Kevin Belmonte offers all readers a treasure of gold bits from Chesterton’s chest. Alphabetized by topics ranging from “Academia” to “Zola, Emile.” Belmonte confesses that his desire in his book was to be comparable to Tyndale’s The Quotable C.S. Lewis–offering snapshots and pithy statements that boil Chesterton to essentials of his contributions.

I would recommend Belmonte’s monograph as a way to stoke humor in your heart and tickle your brain cells. Chesterton is a master of language and turn of phrase.

What I appreciated the most was the thoroughness of the quotations. Rather than various subjects extraneous to Chesterton organizing the quotations, Belmonte lets Chesterton organize his own thoughts.

It would be helpful to get a biography on Chesterton to read prior to so that you can get context for some of his irony and double entendre.

This brief review was done in cohort with the BookSneeze program.

Crossway has a sale going on for the material until November 1st (40% off).

Share the Good News of Christmas Kit

They are giving away the following:

The Pastor as Scholar and the Scholar as Pastor

The Deity of Christ

Preaching for God’s Glory

Am I Really a Christian?

I particularly recommend the first one for EVERY pastor. And I recommend the last one for every pastor who serves in the southeastern part of the United States.

Go here for the giveaway.

Many times I have found the tune, beat, and the syncopation of days gone by in some songs a little awkward in the corporate gathering. The need to freshen up and make contemporary the old, powerful lyric of yesteryear has been great. I am thankful for tis project and listen to it regularly. It is mor than merely adding a nice drum beat and an electric guitar…

Stream three of their new songs from their forthcoming fourth album for free.

10 Questions About Sharing Your Faith

The site is a helpful place to start when it comes to boiling the Gospel message to edible chunks.

HT: Joe Thorn

She looked up at me, with icing circling her lips, and smiled. No words. Just a smile.

I began to think of the overwhelming joy God the Father has when he looks at his children. I could have listed off a litany of reasons to my sweet daughter, but chose to merely say “I love you…so much.”

Isn’t that astonishing. With infinite vocabulary at his command in every language imaginable, God the Father chose to merely smile at me. Have you ever s-l-o-w-e-d down long enough to consider that he is smiling at you right now. What is he using to communicate his love to you? Perhaps it’s the screaming kids that you just want to be quiet–they are screaming to let you know that he is smiling on you. Perhaps it’s the job that you have had for the last five years that you have struggled to go to because you don’t see the purpose in the monotony–yet it has provided money for you and your family; you have not gone hungry because of the monotonous, ever reliable smile. Perhaps it’s the uncertainty of tomorrow. You are not sure how to interpret the ambiguous smile of tomorrow; yet he continues to smile on you as you learn to trust in his words he has already spoken.

Don’t be underwhelmed by the lack of verbiage you hear from the Almighty today. Be overwhelmed by his simplicity. Sure, he could communicate with you for infinity…instead, he chooses to smile.

Check out the Samson Society and the video below.

They are going on a weekend tour that I think would be very challenging. I am planning on going to the one in October.

::48 HOURS OF FRANKNESS TOUR::

1) Atlanta (March 25-26)

2) Austin/San Antonio (April 8-9),

3) Orlando (April 15-16),

4) Eugene, Oregon (May).

5) Richmond, VA (June)

6) Denver (August)

7) St. Louis (September)

8) Philadelphia (September)

9) Louisville (October)

10) Knoxville (November)

This is a book review of Dan Allender’s book, Sabbath. This is done in cooperation with BookSneeze. You can see more of my book reviews here.

Dan Allender offers a dangerous and challenging call to our evangelical culture, which is fixated on numbers and speed and pragmatism. The concept of rest (true rest from our labors) is just as scandalous now as it was 4,000 years ago. Why slow down and drink in your favorite concoction of creation when there is so much work to be done? After all we have to keep the economic cog moving so we can afford that vacation don’t we? Allender’s book is part of a series of books in the Ancient Practices Series put out by Thomas Nelson Publishers.

