(Posted by Nick Duke)
Last night at Campus Church I reviewed a new book on our bookstall about faith.
“Faith - It’s Always Been A Matter of Trust” by Bryson Smith…($12)
I know I get excited about books generally, but it’s fantastic to spend an hour and half reading a book from cover to cover and walking away feeling encouraged and sharpened on such a key topic.
I really want to create a culture in Campus Church of reading and giving books away. Wouldn’t it fantastic to have members constantly reading new books - then going the next step of asking the question - who really needs to hear this message? How can I get this material to them?
Here’s my three reasons why I think it’s worth reading and then giving away (and sorry - you can’t get a copy from our bookstall anymore - we sold all our copies by the end of the night! We’ll try and make another order very soon).
1. It’s short
This is no magnum opus - this is a short punchy summary of a key Christian topic. It’s 6 chapters - each of which can be read in under 15 minutes. So it’s great for the bus or for a quick study break during exam time.
2. It’s Clear
Bryson is a pastor of a church in country NSW. You get the feel that this material arises from serious study of the Bible in the context of real world struggles and the normal kinds of misunderstandings about faith I hear so often.
Bryson has spoken in Christchurch before - I think at our Men’s Convention - he writes clearly and the tone is pretty conversational throughout the book. It feels like it has been refined over several presentations in preaching or other contexts.
…oh and if you’re into studying books together - there’s a few page discussion guide in the back that might help you think further about it and apply it in your lives. I think that can be a helpful think if you’re looking for a way of structuring a catchup with a Christian friend.
3. It’s Faithful
The book is deceptively simple - in 100 pages you feel like you’ve just started - but when I thought back over the material it was obvious that he’d done the hard work with the Bible. As I think over the New Testament teaching on faith, it felt like the balance of the book was well represented and all the key passages looked at throughout the text. He didn’t even feel afraid to reproduce the whole of Hebrews 11 as part of the text!
It also presents a view of faith that arises from the Bible itself, and from that critiques the most common distortions of that we see around today.
- Faith as mere positive thinking is critiqued by reconnecting faith to the promises of God in Scripture. Faith is shown to be trusting the promises that God has made and believing that is both willing and able to keep his promises. Demanding God keep promises he hasn’t made is shown to be what it is - lesser, not greater faith.
- Faith as believing in things for which there is no proof is critiqued in the light of Romans 4:21 - “being fully convinced that God is able to do what he has promised” and passages like Luke 1:1-4 which stress the certainty we can have as believers.
- Faith that is merely intellectual is critiqued as not measuring up to biblical faith which always results in changed lives - active obedience. I really liked the explanation of key passages here like James 2:14ff.
There are chapters on the power and consequences of faith (forgiveness and assurance), the purpose of faith (to bring glory to God), the life of faith (talking about faith and obedience), the enemies of faith (both sin and mere distractions from the main game) and Jesus - the founder and perfecter of faith.
I think the thing that excited me about it was that I could here echoes of many conversations over the years where alternative views of faith were being promoted. It’s great to be able to have a simple and short book to be able to put in people’s hands and say - take and read!
In the New Zealand church scene there is a lot of talk about key Christian words like faith, but not a lot of clarity or precision on what we actually mean by them. It would be great for this book to get a hearing in churches across this country!
Any thoughts?
Nick