If, like John Marshall, you use the holidays to catch up on your reading of Christian literature, you will appreciate his review of a book that he took away with him recently. He writes:
When a good friend offered to lend me an inspiring book to take away on holiday, I felt I could hardly refuse such generosity.
It was my first introduction to American author Philip Yancey, whose previous titles include What's So Amazing About Grace? and The Jesus I Never Knew.
In Soul Survivor - How My Faith Survived the Church (what a title!) thirteen inspirational characters are written about; men and women from diverse times and cultures but all notably nonconformist in their search for truth. The book's fly-leaf introduction describes Philip Yancey's writings as 'searching and refreshingly honest'. In Soul Survivor, he faces head-on and with frank integrity many of the Christian's most difficult faith issues, especially that of suffering. Another main theme, as the title suggests, is living amongst fellow believers in the local church and community. All too often this raises problems, as several of his subjects testify. Again, he is candid but avoids direct criticism.
This book is both an education and a challenge. We are educated by the special lives of Martin Luther King Jr, Mahatma Gandhi or Leo Tolstoy; and no less so by that of Englishman Dr Paul Brand, a gifted surgeon devoted to the care and cure of leprosy victims; Shusaku Indo, the Japanese author, or Henri Rouwen, a Dutch RC priest whose life-struggles bear testimony to God's keeping power and grace. The challenges facing John Donne in plague-ridden London some four hundred years ago were different from but no less real than those confronting Dr Everett-Koop, American Surgeon General in the 1980s.
All these gifted human beings sought in their different ways to follow Jesus - even Gandhi. Each was a 'doer' and not a 'hearer' only; they lived and struggled, fought the fight and overcame.
Christian authors rarely cite non-Christians as people of inspiration and example. Not so Philip Yancey. His search is for God wherever that search may lead. Ultimately and always the destination is reached through truth and in love. That destination is Jesus.
Please read this book. It is a breath of fresh air (or perhaps a strong wind) and could change your life profoundly.
Other recent publications you might like to earmark for holiday reading include:
Marcus Honeysett: Meltdown - not an easy read but an important study of dilemmas posed by Postmodern thinkers, their influence on contemporary scholarship and the challenge they present to Christian students in particular.
Denis Alexander: Rebuilding the Matrix - now out in paperback.
R.T. Kendall: Total Forgiveness - 'a very humbling, challenging and comforting book. A read for any Christian at any time' (Judith Taylor).
In Pursuit of His Glory - autobiography of the former pastor of Westminster Chapel, focusing on his twenty-five years there.
Or why not purchase a copy of the English Standard Version of the Bible, a new translation by an international team led by J.I. Packer and including Wayne Grudem?
All these, and other holiday reading, can be purchased (some at special rates) through Eden Bookstall.
The more members make use of the church bookstall, the more special offers can be made.