What If…God Has Other Plans? Finding Hope When Life Throws You the Unexpected

By Charles R. Swindoll (Tyndale)

Many people face each day wondering what to do if their carefully laid plans are not those God has for them. What if God’s will is not my will? Charles R. Swindoll, long-time pastor and writer, addresses such questions in What If…God Has Other Plans?

Swindoll deals with a variety of questions, including: “What if you suddenly lose everything?” “What if a longtime friend deceives you?” and “What if you need a second chance?” With each issue addressed, Swindoll approaches the topic on two levels: one, as a pastor would deal with such a situation in the church; two, as an individual would deal with such problems in his/her life.

From the chapter on “What If . . . a Person Is an Unrepentant Troublemaker?” he suggests what he calls “a helpful formula that has been used in the church over the centuries.” The approach works “in most situations where not everyone agrees but where all desire harmony rather than strife,” Swindoll writes. “I suggest you memorize it and then put it into practice: In essentials…unity; in nonessentials…liberty; in all things…charity.”

Wise and timely advice permeates the book and makes it a valuable resource for resolving interpersonal conflicts.

Alice Thomas

Conroe

A Week in the Life of a Greco-Roman Woman

By Holly Beers

Dr. Holly Beers writes from the unique viewpoint of a woman as she takes the reader on a journey through Ephesus in the first century. The culture unfolds easily as the story takes shape and is aided by tables of historical artifacts and lifestyles of the people.

Beers presents a stark view of life and death, male and female roles, societal hierarchy and the worship of gods and goddesses. She was inspired by portions of Acts and I Corinthians and easily works Scripture into the narrative of the everyday life of an Ephesian woman named Anthia.

I enjoy historical fiction because it helps in understanding what life was like at a given time. This particular time of history was not an easy time for a woman to live. Beers gives a very clear look at a woman’s fear of pregnancy and childbirth, as well as the sense of being the property of a man—her father or husband—in her descriptions of the buying and selling of women.

The gross objectification of people clearly is something considered normal in that time. Beers counters this objectification with the teachings of Paul in Ephesus. In the freedom of Jesus, slaves and free people ate together, men and women spoke openly in meeting times, children were blessed and cared for, all were welcome. The followers of The Way, as Christianity was called, were very different than the culture at large.

A Week in the Life of a Greco-Roman Woman had a deep impact on me. Anthia only knew one kind of life. It seems extremely oppressive to me, but it was her reality. She was owned. She was property. She was not given respect from the men in her life.

Anthia only heard of freedom through the teachings of The Way. That freedom made her afraid. She could not imagine her husband agreeing with any of The Way’s teachings, and she knew he was enraged by those who were changing their allegiance from Artemis to Jesus. Anthia’s husbands’ honor was tied to allegiance to Artemis, and she knew it was dangerous for her to go against his wishes. Yet, freedom in Jesus called to her. In much the same way, true freedom through Jesus calls to us.

The freedom Paul offered in Jesus’ name was so radical in Anthia’s culture. It was not only different than what people knew then, but it was not coercive and did not require what their gods and goddesses required.

This book also offered me hope for the future. Even out of a terrible situation and cultural norms, the Holy Spirit was working then and still works today.

Dalese Black
Plano, Texas

The #MeToo Reckoning: Facing the Church’s Complicity in Sexual Abuse and Misconduct

By Ruth Everhart (InterVarsity Press)

Ruth Everhart writes The #MeToo Reckoning as an outgrowth of her earlier volume Ruined, the 2017 Book of the Year by Christianity Today Women. Ruined details Everhart’s survival after a sexual assault in 1978 when two armed intruders robbed, raped and brutalized her and her college housemates. As a conservative Christian college senior with a deeply religious background, she believed a woman’s sexual purity was of such importance that the rape had damaged her “beyond repair.”

As other women shared their experiences with her, the longtime Presbyterian minister combined stories with biblical narrative to pen The #MeToo Reckoning: Facing the Church’s Complicity in Sexual Abuse and Misconduct. She muses, for example, on how Bathsheba frequently has been implicated as partly responsible for David’s adultery. After all, she was beautiful. Ruth wonders what consequences Bathsheba would have faced for not complying with a king’s summons. Was she somehow complicit or not?

