Books – LOVE | ACCEPT

Keep in Step with the Spirit by J.I. Packer

The Missing Element

In a blurb commending the book, Ray Ortlund says this about J.I. Packer, “When we face a debated theological topic, we need a guide who has no ax to grind, who is fair, honest, reasonable, and—above all—carefully biblical. We Christians do debate the ministries of the Holy Spirit. But we have a reliable guide in J.I. Packer.” I read that in opening the second of my 10 out of 5 books from 2021, and found small dispute with Ortlund on this point: Packer does take sides in debate. In the volumes that have enriched me, Mr. Packer always takes the side of the biblical text. Unlike so many other authors, he does not read his theology back into the text, instead allowing his position to be discovered inductively. This trait (exhibited by so many of our senior scholars and theologians) makes reading a pleasure and his positions trustworthy.

If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Galatians 5:25

So Packer enters the theological scrum concerning a biblical understanding of the person and ministry of the Holy Spirit. His aim in this book is to restore the centrality of the Holy Spirit in the Church, a ministry that is often tossed and torn between the intellectualism of theologians and doctrine and unrestrained charismatic practices. Packer envisioned the book as a corrective to these extremes, a biblical call to Christians to restore the place of the Spirit and His gifts in their faith and lives. Unlike other authors that plant both feet in their camp and refuse to consider positions other than their own, Packer takes a much more irenic tone, insisting that the Bible speak louder than he does.

A point that Packer makes that is important for the reader to engage is that the Holy Spirit is not a discrete ministry on His own. The Spirit is inseparable from the Godhead and will always act in concert with the Father and the Son. He mediates Christ (John 16:14) to us. All the Spirit’s power and gifts are Jesus working through the Spirit in us. It is in the self-effacing nature of the Spirit’s ministry that we gain the perspective to evaluate spiritual claims attributed to the movement of the Spirit. He will always be directing attention back to the Son, and anything that does not achieve that end is to be considered much more carefully.

The mediation of Christ to His people involves the Spirit in spurring on holiness in their lives. We often refer to this growth using the term sanctification, and it is yet another idea that gets drawn to the edges of the Church. In some quarters it is a practice through which we grow intellectually through Bible study and discipleship. At the other side of the yard, the term sanctification points to a growing perfectionism in behavior. Packer draws the idea back to the center, saying that holiness in the Bible is evidenced by growth in the fruit of the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit conforming us to Christlikeness and our pursuit of holiness is governed by our beliefs about the Spirit.

Packer takes this axiom to his examination of modern charismatic theology and practices, giving support where appropriate and critique where warranted. This evaluation includes a valuable chapter on different schools of thought and practice pursuing holiness. This part of the book is valuable from two different directions. First, when we locate our generalized tribe within the chapter it helps the Christian to see where their beliefs on this subject derive from. The reader that approaches the text fairly finds a second benefit in learning where other tribes have come from as well, preventing some of less loving criticisms that find their way into our speech. It seems to be Packer’s hope that brothers and sisters in Christ will find their own attitudes becoming as irenic as the one he displays in his words.

Keep in Step with the Spirit is a valuable contribution to the church and written at a slightly above popular level. It is worth every effort in working your way through the text, bible close by so you can read the many references in full context. More than reading the text and placing the book on your library shelves, let it affect your meditation on the Holy Spirit and His work in your life. He was never meant to be divisive within the Church. His ministry is to draw us all closer to Christ as we grow together in the Lord’s image. If this book contributes in some small way to unity within the body, Packer’s efforts will be the blessing it was intended to be.

2021 Reading Reviewed

My 2021 reading list is composed of 78 books I read during the year. It’s the value I’ve always placed on reading and the compilation of my annual list that made a recent article stand out to me. In the November/December 2021 issue of Success magazine, it says that “American adults spend less than 10 minutes per day reading printed materials, compared to a whopping 7 hours and 50 minutes of screen time.” If correct, this statistic reflects the greatest loss we might suffer as people; to develop through the collected wisdom of the written word. The article continues, saying “The benefits of reading are far-reaching, with research showing bookworms experience less stress, reduced risk of depression, lowered blood pressure and improved sleep.” These benefits are probably true, but interacting with written ideas expands your own wisdom and knowledge, an invaluable exercise.

