It’s important to realise that Christianity is not an abstract philosophy or collection of timeless truths. Christianity is built upon a claim verifiable in history.  It’s built on the witness of the first Christians who testified to the physical resurrection of Jesus from the grave.

This fact seems to be overlooked by so much of the literature associated with the ‘New Atheists’ and their movement.  They often equate all religious belief as mere superstition on the level of believing in Santa Claus and the tooth-fairy.  It may serve a usefulness for a time, but we ought to grow out of it as soon as possible.

It’s important therefore for Christians to put some time into these issues because unless they are absolutely convinced of the historicity of those events, then their witness will be blunted.

It’s interesting as we go through Luke’s gospel (here’s the latest talk) the number of times where Luke intersects with the verifiable events of history (we’ve looked recently at 1:1-4, 2:1-2 and shortly we’ll look at in church 3:1-4).

If you’re thinking through these things can I suggest three areas for testing:

1. The events themselves.
2. The documentary record of those events.
3. The transmission of those documents to us today.

James de Costobadie did a slot last night on the reliability of the New Testament documents which is a good start if you’re interested in that area.  You can download a copy of his talk here.  He also recommended a book by Dr Paul Barnett – Is the New Testament History? which you can get from our bookstall.  The revised edition has an interesting chapter on the comparative evidence for the Islamic claims to historicity.

Written by Kent Hughes

Sweat, sweat, sweat, and a little more sweat. This is the most basic message of ‘The Disciplines of a Godly Man’. R. Kent Hughes starts out with a few good examples of men who are very successful. He shows us Winston Churchill, Leonardo da Vinci, Ernest Hemmingway and Thomas Edison. They all had one thing in common – success. Below that, their greater commonality was how they achieved success in their chosen fields – discipline, hard work, sweat.

As Christian men, we are called to serve God, to labour in His harvest field, and as with any other man, success is almost invariably had where discipline and hard work is to be found. Read Proverbs, ‘The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied.’ And Paul says ‘train yourselves for godliness’.

Why do they say this? Why does Hughes beat into the mind that without discipline in our relationships (both God and others), without disciplining ourselves to read the word and diligently pray, without discipline in our jobs and in working together for the Kingdom of God, we will invariably fall short. This is not to reject the idea that it is only grace that saves, but rather to say that, by grace we are able to grow into a greater likeness of Christ, and this through discipline.

In conclusion, if you are willing to be challenged, if you are willing to say no to laziness and instead to sweat for Christ and the expansion of His Kingdom, but don’t know where to start, this book is for you. I have had my life picked to shreds by it, and in the rebuilding I have grown much. I hope you appreciate it as much as I.

Reviewed by Alex Mead