The book is broken down into three parts:

1. Sabbath Pillars

a. Sensual Glory

b. Holy Time

c. Communal Feast

d. Play Day

2. Sabbath Purpose

a. Sabbath Play: Division Surrenders to Shalom

b. Sabbath Play: Destitution Surrenders to Abundance

c. Sabbath Play: Despair Surrenders to Joy

3. Sabbath Performance

a. Acting Out Sabbath in Ritual and Symbol

b. Sabbath Silence

c. Sabbath Justice

Conclusion: Deliver Us to Delight

Throughout his apologetic for his purpose in writing the book Allender justifies the practice of Sabbath by appealing to the OT model of 7th day rest. I believe given the New Covenant shift from theocracy in the Middle East to world-wide submission to the lordship of Jesus, this 1:1 relationship between the commands given to Israel and those given to the Church suffers from an over-simplified hermeneutic. That is, although the Sabbath is grounded in God’s Creation activity, the Sabbath (along with the priesthood, prophethood, kingship) should all be read typologically. That is to say, each of these institutions and principles were intended in salvation history to point to a greater reality. For example, David was the paradigm for how God desired the kings to lead his people. However, he was a failure–committing murder and adultery. His role was meant to point to something greater.

It is dangerous to point to point to David and the Messiah, see a continuity and discontinuity but fail t make similar distinctions between the Israelite Sabbath and the sabbath-rest found in Jesus–this is Jesus’ whole point in offering his hearers true rest in Matthew 11. For a fuller treatment of this hermeneutic defense see From Sabbath to Lord’s Day.

HOWEVER, with that said, I would strongly commend this book to you for your own spiritual vitality. The danger in reading a book that you disagree with on such a fundamental level is to throw everything out that the author says. I believe that would be a mistake with Allender’s book. What I did throughout is to substitute Allender’s thoughts on grounding the Sabbath in the Ten Commands and replacing it with the PRINCIPLE of sabbath–which I think is still very important for us. In fact, I found this is essentially what Allender argues for in his book. I have found in my own spiritual life–given my typological understanding of the Sabbath–that I have too quickly said, “Every day is sabbath rest because of Jesus.” This is true at the fundamental level of Christian doctrine. The problem too often is that this truth also (inadvertently) eschews the biblical principle of sabbath rest.

I have found myself working seven days a week and not taking time to enjoy my family and friends and creation–because every day is sabbath rest. I believe those who find themselves in my hermeneutical camp would do their souls well by embracing the principle of sabbath anew and seeking to intentionally rest once a week.

Allender makes the Sabbath appealing throughout his book as he makes the case very clear that true sabbath rest is not about hedging ourselves in so that we make sure we don’t work on the Sabbath. Such self-justifying works miss the intent of sabbath. Instead, he asks the probing and convicting question: What would I do for a twenty-four hour period of time if the only criteria was to pursue my deepest joy? This is probing because we do not often sit down to ask ourselves what makes us truly joyful. It is convicting because too often if we were to stop and ask ourselves, we would find that that which brings us most joy has no explicit reference to God in our thinking.

Here are a couple snippets to whet your appetite to read this book:

Delight doesn’t require a journey thousands of miles away to taste the presence of God, but it does require a separation from the mundane, an intentional choice to enter joy and follow God as he celebrates the glory of his creation and his faithfulness to keep his covenant to redeem the captives (4).

Sabbath rest is entered when we refuse to be bound by complexity or drowned by despair. We enter delight only as we gaze equally and simultaneously at creation and redemption, in spite of the darkness that surrounds us and constantly clamors to be truer than God (4).

We invent rules that seem orderly and sensible, if not righteous and moral, so that anyone who violates our code is somehow less than committed (22).

The core of delight is our capacity to worship, to create and enter beauty as a reminder and anticipation of God’s goodness (36).

Beauty cannot be purchased from a catalog or selected by the most sophisticated designers; holy beauty must be crafted from material that is loved (36).

We are not to work on the Sabbath because it takes us out of the play of joy. It is as bizarre as making love to your spouse, but getting out of bed during the process to cut your lawn or wash dishes. Such an offense would do far more than spoil the mood; it would be a direct assault on the integrity of joy, announcing that a mundane chore is more pleasurable than sexual joy with your spouse (61).

We are surrounded by noise, speed, power, freneticism. As I write this, a song is pumping through the speakers at work. Quiet makes customers nervous. Is it that we have been rushing for so much of our lives that we are uncomfortable with ourselves? We need stimuli to keep us from fully engaging with the humans around us. Instead, we fill our eyes, ears, nose, and throat with distractions. If we can just get from the bed in the morning back to the bed in the evening without having to confront or be confronted then I am happy.

