Book Review: Look & Live

At the moment we're preaching though John's gospel.  The theme that consistently comes up in almost every passage is the idea of Jesus glory.  With that in mind as I preach through the book I wanted a book to read that would focus on that issue.  To be honest there wasn't an overwhelming number, in fact if you want a modern book they are few and far between.  So I went for Matt Papa's Look and Live.

It's an easy book to read, it is written at a popular level not for academics or theologians.  One of the things that I enjoyed most about it was the helpful insights into ways thinking about God's glory had changed the author and his band (yes - he's a worship leader).  A helpful idea was that of "scattered beams" - looking for and seeing in creation and everyday things that reveal the glory of God.  In the same chapter there was also some helpful stuff on contentment only being found in God and in challenging our societies error of boredom.  The final chapter 'Show me your glory' also has helpful thoughts and practical ways of seeing the glory of God in scripture, I especially appreciated its thoughts on meditating daily on God's glory.

However, there are a few things that I'm not keen on.  One is the formatting, which at times is just frustrating though that may be the inner pedant in me, sentences and paragraphs matter.  My big issue with the book, however, is that unless I've totally misread what he has written somehow then he is mistaken in his use of Genesis 1:24-26 (p.52) when he speaks of how "the great Artist[God] spent another whole day on just one thing: A Man."  Except when you read Genesis 1:24-26 God makes the living creatures on the earth and man on day 6.  I found it hard to persevere with a book that makes such a mistake with scripture.  And because Matt Papa's website is being created I couldn't readily find a way to contact him to ask about it.

So how would I sum up the book.  It has some helpful ideas, it raise some helpful questions and has some practical helps.  However the formatting and the basic error with Genesis 1 hold me back from recommending it wholeheartedly.