The Bridge

This past month I made an effort to get through some books that I have been wanting to read.  Here are is the quick list and a few comments about each.

  Soul Cravings by Erwin McManus

This book took a little bit of an effort for me to read.  I found that I gleaned the most from it when I would read one entry at a time instead of reading it like a chapter book in which you carve out time and work your way through it all.  Entries 13 & 14 from the first part were my favorite.  With the following two quotes being most notable, “If God is love, those who know God best would love people most” and “Jesus, it seems, is certain that the more you love God the more you love people.”

  Sacred Travels by Christian George

I recently listened to a talk by Greg Lafferty that talked about Pilgrimage and the space between so when I saw this book I got really excited.  Although it hasn’t been what I was anticipating it has been a great read.  George sets the scene with a historical place and character and retells the tail.  Then he shares about his story of visiting the same place.  Each chapter then ends with a connection of the two and what it means to be a pilgrim.  Example being, “Pilgrimage is a revolutionary way of expressing our faith.  It moves us out of our comfort zones and challenges us to think clearly about our calling.”

  George Washington & Benedict Arnold by Dave R. Palmer

One of my passions is the Revolutionary War.  I am a big fan of all of the characters involved.  I owe a lot of this enthusiasm to two great professors of mine.  Prof. McMillan from Central College and Prof. Croce from Bethany Lutheran College.  This book does an excellent job pointing out the key role Arnold played in helping the colonies win their freedom.  Yes he was a traitor and his name is sin-ominous with that but this has significantly blocked the accurate retelling of what did happen.

  This Beautiful Mess by Rick McKinley

Grabbing a hold of the Kingdom of God now is the compelling mission behind this book.  I really enjoyed this book and have tried to sit in its different thoughts.  One such thought is it seems like we encourage people to ask God into their life or ask God to be Lord but in this the message comes out that they are asking Jesus to be Lord of their life thus leaving it just that - still THEIR life and this relationship with God has not moved them to abandoning self and joining in what the Lord is most passionate about - His Kingdom - Not Ours.

  Sex God by Rob Bell

Much like Velvet Elvis this book was hard to put down.  Rob Bell is such a creative thinker, writer, and pursuer of God that I, like many others, am being pushed in my faith with each encounter.  Each chapter takes a different turn in discussing “that” and each time I’m smiling at the different insights offered.

  Jesus and Empire by Richard Horsley

This was my favorite read of all during the month of February.  The amount of layers in this book are hard to conquer in just a few short sentences.  I am looking forward to reading it again.  Horsely examines the different fragments of Jewish culture according to region during the time of Christ, the role of the Roman Empire, the accounts of the gospels, the eastern vs western mindset of religion, miracles, and more.  It is a more challenging reading then all the other books listed above but worth the work.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 1st, 2007 at 1:48 pm and is filed under Books, History. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.