• Following Jesus © 1994
• Eerdmans
• 114 pages

I bought this book from Amazon.com under the mistaken impression that it was published in 2009. There’s still nothing to indicate different on the website. Just to be clear, this collection of sermons which was loosely transformed into a book was first published in 1994. The Eerdmans paperback version selling on Amazon was printed in 2009.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to the book. It’s divided into two sections. The first six sermons take one whole book of the Bible per message and speak about the main point the author is trying to get across. The messages are okay, but they’re nothing special.

The second six sermons really shine. They’re written on classic N. T. Wright themes: resurrection, mind, temptation, hell, heaven, and new life. These messages were filled with excitement and challenge. You can really tell which themes Wright was passionate about back at the genesis of his Christian Origins series.

Buy the book, but feel free to skim the first half!

• The Faces of Jesus: A Life Story © 1974, 2005
• Paraclete Press
• 97 pages

The Faces of Jesus is Buechner’s brief survey of Jesus’ life. He takes the reader through the important moments of Jesus’ life with a poet’s eye for beauty.

Unfortunately, the style of writing that so amazed me in Now and Then seemed largely absent here. It could have been my familiarity with the subject matter, but this book left me largely unmoved. To be sure, there were moments of poetic brilliance (this is Buechner we’re talking about!)—but they seemed few and far between.

I must add that Paraclete Press didn’t do the book any favors by selecting different sized fonts seemingly at random. It almost felt like they were stretching the material to make (almost) 100 pages.

I’ll keep reading Buechner, but my prior enthusiasm has been slightly dampened.

• Prayer (50th Anniversary Edition) © 1952
• Westminster Press
• 78 pages

I’m no expert on Barth. I have, however, read Luther and Calvin on the Lord’s Prayer. This book was a nice little survey of their thought set in a devotional tone. It’s actually the translation of an adaptation of three lectures Barth gave at Neuchâtel.

This is the sort of book that packs a lot of meaning into a few words. Don’t let its 78 pages fool you into thinking it’s a lightweight. The words of the translation (by Sara F. Terrien) are carefully weighed and full of beauty.

Take this little book on your next paddling trip and meditate on the Lord’s prayer as you go.

• Keeping the Sabbath Wholly: Ceasing, Resting, Embracing, Feasting © 1989
• Eerdmans
• 217 pages

Keeping the Sabbath Wholly is a window into how Marva Dawn practices the Sabbath. She focuses on the four elements of the subtitle (ceasing, resting, embracing, feasting) as critical attitudes for robust Sabbath-keeping.

The book is filled with personal anecdotes and stories that give the reader ideas to integrate into their own practice. She offers her suggestions without any hint of legalistic arm-twisting: something that’s plagued our understanding of Sabbath for too long.

I was a little disappointed by this book, but that was likely because I misunderstood the genre. The first book I read by Dawn was Powers, Weakness, and the Tabernacling of God, an excellent theological treatise on Paul’s theology of the powers. The next book was To Walk and Not Faint, a devotional on Isaiah 40 that integrated solid exegesis into each meditation. I started this book expecting an exegetical foundation for Sabbath-keeping that was not to be found. She confined her writing to her own experience.

While it’s still a good book, this married man often had difficulty identifying with the life-examples of a single woman.

• Fasting: The Ancient Practices © 2009
• Thomas Nelson
• 180 pages

Fasting is the natural, inevitable response of a person to a grievous sacred moment in life (18).

That statement summaries the entire book. McKnight identified a three step process in fasting:

1. Something “grievous” happens
2. We fast
3. God responds

Our culture is obsessed with short-circuiting this movement. We want something from God, so we fast (jumping in at number 2) and expect number 3. In Scripture, fasting always starts with step 1; step 3 is never a given. God will not submit to our manipulation. When we use fasting to get something from God we’re engaging in little more than a pointless hunger strike.

The concept is simple, but powerful (as most good ideas are). While not in this book, I wonder whether the pattern is similar in prayer. We’ve been taught to “pray in the good times as well as the bad”, and to not just pray when we’re in trouble. A quick look at the Psalms shows us that David more often than not followed the 1, 2, 3, pattern as well.

Back to the topic at hand. This is an excellent primer for anyone interested in exploring the ancient practice of fasting. It’s motivational, informative, and places the practice in proper perspective.