The author shares the continuation of her own story set against the backdrop of 2 Samuel 13, a passage that includes Tamar’s rape and quests for power. As a young seminary graduate, along with her teacher-husband and two preschool daughters, Everhart moved to a wealthy suburban church where she would be associate minister and the first female to serve on staff. A year after the long-time senior pastor laid his “holy” hands on her at her ordination, he laid his “unholy” hands on her. Often when reported, as in her case, church and denominational leaders stonewall, offer excuses or attempt to explain the actions, she noted.

The sexual abuse and misconduct survivor doesn’t shy away from tough topics like shame, purity culture, secrecy, vulnerability, clericalism and justice. After making her case, Everhart calls for individuals and churches to act. The #MeToo Reckoning isn’t an easy read, but the book offers a sobering perspective and practical path to “facing the church’s complicity in sexual abuse and misconduct.”

Kathy Robinson Hillman, former president

Baptist General Convention of Texas

Waco

Dementia from the Inside: A Doctor’s Personal Journey of Hope

By Dr. Jennifer Bute with Louise Morse

Dementia from the Inside is a must-read for anyone who provides pastoral care, for family and friends of people with dementia, for those living with dementia and for anyone who needs inspiration.

Jennifer Bute, a former medical doctor in Southampton, U.K., cared for her father, a former Baptist pastor who had dementia. Bute
later had to retire from medicine after her own diagnosis with dementia. Dementia from the Inside is her account of the realities of dementia and the hope for those living with it and their caregivers.

The first two chapters are not so much about dementia as they are about God’s faithfulness to Bute, preparing her for dementia through various hardships earlier in her life. During her years with dementia, she has discovered her rich relationship with God to be even richer than it was before.

Bute was part of the pastoral leadership of her church and was able to teach them the importance of continuing pastoral visits to people with dementia. Her teaching was recorded and is available at Glorious Opportunity, along with other resources.

She tells two stories of angels who helped her in situations that would be high stress for those without dementia and traumatic for those who have it. The stories reinforce one of her central messages, which is God’s good care and faithfulness.

Resources abound in the second half of the book. Chapter five is a gold mine with three key principles for understanding people with dementia, seven common triggers for meltdowns, and several pages of practical ways pastors, family, friends and others can accommodate those with dementia. This chapter ought to be read and implemented by every church staff and leadership team or committee.

Chapter six follows with counsel for how to enable those with dementia to open up and flourish rather than shut down and close off. Chapter eight lists five ways to get those with dementia talking—ways more effective and caring than asking, “What did you do today?” or “Do you remember … ?”

Bute shares what it is like living with dementia. She has had to adopt extra measures and reminders to keep her safe and moving through her day. Rather than feeling pity for her, the reader has a sense of awe, joy and gratitude for how full life is even when it seems diminished.

Indeed, rather than pity, Bute calls for empathy, which not only helps those with dementia, but also helps the larger community.

Even if one has no personal interest in dementia, reading Dementia from the Inside will pay dividends in developing empathy, a quality all of us need to possess.

Eric Black
Editor
Baptist Standard

Heart of a Heroine: Knowing Your Identity and Destiny in Christ By Understanding Yourself

By Nancy Albao (Westbow Press)

When a Bible teacher with a psychology degree combines the two disciplines, interesting reading is sure to follow. While the title suggests a female-targeted audience, the text itself applies to anyone. Nancy Albao contrasts some of today’s popular psychology doctrines with those of the Bible to clarify for Christians what God is saying about such beliefs.

For instance, concerning self-esteem, popular psychology says: “Know what you want and ask for it. You deserve your dreams to come true.” It sounds good, but Nancy Albao gives Scripture references to show that God knows more about what is good for us than we do, and in his infinite love can step in to protect us from our unwise requests. Popular psychology says: “Reward yourself when you succeed. No one else will.” This book reminds us God is the one who truly rewards and does so perfectly.

