Fields of the Fatherless: Discover the Joy of Compassionate Living was written on the premise of the story of Ruth and how she would go into the fields and pick the extra grain for her and Naomi's meals. Through the story of Ruth in the Bible one reads that Boaz instructs his men to allow extra grain to fall so that Ruth would have more to gather, as the story continues one reads of their romance and how Boaz and Ruth are blessed for their commitment to service.

Tom takes that story and uses it as a spring board to encourage Christians on how to care for the orphan and widow and how it is our responsibility to be mindful and loving to those who have no advocate. Tom also speaks and how the early church recognized the importance and demand to care for the widows of their time and how they became proactive in an organized fashion by delegating the responsibility to mature Spirit filled elders. While reading this book one learns that the widow and the orphan are two groups of people are easily ignored, judged, and very little advocacy is done for them especially in this day in age when advocacy and representation is essential for respect and care in the larger society. ... more

Thomas asked me before our vacation to Vermont if I was interested in reading and then reviewing two books that needed to be reviewed for Everyday Liturgy, I quickly agreed to the offer because I did not have any books to bring with me on our vacation. I read Red Letters and Fields of the Fatherless in about 14 days, so rest assured they are not overwhelming and also bare in mind that I am not a fast reader.

Tom Davis's Red Letters:Living A Faith That Bleeds states in the beginning of the book that the premise was to allow the reader to be transformed through the awareness of the power and urgency of the red letters in the Bible. Davis articulates that there is a clear and deliberate reason why Bibles highlight Jesus' words red, because God in human form is speaking and it is very important that the those who read it understand and take action. He writes with conviction when he discusses the crippling effects A.I.D.S. has had on Africa and how Christians must intercede in a tangible way. He speaks of the overcrowded and ill equipped orphanages that are tucked away in Russia's heart land, and how children are forced out around the age of 15-17 and are expected to adapt and survive on their own.

One year ago the International Bible Society published the first editon of The Books of the Bible, a TNIV Bible that had been re-organized in a literary and canonical way and with a text void of verse numbers, comments, sidebars, fun facts, and study notes.  It is literally, the books of the Bible...that's it.

The first edition made its way onto my birthday wish list, and ever since then it has been my primary Bible for reading.  I wanted to share some of my thoughts with you on TBotB's first birthday.  The questions come from an informal questionarre I was sent by IBS staff to help them put together supplemental material for TBotB.

Hopefully, IBS will come out with a hardcover edition soon with extra wide margins and space to journal...just for me?

What new experiences have you had reading the Scriptures with The Books of The Bible?

When I read using The Books of the Bible I am able to read "complete thoughts" and understand how the passage works together as a whole.  Puncuation is incredibly important to any written work, and so it is with the Bible.  Unfortunately, for so long verses acted as foreign punctuation that compartimentalized and fragmented passages into ill-conceived snippets and phrases.  Now, as I read with TBotB, I don't read the Bible as a laundry list of presuppositions but instead as literature, as a narrative.

More importantly, I have been able to more fully experience the different genres of the Bible like I never had before.  The Psalms, devoid of verse markings, headings, and notations, are presented as the lyrics that they are.  The multi-genre books, such as some of Paul's epistles with songs and doxologies, are also clearly defined and presented as the voice of the work intended. ... more

My initial assumptions concerning Novena in Time of War: Soul-Searching Prayers & Meditations  were that it would be a strictly pacifist book, a book that lead one to consider the horrors of war and pushed one into praying that war would cease.

Jim Melchiorre's thought provoking prayers and meditation do push you to consider the irrationality and awfulness of war, yet what Melchiorre does best is push his prayer-minded audience to consider the "other," which for most of those who pray through this book are Iraqis, Afghanis, foreign soldiers, and "terrorists."

Melchiorre refuses to cave in to tribalism, and this is the defining theme that weaves itself through the nine sets of prayers and meditations (for those who do not know, a novena is a collection of nine prayers and devotions on a certain theme---it's okay, I didn't know either until I googled the term). Melchiorre pulls together the strands of thought and prayer on war, violence, patriotism, tribalism, hatred, the "other," in his final meditation, "Hating War, Not Warriors."

As I have grown into a strict pacifism over the past few years I believe I have hated the warrior as an instrument of war---like a missile or bomb. Melchiorre, as both a pacifist and a veteran, refuses to confuse warriors (here soldiers, freedom fighters, and "insurgents") with weapons or war. ... more

I did not choose this book to read. Honestly, I was required to read it as part of the church plant training my wife and I have been going through.

The book is neither as radical as the title suggests nor as juvenile as its cheap looking cover art implies. There are no forearms to the face, no power lunges into the chests of people seeking the healing of their chest cavities. This is not stereotypical Pentecostal tent revivalism with the carnival atmosphere found in the many Youtube moments Benny Hinn finds himself in.

A better title for this book would be The Power of God's Healing or Healing: Power of God. Power Healing is ambiguous helaing, so one naturally assumes that the person at the forefront of the healing is the author, yet John Wimber is one of the most humble, selfless, and cautious healers I have read.

Most Pentecostal/Charismatic/Third Wave writings on healing, generally speaking, are ancedotal and full of conjecture. This is often seen in the teaching of tongues that is in many cases contradictory to the parameters of corporate worship Paul discusses in 1 Corinthians. This is not an attack on gifts itself, just that they are so often systematized in polarizing ideologies: either cessationism or reckless abandon of gifts. Either Science and rationalism superceding the miraculous and unexplainable or the abuse and hypocrisy of gifts flaunted over the rules and aim of Scripture. Wimber offers a relaxed, rational, and prescriptive method of inviting the power of the Holy Spirit into the midst of belivers to perform signs and actions of healing and deliverance. ... more

This is the first of a five part review of the new book Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope by Brian McLaren.

Like an infomercial full of high hope, restless vigor, and a secret knowledge hidden away---until now!---Brian McLaren has thrown his full force against the all the problems of the world in his new book Everything Must Change. And does he mean everything! McLaren outlines the three major systems that make up our American driven world, the security system, the prosperity system, and the equity system; these systems rule the way of life as we know it, and in order for everything to change, these systems must be reformed, reworked, and reimagined. How will McLaren change everything? The key is in the subtitle: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope. McLaren is not like the infomercial pitch-man, though he has as much passion, for he does not see his own ideas as the solution to world problems, he is instead fleshing out the revolution of hope preached by Jesus as the answer to global crises.

McLaren does not try to wow us with statistics, five step plans, requests for donations, or fancy rhetoric. McLaren is neither an economist, a politician, a social advocate, a lawyer, a diplomat, nor a businessman, what he does is instead cast a narrative to answer the questions of global crises. ... more