Planted by Water

For my devotional reading recently I have taken up a book by an author whose books I used to read a number of years ago. Most famous for With Christ in the School of Prayer, Andrew Murray was a preacher, pastor and writer in South Africa at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries. He came from a tradition sometimes kknown as the ‘holiness movement,’ a proponent of the original …

Sorry I’ve been off-line for a while! Thought I’d better catch up with some reviews of books that I’ve been reading over recent months.

For devotional reading, I have been re-reading Arthur Wallis’ book, Pray in the Spirit, first published nearly forty years ago (sorry about the awful book cover on the picture but it was the only one I could find - don’t judge it by its cover!).  I was asked to speak to the …

I receive regular emails from LICC (the London Insititue for Contemporary Christianity) whom I would recommend for some of their comment on current affairs and cultural issues. Mark Greene is especially good. I was pleased to see that they were recommedning a book that I reviewed on my blog back on 6th September 2005 called God’s Politics by Jim Wallis. He is presently on a tour of Uk to promote his book (including in Manchester but I …

I reviewed Snyders Community of the King yesterday. Below is an extract from it that I didn’t post yesterday but I think is particularly insightful; and a very relevant and important point if we consider how Christians are to engage with the world.

The temptation to accept substitute gods and counterfeit  satans is always before the Church. At various periods in history the Church has been decieved into warring against false archenemies…….In the name of opposition to these enemies Christians have been willing to put others to death; for when the Church accepts Satan’s …

This is one of the best books that I have read concerning the nature of the church. It is so right to say that the Church must be understood in the light of the Kingdom and God’s ultimate and eternal plan  - or ‘the cosmic design’ as Snyder calls it. You can safely ignore some of the wrong-headed applications. For example, having clearly demonstrated that the church is a charismatic and organic community, he goes on to defend institutionalism too much; …

This book I have just read is a kind of precis of a trilogy of books that Walter Wink (great name!) wrote in the 80s and early 90s, concerning ‘Principalities and Powers’ and I had heard that he had some interesting insights on it. I was actually a little disappointed as it was more about Wink’s pacifist ideology, but still it was an interesting read. 

Wink is very liberal in his theology and I certainly wouldn’t recommend him for someone young …