As I record each title in my journal, I add a rating of 1 to 5. Those rated 5 of 5 are the best, memorable pieces of writing that deserve to be widely read. Three books at the top of my list stand out because their rating exceeds the boundaries, rated as 10 of 5 stars. These 3 books would make a list of must-read volumes for Christians. Perhaps I’ll touch on each of these in separate posts to pique your interest. The books at the bottom of the list rated 2 stars are not worth your time, falling short of their promise (or, in the case of Dr. Flowers’ book, it’s potential). The other note you’ll notice on this list are those books marked 2x, indicating they were read twice or a second time with years of separation. As I look at these volumes, I’m tempted to add Henderson’s book Old Paths, New Power (read twice last year) to the 10 of 5 list. If revival interests you, this is a good place to start.

Make a list of your own for 2022. It might just motivate you to read more and build a growing library of wisdom and ideas.

Fresh Encounter	Blackaby	10
Spent Matches	Moran	10
Keep in Step with the Spirit	Packer	10
How to Take Smart Notes	Ahrens	5
Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership	Barton	5
Praying with Paul	Carson	5
The Law of Innocence	Connelly	5
Revival	Edwards	5
Come Down, Lord	Ellsworth	5
Praying for One Another	Getz	5
Stop Loving the World	Greenhill	5
Rediscover Church	Hansen	5
Old Paths, New Power (2x)	Henderson	5
Ego is the Enemy	Holiday	5
Effortless (2x)	KcKeown	5
Famine in the Land	Lawson	5
When You Pray	Lindell	5
The Trellis and the Vine	Marshall	5
21 Days of Breakthrough Prayer	Maxim	5
Why Elders?	Merkle	5
Calling on the Name of the Lord	Millar	5
Digital Minimalism	Newport	5
A Voyage for Madmen	Nichols	5
Transforming Worship	Noland	5
Prayer	Onwuchenka	5
How Do I know if I’m Really Saved?	Ortberg	5
Deeper	Ortlund	5
Praying in Public	Quinn	5
How to Think Like a Roman Emporer	Robertson	5
Qualitative Research	Sensing	5
The Case for Keto	Taubes	5
Whatever Happened to Worship?	Tozer	5
Dangerous Calling	Tripp	5
Do You Believe?	Tripp	5
Lead	Tripp	5
In the Day of Thy Power	Wallis	5
How Can I Be Sure I’m a Christian (2x)	Whitney	5
How the Bible Describes Election	Bulow	5
Skip the Line	Altucher	4
The Message of Ruth	Atkinson	4
Chasing the Thrill	Barbarisi	4
Exegetical Commentary on Ruth	Block	4
Common Sense Investing	Bogle	4
The Church	Clowney	4
The Soul of Prayer	Forsyth	4
A Craftsmans Legacy	Gorges	4
Continuous Revival	Grubb	4
Transforming Presence	Henderson	4
Reclaimed Church	Heward	4
Praying Together	Hill	4
Later	King	4
The Kind of Preaching God Blesses	Lawson	4
How to Worship a King	Neese	4
Spiritual Gifts	Schreiner	4
Disney’s Land	Snow	4
What Does it Mean to be Saved?	Stackhouse	4
Authentic	Van Doren	4
Pray in the Spirit	Wallis	4
Radical Christian	Wallis	4
Introducing Practical Theology	Ward	4
Researching Practice for Missions and Ministry	Cameron	4
True Community	Bridges	3
Ecclesiology	Brown	3
Small Giants	Burlingham	3
Intercessory Worship	Eastman	3
Upstream	Heath	3
How to Pray in a Crisis	Henderson	3
Steering the Craft	LeGun	3
Frictionless	Lemieux	3
The Reset	Riddle	3
Made from Scratch	Taylor	3
A Creative Minority	Tyson	3
The Imperfect Disciple	Wilson	3
Unmasked	Ngo	3
God’s Provision for All	Flowers	2
Man Up	Kevilian	2
Quick Start Writing Guide	Nash	2

