Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan

How have I not found the time to read this book before?

Must be those 3 accursed daughters of Adam the First: the Lust of the Flesh, the Lust of the Eyes and the Pride of Life.

Flee people! And go buy this book. It is full of precious insights and timely warnings for every Christian in every walk of life who will but take a little time to read Bunyan’s illuminating tale. The pages are literally soaked with Scripture. In this post-modern age, with all the rage of emergent liberalism and making Jesus and the Bible relevant, I find Pilgrim’s Progress a refreshing reminder of the fact that the Word of God is the lasting standard by which all doctrine must be evaluated. Too many books and other media forms which attempt to teach theology are sorely lacking in this. Phrases such as “The Bible says this…”, “God wants this…” abound, but no where are the words of Scripture to be found. No such flaw with THIS book.

Warning: Buying an unabridged version might give you a terrible headache. Slightly abridged recommended for the reader who would like to preserve the prose of the original but would appreciate the much needed modernising touch of archaic language.

The Cross of Christ, John Stott

A masterpiece.

In picking up this book, seeing that the first few pages were filled with good reviews by rather prominent pastors and theologians (such as Carson, Wells and Packer), and having not read any John Stott before, I had a good expectation of the value of the content, but was not prepared for its nature.

Make no mistake. This is a highly theological work on the cross of Christ. Stott constantly examines the history of biblical thought and makes countless references to philosophical and other theological works. He is extremely thorough with his exegesis of the text. I think I actually learnt some classical Greek reading this book.

With my volume measuring in at 408 pages, I thought it would be a short read. But the material is heavy.

Yet it is not complicated. There is much to be mined from these pages. In fact, I would be bold enough to go as far in saying there is no junk in these pages. I would classify it a ‘must-read’ for every Christian who is able to get his hands on such a book. It costs a bit more than your average book, but it’s really worth every penny.

And I think it would be worthwhile to conduct a group study of it too. I didn’t really use the study guide at the back, but I think that was down to my indiscipline and lack of accountability.

I’ll be picking up this volume again soon. Stott certainly has a gift for vividly painting the glorious realities of the cross. He has certainly refreshed my heart and mind, and renewed my wonder at the cross. I figured that you would easily pick him out from among the heavenly congregation – he’s going to be one of those really loud ones singing:

 ”Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain,
   to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength
   and honor and glory and praise!”

A Spiritual Classic?

Yes indeed.

I have just finished reading through Knowing God by J.I. Packer, and am still blown away by the book. The exposition he gives on key Biblical truths is at once simple yet undoubtably profound.

To be honest, I’ve always wondered at what the big fuss was over this book. But it’s just one of those books you have to read to comprehend why it has been lauded so much over the decades. I think I might just go through the book again sometime.

A personal extended review here.

There were four truths in the book that blew me away. Namely, the miracle of the Incarnation, propitiation as the heart of the gospel, our adoption as sons (and daughters) of God as the highest privilege God has graciously bestowed on us, and an amazingly simple exegesis of Paul’s epistle to the Romans that primarily caught my attention. It’s a bit hard narrowing down the profound content of this book to these four truths as there are many other eye-openers, both big and small, but for me these four stand out.

The book in general is really simply about ‘knowing God’ – the title does accurately capture the content. It’s a book about who He is and what He has done. And the way in which our lives should relate to Him. As shown to us in the Bible. All the good things you’ve heard about this book are probably on the mark. All the bad things you’ve heard about it are most likely false. I would truly regard it as a spiritual classic, and it’s a book that I believe every Christian would benefit from reading. It will likely challenge some, if not many, of your conceptions, and it will most certainly challenge the way you live right now. But some challenges are profitable, and this is one of them. If you don’t read it, I really think you’re missing out.

The literary style is very much targetted at the layman reader. But I think it would be a clear sign of how far reading standards have fallen if a book like this is classified as ‘heavy-reading’. Regardless, for those who somewhat comprehend my reading preferences, it is still a book I would recommend people to buy and to read diligently. If your reading skills aren’t great, then the only difference it’ll make is you’ll take longer to finish it. And if your reading skills are top-notch, don’t go too fast either! You might just miss that gold nugget in your mad dash through.