Aside from several distracting typographical errors, Heart of a Heroine presents an important message in an enjoyable way. Albao addresses the self-image, the self-will and the effects of materialism in America today while directing the reader to Christ.

Alice Thomas

Conroe

Girls’ Club: Cultivating Lasting Friendship in a Lonely World

By Sarah, Sally and Joy Clarkson (Tyndale)

Sally Clarkson—author, speaker and co-founder of Whole Heart Ministries—joins with her adult daughters Sarah and Joy to invite women to “discover the gift of friendship” through the pages of Girls’ Club: Cultivating Lasting Friendship in a Lonely World.

The Clarksons moved 17 times, six of them internationally, as their family grew. Sally Clarkson began weekly Girls’ Club meetings to ease loneliness and to have fun, share spiritually and develop lasting friendships with her daughters. In the introduction, each woman provides her perspective on the club and its impact on “the goodness and power of women’s friendship” that helps “make light in the darkness.”

In what could be disjointed but instead flows seamlessly, Sally, Sarah and Joy Clarkson take turns penning the chapters. Each begins with a friendship quote or Scripture. The women fill the pages with poignant memories, personal stories and pertinent advice—Sally as the wise mother, Sarah as a new mom and recent Oxford graduate, and Joy as a 20-something doctoral student at St. Andrews University.

Topics encourage seeking and developing Girls’ Club-type relationships and include commitment, faithfulness, hospitality, embracing “the capaciousness of womanhood” and “dating your friends.” Sally notes the “deepest friendships are formed through … serving others side by side,” citing Jesus and his disciples. Joy shares about mean-girl drama and the “comparison trap” that creates winners and losers rather than companions. Sarah illustrates qualities of friendship with women she admires.

Although Girls’ Club contains general principles, the Clarkson women write the book for women and offer real-world advice on cultivating female friendships rooted in God’s love. The volume closes with powerful words every woman needs to hear: “You are beloved. Now go love someone else.”

Kathy Robinson Hillman, former president

Baptist General Convention of Texas

Waco

 A Little Book for New Preachers: Why and How to Study Homiletics

By Matthew D. Kim

A Little Book for New Preachers, to be released January 2020, actually is for anyone with any level of experience preaching and/or who is interested in preaching. As such, it is a good entré into the calling and work of preaching.

Matthew Kim is an associate professor of preaching and ministry at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and was mentored by Scott M. Gibson, a preaching professor and the director of the Doctor of Philosophy in Preaching program at Truett Theological Seminary.

At just over 100 pages, A Little Book for New Preachers is a primer on preaching rather than a full exposition of the nuts and bolts of preaching.

The book is laid out much like a sermon. It has three parts, and the chapters read like sermons with a set of points, alliteration and key phrasing. Just reading the book is an exercise in studying a style of preaching. For example, preaching is at once a great burden, a great joy and a great legacy. The weight of the subject matter and the fact of representing God leads to all three.

Kim considers typical reasons prospective preachers might fear preaching, such as a fear of public speaking and thin skin. He contends that preaching is sought after by churchgoers and brings together higher profile theological disciplines.

As further reason for preaching, Kim asserts that preaching is discipleship inasmuch as it leads people––including the preacher––to obedience to God’s word and to being more Christlike.

Kim gets to the meat of preaching in Chapter Four by surveying foundational questions for a true interpretation of Scripture, which brings together the historical and contemporary contexts, and suggests a five-part process of biblical interpretation for sermon creation. Kim also addresses the role of culture in sermon delivery.

In Chapter Six, he provides a helpful matrix for application, which he sees as the culmination of preaching—in opposition to the likes of Fred Craddock, who thought listeners should be left to determine application for themselves.

Kim rounds out A Little Book for New Preachers in Part Three by turning to the person of the preacher, calling preachers to cultivate a pastoral sensibility and character. The preacher needs to have a healthy sense of self, especially given American culture’s penchant for celebritizing those up front.

Kim concludes with a three-part call to prayer, the center of which is the Holy Spirit. Preaching should be empowered by the Holy Spirit, which may mean there are both too many and not enough preachers preaching.

