Something Great

I know all of my Brilliant and Charming peers are also bookworms. My new friend Tim has just launched a site called Discerning Reader! This is going to be a great resource and a great chance for us to get leads on new books and reviews on not new books so we can read them and post them on this site for ourselves and our friends. I think that was quite a runon sentence.
Check it out!

This is a quote from my bro Paul's blog: The whole premise of the site is to act as a focal point of book reviews found on the web. Now you can link to these with just one click and get Tim's and the DR's Editorial Board's view on specific Christian literature.

Tim is also the author of Challies Dot Com

Spurgeon Gold: Pure. Refined. (by Ray Comfort)

This book is a compilation of quotes from Charles Spurgeon.

Ray can hardly get much credit for this book except that he chose a great man to compile quotes from. Charles Spurgeon was a great 19th Century English preacher. BUY ANYTHING THAT HE HAS WRITTEN AND READ IT. I wish I had time to say more about this incredible man of God. Read a biography or something. There are lots out there.

Another reason this book is great is because of the nature of the quotes. They are either proclamations of the gospel or convicting exhortations to Christians to share their faith. I'll show you some examples.

Preach Christ
She is a traitor to the Master who sent her if she is so beguiled by the beauties of taste and forgets that to "preach Christ...and him crucified" is the only object for which she exists among the sons of men. The business of the Church is salvation of souls.

By all means, save some
Save some, O Christians! By all means, save some. From yonder flames and outer darkness, and the weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth, seek to save some! Let this, as in the case of the apostle, be your great, ruling object in life: that by all means, you might save some.

The Call of God
If God has called you to be a missionary, your Father would be grieved for you to shrivel down into a king.

The Preparation of the Law
I do not believe that any man can preach the gospel who does not preach the law.

Here is a good one!

Some People's Eyes
I shall never forget one summer afternoon, when I was preaching in a village chapel about the joys of Heaven, that an elderly lady sitting on my right kept looking to me with intense delight. Some people�s eyes greatly help the preacher[1]. A telegraph goes on between us. She seemed to say to me, "Bless God for that. How I am enjoying it!" She kept drinking in the truth, and I poured out more and more precious things about the eternal kingdom and the sight of the Well beloved, till I saw what I thought was a strange light pass over her face. I went on, and those eyes were still fixed on me. She sat still as a marble figure, and I stopped and said, "Friends, I think that yon sister over there is dead." They said that it was even so, and they bore her away. She had gone. While I was telling of Heaven, she had gone there; and I remember saying that I wished that it had been my case as well as hers. It was better not, perhaps, for many reasons; but oh, I did envy her! I am always looking for the day when I shall see her again. I shall know those eyes, I am sure I shall.

I love this book.

Faithful Women and their Extraordinary God

Well, i'm currently reading A.W Tozer's Knowledge of the Holy, but i'm not quite done. Y'all can expect some blogging about that book later. Its a doozy, filled with little drops of heaven in the form of a brilliant string of words. Anyways. More on that when i'm done.

I recently finished the book Faithful Women and their Extraordinary God by Noel Piper. The tendency is for most missionary biographies to be written about solid men of the faith--men such as Jim Elliot, David Brainerd, Jonathan Edwards etc. i, by far, am not a raging feminist. However, i did find it highly encouraging to read about people of my own gender being used by God to do amazing things. It would be well worth it for not only females to read this book, but males as well. Break out of the normal paradigms, all you guys out there and read this book :)

The book highlights the lives of 5 women--Sarah Edwards (wife of Jonathan Edwards), Lilias Trotter, Gladys Aylward, Esther Ahn Kim, and Helen Roseveare--who were used by God to expand His kingdom. Ahh. Such great stuff.

i'll highlight 2 of the lives Noel Piper details:

1. The portrait of Sarah Edwards is simply stunning--who says motherhood is for pansies? By 1900, the marriage of Sarah Edwards and Jonathan Edwards had produced:

• 13 college presidents
• 65 professors
• 100 lawyers and a dean of a law school
• 30 judges
• 66 physicians and a dean of a medical school
• 80 holders of public office, including: 3 US senators, mayors of 3 large cities, governors of 3 states, a vice president of the US and a controller of US treasury.

She must've been a pretty amazing mother to have set a foundation like that!!!

2. Esther Ahn Kim

What can be better than words from her own mouth?

" i began to think that life might be worth living in this time of persecution. It might even be a truer picture of the believer to agonize, to suffer, to be hated, and tortured, and even to be killed in obeying God's words rather than to live an ordinary, uneventful life."

Wow.

Amazing women of faith. Oh, that i too would be used to glorify my Saviour.

This Sounds Cool

This sounds cool brother. I think Piper's God is the Gospel is next up pour moi.

JohnPiper, "When I Don't Desire God: How to Fight for Joy"

So here's an opening on Piper's book.
The title is self-explanatory. But to give you a brief background on Piper's main message in all his work, it's that "God is most glorified, when we are most satisfied in Him." Joyful Christians glorify God more than unhappy ones.

I'll summarize the first three chapters (i think you'll find summary for helpful than opinion):

1- "Why I wrote this book." Here's a good summary question, 'what should i do if i don't desire God?' I am addressing the question, "How can i obtain or recover a joy in Christ that is so deep and so strong that it will free me from bondage to Western comforts and security, and will impel into sacrifices of mercy and missions, and will sustain me in the face of martydom?"

2-"What is the difference between Desire and Delight?" Delight comes before/and creates desire. Neither are the goal, God is. Example of desire Ps 42:1. Example of delight Ps 16:11.

3-"(Taking God's Demand for Delight Seriously.)" Here's a good quote, "Not to see and savor Christ is an insult to the beauty and worth of His character" It is, in fact, the essence of evil! This is reason enough to take the call for joy in Christ seriously.

what is this

Hey everyone. This blog is for ppl to write down notes and reflections on books their reading, especially Christian n books.
My suggestion is to blog ONCE per book, then all the following comments will have to do with that book (please start blogging the book before you finish).

Hope this works, and if anyone has a better way of doing it, lemme know soon.