Book Review: The Happy Christian

David Murray's book 'The Happy Christian: 10 ways to be a joyful believer in a gloomy world' caught my eye when it was first published, but then a friend's recommendation convinced me to order it and start reading.  This is the first David Murray book I've read and I will be tracking down others as I found his style engaging and also thought provoking, there are lasting lessons that I have learned from this book.

The book begins by examining the connection between what we think and believe about God, ourselves, others, our problems, and the world and our happiness, relationships, creativity and health.  Murray's book is a synergy of psychology and Biblical reasoning, using modern medical and research discoveries as support to his arguments from the Bible.  The opening chapters 'Happy Facts' and 'Happy Media' are two of the most helpful in the book as they help us think through how we see the world through the filters of our thinking and the media.  But also challenge us to be aware and thinking about the diet of criticism we consume and how that shapes us in our interactions with others.

The book gives us 10 formula's to apply to life and then in the conclusion Murray seeks to balance all this and look at the reality of living as a joy filled believer in a broken world.  I've mentioned the first two chapters as highlight but there are others.  His chapter on Happy Church was one which I found helpful, especially his exhortation to try to see Christ in all believers, to pray for hypocrites, to give time to the inconsistent, be patient, and speak positively of other believers.  Happy Praise, however, was probably the chapter I found most convicting and challenging and was the best chapter in a book full of good material.  The call to be an encourager is a timely one to the church in the UK and to me as a pastor, it's something I've left the book determined to pursue.  As was the critique of our sandwich praise methodology (Praise:Criticism:Praise) which makes the listener view the praise as insincere and merely a preface softening someone up for critique.

In the UK we need to read this book and learn it's lessons, we are more prone to critic, criticism and a can't do attitude than most nations, it robs us of joy and weakens our faith.  A great book I would recommend.

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.

How should I vote?

The General Election is fast approaching and there are so many issues and opinions that it's hard to distinguish fact from fiction, claim from counterclaim.  So how do we decide who to vote for?  How do we even decide what the issues are on which we should be making that decision?  How do we think biblically about those issues and others?

Guy Brandon's helpful book, 'Votewise 2015' looks at various issues (the NHS, policing, immigration, the environment, the economy, education and so on) and seeks to help us form a biblical understanding  on which to then base our decision about who to vote for.  The book is short enough, 112 pages, to read easily and yet contains a lot of information in an easy to read format.  The questions that follow each subsection of the book are particularly helpful in challenging our thinking and getting us to think about applying what we have read.

The book is balanced in it's survey of the current state of the nation and political climate.  I've found it informative and helpful in thinking about the issues beyond those which are making the headlines in the media.  The only drawback, I found, was the final chapter before the conclusion which is a series of 5 short essays by a christian candidate for each of the 5 main political parties, they varied in quality and approach and I didn't feel they added anything to the book.

Overall though a helpful read.