Friday, January 25, 2019

New Year and Current Reading

I am one who loves to read, but unfortunately time does not allow me to keep up with the current publications.  Recently I have completed two books I commend for different reasons.
"A Time for Confidence: Trusting God in a Post-Christian Society" by Stephen Nichols (Reformation Trust, 2016).  I was fortunate enough to meet and hear Dr. Nichols preach at the Ligonier conference in Lancaster, PA in November 2018.  The premise of the book is that times are changing and we have choices.  We can cower and allow secular society to advocate positions without dissent.  We can capitulate and adopt the "if you can't be 'em, join 'em" attitude.  Or worse yet, we can just crawl into a cave and admit defeat.  In case you haven't guessed from the title, Dr. Nichols advocates a different reaction: confidence.  Using examples drawn from the Bible and others, Dr. Nichols gives examples of how confidence in God, the Bible, the Gospel and Hope can sustain us.  He ends with the a statement by Chris Larson, "The future belongs to Christians of conviction."

"Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage in the Bible: A Fresh Look at What Scripture Teaches" by Jay Adams (Zondervan, 1980).  Dr. Adams (he turns 90 at the end of January), is a proponent of Nouthetic Counseling- an approach that uses the Bible as the source of counseling as opposed to more traditional or humanistic techniques.  The book is dense and exegetically thorough, exploring the original Hebrew and Greek for the distinctions that English translations may miss.  To simplify Dr. Adams' writing is to do a disservice to his research, but as it applies to divorce he summarizes his approach to include: 
  • Divorce always stems from sin
  • Is not necessarily sinful
  • Always breaks a marriage
  • Is never necessary among believers
  • Is legitimate on the grounds of sexual sin
  • Is legitimate when an unbeliever wishes to divorce a believer
  • Is forgivable when sinful
Some churches may find this too restrictive while others may find it too permissible.  But, I believe his reasoning is sound and worthy of consideration.