

First, Christ's followers should be watchful, Matthew 24:43-44. The Householder did not know when the break-in would occur, so he was not “on the alert” (v. 42).

Second, no one who knows that the Master is coming should presume that he will not come now, Matthew 24:45-51. Here the servant who has been put in charge of the affairs of a large estate while the owner goes on an extended trip presumes on his long absence and is thus unprepared for his return.

Third, no one should make decisions on a presumption that Christ must come right away, Matthew 25:1-13. In this story, five bridesmaids are caught without oil for their lamps precisely because they expected him to come shortly and were not prepared for his long delay. “Their mistake was the opposite of the servant’s when he thought the master would never return, but it had a similar result” (301). Hesselgrave applies this to missionaries who “are so sure the time is short that they go half-prepared. And they are so busy on the field that they do not take time to nurture mind or spirit. The months pass; perhaps even years. Sooner or later, they have 'run out of oil.’ Some return to school to 'buy more oil.’ But for others it is simply too late. The opportunity to prepare and remain prepared to meet the challenges of missionary service has passed.”

He concludes this section, “It is right to look for Christ’s coming. But it is wrong to make important decisions on the basis of calculations as to the exact time of his coming. Someone has said, we should act as though he is coming today, but we should plan as though he is not coming for a thousand years. There is a tension there, but, rightly understood, that must be close to what Jesus meant” (ibid. italics original).

I don’t have room to draw from his other discussion, but this gives you a taste of what I found to be a very helpful and insightful book on missions.

Respectable Sins: Confronting the Sins we Tolerate

Title: Respectable Sins: Confronting the Sins We Tolerate
Author: Jerry Bridges
Publisher: NavPress, 2007
181 pages
Begun: December 29, 2008
Finished: January 4, 2009
Rating: ***



"Respectable Sins" is a study on the subtle sins that God's people often overlook in their own lives. Bridges spends the first six chapters of the book unpacking the doctrine of sin in the Scriptures. He pretty well hits it on the head in Chapter Three in describing what sin is:

"Therefore, when we sin, when we violate the law of God in anyway, be it ever so small in our eyes, we rebel against the sovereign authority and transcendent majesty of God. To put it bluntly, our sin is an assault on the majesty and sovereign rule of God. It is indeed cosmic treason" (27).

In the very next chapter, Bridges articulates the remedy for sin:

"The remedy for our sin, whether scandalous or acceptable, is the gospel in its widest scope" (33).

In Chapters 5 and 6, Bridges summarizes the doctrine of sanctification by explaining the work of the Holy Spirit against the flesh. In this regards, he lays a principle which he calls the principle of dependent responsibility:

"We are responsible before God to obey His Word, to put to death the sins in our lives, both the so-called acceptable sins and the obviously not acceptable ones. At the same time, we do not have the ability within ourselves to carry out this responsibility. We are in fact totally dependent upon the enabling power of the Holy Spirit. In this sense, we are both responsible and dependent" (41)

Bridges in Chapter 6 again describes sin in light of the gospel:

"We should always address our sin in the context of the gospel" (47).

The remaining chapters of the book, Chapters 7-21, confront specific sins including ungodliness, anxiety, discontentment, unthankfulness, pride, selfishness, lack of self-control, impatience, anger, judgmentalism, envy, and worldliness. For each chapter, Bridges briefly surveys Scriptural teaching and examples on the specific sin he is dealing with. At the end of each chapter, he reminds his reader that that particular sin is an egregious offense against Christ and the gospel.

He closes in Chapter 21 reiterating that the gospel is the believer's greatest need in this earthly life:

"The way to grow in our new affection for Christ that Chalmers preached about is to grow in our awareness of Christ's love for us as revealed to us in the gospel. The apostle Paul wrote that it is Christ's love for us that constrains us to live for Him. Such love for Him that will drive out our love for the world can only be a response to the deep, heartfelt sense of His love for us" (178).

Be prepared to be convicted as you read "Respectable Sins." Bridges tends to be a bit formulaic at times in his approach to dealing with sin, but his overall emphasis on the gospel is appreciated. The end-result of reading this book should be a greater love and loyalty to the gospel. If that is the end-result, then a reading of "Respectable Sins" is worth it.

Posted for Brian (since Bob hasn't sent out the invites yet!)

The Big Mess

I read "The Big Mess." It was about Jess. It was all about picking up.

Jess had a big messy room. He had a red shirt that was torn. He took it to mother. Jess wanted to play outside but he had to wait until he was done picking up. He cleaned up happily then. And Jess got a box. He put his cap in the box.

The bed was made. The shirts were put in the chest. I learned that you should not do messy stuff. You should always clean up--a night-time cleanup and a morning-time cleanup.

By Micaiah.

(Total pages: 9)