So in 2014 I am cutting out all movies, TV shows and personal visual entertainment and trying to spend a bit more time reading. In the interests of keeping up my motivation, I'm going to write reviews for each book I read and give 2 ratings out of 10 stars for how much I *personally* enjoyed it and how much I got out of it. Here are the first two:
1. Too Busy Not To Pray (Bill Hybels)
Pleasure: 4/10 Stars
Utility 9/10 Stars
In this exploration of what it looks like to have a prayer life, Mr. Hybels provides a series of tools to incorporate into one's daily routine and answers questions that people typically raise regarding prayer such as prayer's relationship to doubt, suffering and faith. It's a comprehensive introduction to praying and offers some very practical, sound advice on how to have a satisfying prayer life. The reason the pleasure rating is so low is that I have this sinful propensity to see Christianity as merely a system of ideas and concepts. When a book becomes intensely practical, my sinful heart says "Come on, man! Where are the INSIGHTS??? The connections between one idea and another?!" So the low rating says a lot more about me than about the book.
2. The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable (F. F. Bruce)
Pleasure: 6/10 Stars
Utility: 9/10 Stars
In this brief but classic examination of the historicity of the 27 "books" in the New Testament canon, Dr. Bruce lays a bedrock for faith. Each chapter is (relatively) short but addresses a different type of the prose (the gospels, the Pauline epistles, the Petrine epistles, and the Johannine writings), pulls what historicity we can from each section and shows that the New Testament is worthy to be considered as a rigorously compiled record of God's interaction in our world through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. In addition to addressing each kind of prose, Dr. Bruce also looked at some of the most common objections that modern, secular critics raise when confronting Scripture. It was often tersely worded and hard to understand but with some focus and a dictionary/ Wikipedia at hand it was WELL worth the read.
Next up is Jane Eyre...
