I JUST FINISHED J. I. PACKER’S 2013 book Weakness Is The Way, a short, four-chapter introduction to 2 Corinthians. In that letter, because God perfects his strength through weakness, Paul boasts of his weakness, not his strengths. Packer’s book focuses on this idea illustrating it with the need for financial liberality (2 Cor 8-9), and the weakness of old age (2 Cor 4-5) as we wait in hope for future glory.
Am also reading a delightful book titled, Spurgeon on Spiritual Leadership, by Steve Miller. This book is food for the soul. It is all about Spurgeon’s dependence on God, his liberality, his prayer life, his faith, his heart to serve, etc. I have personally found it encouraging and most quotable, as almost everything Spurgeon writes is. Like Packer’s work, this one is short, readable, and easily digestible.
Paul Johnson is a favorite. A prolific British historian. He burst on the literary scene in the nineteen eighties with his mammoth study of moral relativism, Modern Times. A few years later Judy gave me his work on the secular priesthood of the modern secular society, Intellectuals. I am now reading his long but fun and enjoyable, A History of The American People. Unlike many today, Johnson has a most positive view of the American project. He is also a first-class storyteller using these gifts to bring American history to life. Can’t recommend this book enough.
A few weeks ago I finished A Gentle Wind, by McMaster and Jacobs, the little-known story of the East African Revival which began in the nineteen-thirties but didn’t peter out until the nineteen fifties. It took place in Uganda, Rwanda, and surrounding countries. More than anything else the United States needs revival and books like this encourage faith and hope as we read the amazing stories of what God has accomplished in the past.
I also recently completed, None Greater, the undomesticated attributes of God by Matthew Barrett. God is so much bigger and greater than the average Christian imagines. This book encourages us to greatly amplify our mental image of how God is and what he has done. I highly recommend it.
One of my new favorite historians is Arthur Herman. His study, Gandhi and Churchill, elucidates the relationship between these two men. It is also the forgotten story of the British Raj in India, and the toll that WWI and WWII exacted upon the British Empire, the life of Churchill, and the unconnected, but sincere, idealism of Gandhi. Understanding this history is a key to understanding the modern world and the need for a Saviour.