Eric Black
Editor
Baptist Standard

Baylor Annotated Study Bible

Edited by W.H. Bellinger Jr. and Todd Still

For decades, the Oxford Annotated Bible and then the New Oxford Annotated Bible were favored by ministry and theology schools. There is now a contender.

The idea for the Baylor Annotated Study Bible originated when a former director of the Princeton University Press told the former director of the Baylor University Press that Baylor ought to produce its own study Bible. That was in 2014. Five years later, the Baylor Annotated Study Bible, or BASB as it already is commonly known, was published.

Leading the project were Old Testament scholar William Bellinger Jr., chair of Baylor’s religion department, and New Testament scholar Todd Still, dean of Baylor’s Truett Theological Seminary.

Like the Oxford Bible, the BASB uses the New Revised Standard Version, which is approved by a wide array of Christian denominations. In keeping with this ecumenical spirit, not all of the contributors are Baptist, but all have a connection to Baylor, whether as faculty or alumni or as friends of the university, seminary or press.

Roughly 70 pastors and scholars contributed to the BASB, writing introductions to each of the books of the Bible and commentary notes. Contributors include world-renowned scholars like N.T. Wright, Richard Hays, Scot McKnight and Walter Brueggemann; Texas Baptist pastors like Howie Batson at First Baptist Church in Amarillo and Duane Brooks at Tallowood Baptist Church in Houston; Houston Baptist University President Robert Sloan; and even an attorney, Mark Lanier.

Also like the Oxford Bible, the BASB’s notes appear at the bottom of the page to be easily accessible to the reader without interrupting the reading of Scripture.

“(The notes) are there to help readers read. They’re not there to discuss scholarship. They are notes that will help readers read the text for all its worth,” said Carey Newman, former director of the Baylor University Press.

Further resources included in the BASB are a detailed timeline of biblical history “against the backdrop of ancient Near Eastern and Greco-Roman history;” a glossary of “terms and names mentioned in the introductions, commentaries and timeline;” a concordance with tables for the miracles and parables of Jesus; and full-color maps.

In addition to enlisting dozens of well-respected contributors, Baylor partnered with Tyndale House Publishers to publish the BASB. Tyndale’s capabilities in Bible publishing allow “individuals, churches and other organizations to order specially bound and burnished versions of the BASB.”

The intent of the BASB is spelled out in the Editor’s Preface: “The aim of the roughly seventy contributors to the BASB is to assist readers in following the literary flow of a given biblical book; gaining a better understanding of certain aspects of a writing; appreciating the socio-historical context(s) in(to) which the work was written; noting connections with other biblical and ancient literary works; and considering the theological concerns and claims of the authors.”

“The BASB is meant for both personal and classroom study and seeks to follow in the long-standing mission of Baylor University, namely, to serve as a faithful witness to the liberating, transformative good news of the gospel,” Todd Still stated.

Eric Black
Editor
Baptist Standard

Understanding Sexual Identity: A Resource for Youth Ministry

By Mark A. Yarhouse (Zondervan)

Looking for resources as I work with teenaged boys and listening to the comments of church leaders, I found myself drawn to Mark Yarhouse’s work. Yarhouse is the Dr. Arthur P. Rech and Mrs. Jean May Rech Professor of Psychology at Wheaton College, where he directs the Sexual and Gender Identity Institute.

His book Understanding Gender Dysphoria was a helpful place for me to start understanding a population whose struggle and pain easily get lost in the culture wars. His insights and research have given me new ways to think about gender issues as a therapist.

In Understanding Sexual Identity, Yarhouse introduces us to a framework for understanding where some of our youth may find themselves: same-sex attraction, homosexual orientation or gay identity. The framework could be a continuum depending on the understanding and support of faith leaders.

He acknowledges his research shows students on this continuum are a sexual minority but are important because they also are youth for whom Christ died.

Yarhouse’s research indicates these three sexual categories are not inevitably progressive or seamless, meaning a teen starts with same-sex attraction does not necessarily move to gay identity.

His further research indicates that sexual minority youth may slip away from the church unnecessarily, ultimately to embrace gay identity because their struggle was too painful and lonely to share with others. Here, Yarhouse digs in to help youth leaders create connections which are “safe,” as the word is used in the gay community to designate a place or person(s) who can be trusted with such disclosures.