While I disagree with some fundamental assumptions regarding Sabbath Allender has used, I have found the book extremely helpful. Here are some excerpts:

We seldom honor the reality that we own time; we are far more inclined to use time to gain advantage and control. The oddity is that the more we treat time like an extension of a machine, called a clock, the more we are bound to time as if it is the boss and we are the slave (p.53)

I was finishing another writing project as I worked on this book. I took several days while I was overseas to write. I wrote for four hours every day and was near completion, when on the way back I was interrupted by a meal service and the tray was put on my table before I could close my computer. I held my laptop above the tray and saved the document, and then closed the computer down. Apparently, I did something wrong. When I opened it after lunch, my entire document was gone. I did everything I knew to do to retrieve it, and there was nothing but a blank page. Irrespective of the cause, my first thought was, I’ve lost all that time; when will I get the time to do it over? I have wasted precious time, and it is gone. Several deep presumptions exist in those sentences. I own time; and it owns me. It is mine to use; and when I waste it, as if I could, it is my fault. There was no thought that in rewriting the work, it may improve far more than a mere editing of the first document (p.53; emphasis original)

When we see time as a machine, then when it appears to break, we can do little but vent our frustration and wait for the expert to help us, rather than to submit and honor the One who has created time for our delight (p.54)

If you’re like me, rather than letting the presumptions he mentions sink deep in my psyche, I start wondering what he did with that document so that it did not save! And then presuming that I could have retrieved it for him. How busy we are!

There’s something about “newness” that attracts us – whether in regard to a new year, a new job, a new car, a new gadget, a new relationship, etc. With a new thing, there’s always some level of fresh hope (and probably an undercurrent of “THIS will be the thing that really satisfies me!”) But it always goes the same way, doesn’t it? The “new” wears off – the new thing eventually just becomes the thing, and so we move on to the next new thing.

As I have been thinking through that process in my own life, I have been reminded of the centrality of the Gospel.  Most of us are likely familiar with these words from Luke 2:10-11: And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.  For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.

Those verses provide a two-line summary of the Gospel:
1.) The Gospel is good news for the joy of all people.
2.) The Lord – the Creator God of the universe – is the Christ who comes to Earth to save.

While there is much more you can say about the Gospel than this, there is not less. The Gospel is beautiful in its simplicity, majestic in its depth, and completely unique in its purpose. There is no greater truth than the Gospel. God was kind to remind me of the centrality of the Gospel in the form of a question that has tugged at the corners of my heart and mind for the last couple of weeks – Has the “newness” of the Gospel worn off for you?

I find it common within most churches to think of the Gospel as only for non-believers, or to consider the Gospel “kindergarten Christianity.” I often fight in my own heart and mind to keep from considering the Gospel as remedial, something to move past so I can get on to something more interesting. Early in my own process of coming to know Jesus as Savior, I saw the Gospel as something new and beautiful and exiting – but there are plenty of times now when I catch myself treating it as though it were something primarily for other people.

Paul writes in Romans 1:16, “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes…” This is a verse we tend to think of in terms of evangelism, and rightly so. We must not be ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus in terms of sharing it with those who do not know its great truths. However, this verse is just as applicable for Christ-followers. We must not be ashamed of the Gospel in our own daily lives.

What does it look like to be ashamed of the Gospel in such a manner? I can think of at least two ways:

• By treating it in thought and action as though it were no longer something we need. The Gospel is not something we come to terms with once, then move on to something greater, deeper, or more useful.
• By failing to consciously apply the Gospel to our lives every single day. We should daily preach to ourselves the Gospel with the goal of aligning our lives with Christ, to whom the Gospel takes us. The trajectory of our lives should be constant, joyful struggle to align our lives with His by working out the practical applications of the Gospel in every area of thought and action.

Reflecting on Gospel-centrality in a right way will always lead us to the person and work of Jesus. Christ is the whole point of the Gospel – without Him, there is no Gospel. Jesus is the good news that came to earth;  God as a baby who grew into a man, lived a life we should have lived (but could not), died a death we should have died (but could not) to a penalty we should have paid (but could not). To those that believe that as good news, it is the power of God for salvation by grace through faith in Jesus. This is not a message that gets old.

Has the “newness” of the Gospel worn off for you? Lamentations 3:22-23 tells us that the mercies of God are new every day, and I can think of no clearer portrait of the mercies of God that the Gospel. May God grant us the grace to see our need for the Gospel every day and the strength to preach it to ourselves daily. May He keep us from the foolishness of thinking we can ever get past the Gospel. May our daily appropriation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ be a constant reminder that this is not a message that ever gets old.

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Jason VanDorsten is an occasional contributing author to Off the Wire. He thinks there have been far worse church fads than Gospel-_______ statements.