• Good Grief ©1962, 1971
• Fortress Press
• 64 pages

It’s not often that a 64 page book with large print is reissued over and over again as a “classic”. In this feature-article length book, Westberg gives a quick apologetic about the need to grieve followed by descriptions of the 10 different stages a grieving person may go through. He wisely notes that not every one goes through every stage, and they don’t always flow in order.

The role of the believer is not to short-circuit the grieving process, but to help the person through the stages.

I particularly appreciated his realism at the start of the final chapter:

Please note that we do not say that the final stage is, “We become our old selves again.” When we go through any significant grief experience we come out of it as different people. Depending upon the way we respond to this event we are either stronger people than we were before or weaker—either healthier in spirit or sicker.

• In Constant Prayer (The Ancient Practices) © 2008
• Thomas Nelson
• 165 pages

This is a beautiful book. It’s not too technical, too profound, or too spiritual: it’s the perfect little volume for anyone considering liturgical prayer for the first time.

Like C. S. Lewis, Benson has a knack for finding the right anecdote to illustrate his point every time. Nothing is flippant or out of place. His prose isn’t preachy, but it still manages to leave you motivated to pray. This book, like the form of prayer it espouses, is beautiful.

If you’re looking for an introduction to the practice of praying the daily offices, this is an excellent primer. You’ll need to buy a prayer book to go with it—I’d recommend Tickle’s The Divine Hours to begin.

Thanks to Brian Lachine for the recommendation.

• Tithing: Test Me in This (The Ancient Practices Series) © 2010
• Thomas Nelson
• 156 pages

Tithing is the story of 11 different people or couples who find that ancient practice to be an important part of their spiritual lives. The strength of this book lies in the diversity of its subjects. You’ll find everyone from fundamentalists to liberals between these covers, which only lends strength to the book’s main point: tithing is an important practice today. One of the chapters even centers on the tithing practices of a Jewish Rabbi. Since this book series emphasizes the seven practices that Christianity picked up from Judaism, his perspective is particularly valuable.

LeBlanc’s prose is effortless—it takes no time at all to dissolve into the situations you’re reading about. In fact, each chapter reads like a well written magazine article. I just wished there was more to tie the articles together. A survey of the scriptures that speak of tithing, stewardship, and generosity would have been a nice addition. Hearing how the saints throughout history practiced would have been helpful as well.

Unfortunately, the message became repetitive after a while. You can only hear so much, “I was poor, but God convicted me to tithe, and now I’m better,” before you crave something a little more substantial. Does this message work, worldwide? How does the persecuted church, or the third-world church practice tithing?

All that said, this book is a good motivational tool to start people on their tithing journey.

Disclaimer: I received this book for free as a member of Thomas Nelson’s Booksneeze program.

• The Liturgical Year: The Spiraling Adventure of the Spiritual Life – The Ancient Practices Series © 2009
• Thomas Nelson
• 217 pages

The Liturgical Year is a collection of devotional thoughts centered around the annual liturgy followed by the church throughout millennia. It is an attempt to draw believers back to the year that begins at Advent rather than the first of January.

While I found some of the historical work on the origin of the various festivals interesting, this book was just too aimless to engage me. On the small scale, I found myself rereading paragraphs and pages because I couldn’t remember or figure out just what she was trying to say. On a larger scale, even the table of contents lacked structure! I expected more internal logic from a book based around dates on a calendar.

That said, Chittister’s style of writing is beautiful at times. She brings a poetic flair to her prose that makes for great call-out boxes in the text. In the end, though, lack of substance overwhelmed the beauty of her style.

Of all the Thomas Nelson books I’ve reviewed, this was the one I anticipated the most and appreciated the least.

Disclaimer: I received this book as a member of Thomas Nelson’s Book Review Blogger program.

• To Walk and Not Faint: A Month of Meditations on Isaiah 40 © 1980, 1997 (Second Edition)
• Eerdmans
• 189 pages

I’ve been disappointed by devotional literature more times than I can recall. The whole lot of it seems too mushy and theologically ungrounded. Then I found Marva Dawn.

The concept underlying this book is simple: Dawn wrote a four or five page devotion on each of the 31 verses of Isaiah 40. The execution, however, was profound. Dawn used her knowledge of Hebrew to bring out a number of subtle nuances that English readers would miss. She paired this with honest personal experience to create a devotional that is both poignant and theologically intelligent.

This is the first devotional work I’ve read one chapter at a time. You need to meditate on each verse as you work your way through.

To Walk and Not Faint rises above the mediocrity in the genre today.