Yarhouse’s hope is that more youth ministry leaders and pastors will embrace a ministry culture where youth are safe to process their same-sex attraction and feel they have real friends and real options.

Working within the categories of same-sex attraction, homosexual orientation and gay identity, Yarhouse challenges us to think through what biblical leadership, compassion and community can look like in the local church for a struggling teen in the sexual minority.

He captures the angst of adolescents who do not want to experience same-sex attraction yet have found asking God to make it go away a prayer that often goes unanswered. He also captures a way of relating to teens as they live “between the miracles.”

Yarhouse thoughtfully helps us take a larger view of a teenager’s life and ministry opportunities in the myriad facets of talents, aspirations, accomplishments, passions, relationships, life goals and spiritual desire.

One of my continual observations about the gay lifestyle is it reduces personhood to gender identification. Yarhouse wants us to broaden our sense of teenagers’ personhood in order to help them see a larger picture of themselves. From this, he encourages leaders to stress the pursuit of Christlikeness as a goal of moving students through these turbulent times.

I find myself wishing I had access to this research when I was a pastor and hoping my grandchildren can find a safe place in their lives through the teen years.

Understanding Sexual Identity is a helpful resource for pastors and student ministers. If all one’s questions are not addressed in this book, Yarhouse’s other offerings may address other facets of this struggle.

Michael R. Chancellor, counselor

Round Rock

In Search of the Common Good: Christian Fidelity in a Fractured World

By Jake Meador (IVP)

Jake Meador opens In Search of the Common Good with a haunting account of a botched suicide and the life that transpired thereafter. It is a hopeful story.

From this introduction, Meador dives into a startling indictment of the American church as complicit with celebrity culture. He claims the moral failings of the American church result from its success in doing what it was designed to do—to be prominent and powerful.

The same failing of the church is seen in American society as a whole. The chaos and breakdown of society and its communities isn’t a failing but is the achieving of the system so ordered.

A church weakened by its success at worldliness is less and less a source of the “social capital” needed to hold communities together, Meador asserts. Communal bonds built on families, neighborhoods and civic organizations begin to fray, as Meador points out.

So, where’s the hope?

Meador explores hollow responses, starting with modern existentialism and following with capitalism.

In his telling, existentialism promises individual freedom but lacks anything to foster the common good because any tie to another person impinges on individual freedom. As a result, boredom runs rampant as people become overcome by a sense of self-imprisonment.

Capitalist economics promises to overcome the ills of the world but instead works against community and the common good in favor of efficiency and profitability.

To combat the diminishment of community and the common good, Meador recommends a return to the primacy of regular corporate worship, including on Sunday evenings. Corporate worship is just one expression of the larger Christian community, which is built on membership and mutual responsibility. By contrast, modern community is predicated on transactional relationships and usefulness. Marriage and celibacy come up in the context of Meador’s treatment of Christian community.

Another means of combating a reduced common good is to remember the goodness of work. Meador asserts that everyone is born into wealth—creation itself—and that the human task is to produce more wealth—not money, but more creation. In response to the primacy of technique and technology in modern markets, humans should appreciate the goodness of inefficiencies and work for human flourishing.

One of Meador’s most interesting discussions happens at the end of the book when he takes on politics. Instead of forming people grounded by doctrine, the American church has given too much attention to policy-making, with the result that Christians too often are tossed and turned by every change in or challenge to policy. Meador criticizes Democrats and Republicans alike and calls for the formation of three party-neutral political doctrines—solidarity, sphere sovereignty and subsidiarity—and two Christian virtues—humility and wisdom.

In the final chapter, Meador challenges the notion that the present world will be destroyed to make way for heaven. Instead, he asserts the present world—along with all its members and the good that membership has produced—will be restored into a new creation.

Eric Black, executive director/editor/publisher
Baptist Standard . 