Book Review: The Unsaved Christian by Dean Inserra

A Mission Field Nobody Wants to Engage

The presence of the unsaved thinking of themselves as Christians has been a reality forever. In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus himself warns against putting stock in a false conversion saying, “not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven.” Jesus says it, but the state of the modern church is often resistant to hearing and heeding the admonishment. As author Inserra relates, cultural Christianity has embedded itself deeply in the Church, its comforting lack of accountability enveloping people in a warm embrace of false belief.

Inserra structures is excellent book along the lines of a missionary guide for an unreached people group. The interaction that he shares at the beginning of the book with his seminary classmate sets a challenging tone. While Pastor Inserra looked at his brother’s assignment to Northern California as an incredible challenge (the land of proud unbelief), his brother turned the table to warn him against the assumptions that came with an assignment to the Bible Belt. This bracing moment is when he began to really examine the reality of faith amongst those who proclaimed a belief in Christ as a part of their everyday life. Examination proved that this belief was anecdotal in some cases, cultural in most of them and simply a part of being a citizen of the South for many. The chapters of the book that follow the analysis give the reader excellent study points for ways in which to approach each of these groups and more.

“Unsaved” is a quick read but not shallow. As someone involved in ministry, I can see a face to go along with each of the belief types that he describes. This personalization gives the reader the opportunity to think through the conversation that you want to have in the way that you want to approach that person. It didn’t begin the book with high hopes because I thought it was simply stating the obvious, but Inserra has performed a valuable service for Christ’s church, saying the hard things that need to be said in love.

Book Review: Zealous for Good Works by Todd Wilson

Pastor Wilson turns the Church’s attention to the much quoted but less applied New Testament epistle of Titus and its core message. The Spirit inspired the author of that letter to not only leave his worker Titus on the Greek island of Crete to organize the Christians there, but gave the principles by which he was to do so as well. Using as his objective that the Church be the city on a hill that Jesus describes in the Sermon on the Mount, Wilson leads the reader through the points of Paul’s letter and helps us to understand how his marching orders for Titus apply to the Church today.

For such a brief book the value is immense. Wilson expertly exegetes the equally brief letter and helps the reader to see the big idea in each of the passages. ‘Zealous’ is not a gnostic promise (Jabez et al.) of discovering some new hidden secret, but rather, it is an eminently practical look at the principles that Paul gave to Titus that address many of the shortcomings of the Church in our age. Three that are discussed in the book are the poor level of discipleship, the chasm of credibility (that is, the difference between what we say and what we do) and the effect that these have on how we apprehend the missional opportunity ahead of us.

Read ‘Zealous’ with your bible close by. It is likely you have read Titus multiple times (if you are picking up a books such as this) but much of that reading has been focused in the Eldership requirements. Wilson deftly leads the reader to see that Titus contains so much more practical application for the Church beyond those instructions. For example, Wilson stops us in a passage often seen as preamble, Paul’s greeting in 1:1-4 to point out the importance of preaching and the power of the gospel. The gospel is both the content and the power of preaching something that can be missing in today’s environment of therapeutic deism. A city on hill is not built on the pillars of making people feel better where it teeters and shifts with every new personal demand. It is founded on the unchanging glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The only disappointment I had with the book was that it was over so quickly. The more I think about it though, the length of the book is exactly right given the brevity of the profound instruction in its source. I have a new hunger to dig into Titus and preach it in the future. In the meantime, the study guide included at the back of the book is a bonus for church leaders seeking to present their people as salt and light in the world. Buy this, read this and read it again.