This short post makes a slight variant of a point that has been made famously elsewhere (see, for example, here), but since I do a lot of speaking and writing — and am around people who have spoken and written a lot more than I have and been greatly honored, often for how prolific they’ve … [Read more…]
The worst Bible couple, of course, was Jezebel and Ahab. But which was the best? It’s an interesting question to consider even if, at the end of the day, the answer turns out to have been pretty obvious. I’m looking for two things. First, both husband and wife should have strong and good character; a … [Read more…]
The secondary title is, “An Introduction: From the Apostolic Fathers to the 21st Century,” and the author is president and professor of theology at Union School of Theology in Oxford (and, to his credit, he quotes Oxfordian C.S. Lewis a lot). It’s a very useful and engaging book. The chapters are: the apostolic fathers, Justin … [Read more…]
Owen Barfield was a great friend of C.S. Lewis’s, a member of the Inklings who played an important role in bringing the atheist Lewis to belief, and as I recall Lewis praised this book in particular, so I thought I should read it. The bad news, dear reader, is that I got little out of … [Read more…]
This book was originally titled, Jack: C.S. Lewis and His Times, and the author, who headed the English department at Malvern College in Worcestershire, was a friend of Lewis’s and occasional attendee of meetings of the Inklings. He met Lewis in 1934 when the latter became the former’s tutor at Oxford, and remained apparently close … [Read more…]
The author is a transplanted Scot, now a seminary professor and pastor in Grand Rapids, and the book’s secondary title is, “Ten Ways To Be a Joyful Believer in a Gloomy World.” The book’s ten chapters address how to achieve greater happiness as a Christian in different contexts, namely: facts, media, salvation, church, future, world, … [Read more…]
The author of this book also wrote a recent (and excellent) biography of C.S. Lewis, which I note briefly on this blogsite here. (It’s of interest that in this later book’s suggested further reading, he lists — as the three “best biographies” of Lewis — his own and those by Alan Jacobs and George Sayer.) … [Read more…]
I deliberately sought out a book in this series on one of the gospels because I enjoyed its volume on Acts (by a different author) so much. And I’m glad I did: Professor Jeffrey is unfailingly insightful and judicious. I enjoyed, for example, his periodic observations on Luke’s likely source for this or that passage; recall … [Read more…]
This book collects the Christian conversion stories of sixty people, most of them famous and all in his or her own words (with a short introduction to each by the editor). They are fairly short accounts: The book is about 400 pages long, so that’s less than seven pages apiece, minus the intro and page … [Read more…]
There are lots of reasons to believe in God, and I thought a list would be helpful. (Caveat: Whether He is the God of the New Testament is of course a related but distinct question, and some of the reasons below are specific to Christianity and some aren’t.) One could write a book on many … [Read more…]