Transhumanism and the Image of God

By Jacob Shatzer (InterVarsity Press)

Jacob Shatzer is a myth buster. Not one of those guys on TV who uses technology and science to challenge popular myths and reveal Hollywood special effects secrets. Rather, Shatzer takes on one of the dominant myths of our time, one so popular we don’t even think about it. His challenge is simple: “Tools aren’t neutral; rather, they encourage us and shape us toward certain goals, and they often do so in hidden ways.”

With that assertion, Shatzer, in Transhumanism and the Image of God, addresses what must be a concern of every minister, parent and anybody who will read this review—online, by the way. Shatzer challenges the notion that our technological tools are in and of themselves neutral and that their impact depends entirely on how we use them. The reality and significance of our (especially digital) technologies are that they “are shaping us. And shaping people, after all, is just another way of talking about discipleship.”

If we care about Christian discipleship, we might want to know something about the competition, and Shatzer helpfully discusses how current practices in which most of us are immersed shape us in ways that make important Christian practices all the more difficult. Shatzer approaches his concerns through a discussion of “transhumanism”—a set of values, commitments and goals that would prepare humans for our evolutionary transition into a posthuman condition. Its extreme form entails having our minds duplicated in a digital format uploadable into an environment in which we would leave behind our limited condition as embodied selves. Posthumanism promises eternal life without all that stuff about death and resurrection getting in the way. It is an echo of the serpent’s offer that we can leave behind our creaturely status and grab for the tree of life on our own terms.

Shatzer knows some claims of transhumanism “sound far-fetched.” What matters, though, is that the values and goals of transhumanism already are present in our culture and invite our immersion in technologies that shape us accordingly. For example, transhumanism affirms “morphological freedom,” “the ability to take advantage of whatever technology a person wants to in order to change their body in any way they desire.” Already available are the attractions of virtual reality and social media by which we can re-conceive and re-represent ourselves in ways that come under our own jurisdiction. “Augmented reality” (in which our perceptions of the world are modified through a merger of ourselves with technology—think “Pokémon Go”) already alters, not only our perceptions of reality, but also of ourselves, as lines between human and machine are blurred.

Shatzer’s work is well-informed, balanced and accessible. Most importantly, he explores critical matters of technology’s impact on Christian discipleship from within the commitments of Christian faith. Christians agree with transhumanism on the need for transformation of the human condition. For Shatzer, though, the incarnation and resurrection of Christ insist that God’s plan for our transformation “is to become the new self through being united with the Son, not through mere morphological freedom.”

Jeph Holloway

East Texas Baptist University

Marshall 

Truth Over Fear: Combating the Lies about Islam

By Charles Kimball (Westminster John Knox Press)

Christianity and Islam hold some beliefs in common—there is one God who is the Creator and Sustainer of all life and who made himself known to Abraham, Moses and the prophets. But perhaps the real common denominator between Christians and Muslims is that each thinks of his or her faith in terms of its ideal expression while tending to judge the other’s religion on the basis of how its most strident and militant adherents demonstrate it.

Charles Kimball understands better than most what is at stake in helping people of the two largest world religions understand each other. The American Baptist minister, now chair of the department of religious studies at the University of Oklahoma, has spent more than 30 years doing just that—even serving as a mediator in the Middle East during the Iran hostage crisis in 1979-81.

At one level, Truth Over Fear functions as an informative and accessible primer on Islam. Particularly helpful are sections explaining what jihad and sharia mean to the vast majority of Muslims—as opposed to how the terms have been appropriated by Islamist radicals and abused by fear-mongers. Kimball also provides an important discussion of the missionary mandates inherent both to Christianity and to Islam. He emphasizes both religions urge their followers to bear witness to their faith through acts of compassion, not coercion or compulsion. However, each faith remembers those times when the other has abused power, creating “converts” at the point of a sword or using the sword to exterminate “infidels.”

Beyond its obvious value as an aid in introducing Christians to Islam, this book may do an even greater good by promoting relationship-building. Kimball encourages Christians and Muslims to work together on community service projects, share meals and engage in honest conversations, because that is where real understanding takes place. As he writes, “Talking about people, their scriptures, and rituals is not the same as talking with them and observing how their faith and practices are manifest in their lives and communities” (p. 65).

Ken Camp, managing editor

Baptist Standard