The Wonder Working God by Jared Wilson -- Book Review

Thanks to Christian Audio's Reviewers Program, I was able to just finish listening to The Wonder-Working God: Seeing the Glory of Jesus in His Miracles by Jared Wilson. This book was also read by the author, which I always prefer.

In The Wonder Working God, Jared Wilson has gathered together descriptions and expositions of the miracles of Jesus. At first, I believed that the miracles were grouped according to their similarity of the miraculous occurrence. But just now, as I am typing this review, I have realized that the grouping goal was according to how the miracle revealed the Miraculous Jesus. Obviously there are similarities to the types of miracles that are grouped together in the chapters, but the author has done an amazing job at pulling back the details of the miracle and the comments and conversations around the miracle to show that each of these miracles was not simply about showing that Jesus could do stuff, but showing how Jesus is truly glorious in every way.

Even though the Wonder Working God is not simply a commentary on the miracles of Jesus, it could still be a wonderful tool to use in a study of these miracles. And as I listened to the book, I started to realize that each chapter reads more like an excellently crafted sermon than an exegetical commentary. As you read/listen, the gospel message is clearly there, but not in a forced way... in an expository way...  The way a good preacher will pull back the words of Scripture to reveal Jesus. Jared Wilson has definitely done an amazing job of Preaching Christ.

I highly recommend this book.

Jesus takes strangers and makes them a family.

This is how the Philippian church begins - with a Jewish fashionista businesswoman, a demon-possessed slave girl, and a blue-collar ex-GI duty bound to the Roman Empire. Probably not exactly your dream church-planting team, but the Spirit works in strange ways to utterly redeem the unlikeliest and most diverse people. We see in the backstory of Acts 16 the beautiful reconciliation that the gospel achieves, not just of unholy individuals to a holy God but superficially incompatible people to each other! Jesus takes strangers and makes them family.~ Matt Chandler in To Live Is Christ to Die Is Gain 

Even though we don't have any fashionistas, demon-possessed slave girls, or Roman Empire jail guards, this quote reminded me of my church.

Otherworld by Jared C. Wilson - Book Review

Otherworld: A Novel by Jared C. Wilson snagged my attention and kept it until the end.

I was originally drawn to this book because of the author. I knew of Jared C. Wilson because he is a Pastor and an author or other gospel-focused books. When I saw that he had written an novel, I was immediately interested. Not too long after I had heard about this book, it showed up on the list of free kindle books on Amazon for a short time, so I snatched it up.

I have to say, this book has everything. UFO's, the occult, cops, shootings, heartfelt introspective thoughts, a love story, a newspaper man, the newspaper man's boss, demons, professors, lunatics, dead bodies, pastors, cow mutilations, the grassy knoll, the gospel, and an exorcism... and somehow it all makes sense. The main character of the book is the newspaper man, but he also focuses on a young Pastor, an old Cop, who is a prayer warrior, a cantankerous old farmer, and a crazy evil kid.

While writing an interesting story that easily kept my attention, Jared Wilson is also able to bring reasonable explanations to various aspects "sci-fi" topics from a Biblical worldview. I especially appreciated how he was able to bring in the explanations without it feeling "forced". So often Christian writers leave you with this story that makes you feel like the Biblical aspects were squeezed in later. Most notably, Jared Wilson was able to weave a gospel presentation into one of the scenes, and it just felt natural. Someone could easily pick this book up and read clear truth from scripture and not know that the author was trying to do that.

I am obviously recommending this book. The Kindle version is currently only a few bucks on Amazon. If you are looking for a nice little piece of fiction to get you through these next few January weeks, then I want to encourage you to click on through and snag this book.

(Don't forget, if you use the links on this blog to get to Amazon, I get some credit for it... In other words, you can continue to support my book obsession.)

The Explicit Gospel - Book Review

I just finished listening to the Christian Audio version of The Explicit Gospel by Matt Chandler with Jared Wilson.

Of all of the books that I've read on the Gospel in the last few years, I would rank this one near the top.  Matt Chandler does an excellent job of explaining the Gospel in an... well... explicit way.  He describes the Gospel in the broader perspective as the "Gospel in the Air" and the "Gospel on the Ground" is the more personal aspect of the Gospel. He then discusses the dangers of focusing on one aspect of the Gospel without taking into account both the big and the small picture of what God is doing.

I especially appreciated his personal approach, sharing stories and experiences that illustrated different aspects of the Gospel.  In many of his stories he was willing to share how he had struggled or gotten it wrong in the past; times where he had shared the gospel in not-so-perfect ways, but God's grace was even in those events of his life, as he so adequately shares.  One story he titled, "The Dirty Rose" was especially touching.

If you have questions about the Gospel or you are simply desiring a deeper understanding of the Gospel, then this is a good book for you.

David Cochran Heath, the voice talent for many of Christian Audio's works, does an excellent job of reading through this book.  In my opinion, a good voice talent will cause you to forget that you are listening to an audio book, and it will feel more like you are listening to someone talk to you while you are driving down the road.

Visit Christian Audio to purchase this book or to view other Christian Audio Titles.