Thanks again to Laura Bartlett and the blogger review program at Tyndale House Publishers, I've been looking at a copy of Psalms, Proverbs (Cornerstone Biblical Commentary) over the past few weeks. This is part of a projected 18 volume series (not all volumes are available yet) covering the entire Bible, using the New Living Translation (NLT) as its basis.

I wish I had this commentary when I was teaching Psalms last year. While teaching the Psalms, one of the difficulties I had was dealing with unifying themes while exploring each individual Psalm. Before going into the commentary on the text, the book provides a 25-page introduction for Psalms as a whole. This is one of the best book introductions I've read. It talks in detail about the authors of the Psalms, the date and occasion of writing, the audience, the use of the Psalms, the literary style, the major themes, and theological concerns. The majority of the attention is focused on the literary style and the theological concerns and I found both sections especially insightful.

Moving into the main portion of the book, I love the way it is laid out. First, a portion of the text is presented. Next, textual notes are presented. Finally, after the notes is the commentary. The commentary is well-written and informative. It is especially helpful for preaching and teaching, but would also be useful for personal self-study. As a simple test of the commentary, I turned to the familiarity of Psalm 23 and read the notes and commentary on it. There are 2 pages of commentary, focusing of the focus of depending on God (as a shepherd) for daily bread and daily guidance.

The section on Proverbs is just as interesting and as the section on Psalms. Again, this is the kind of commentary that I'm particularly grateful for because I am so much less comfortable with poetry than with other forms of biblical literature.

This is the second volume in the Cornerstone series that I've reviewed, the first being the pastoral epistles. The more familiarity I gain with this series, the more I like it. I highly recommend this series to anyone who teaches the Bible.

Hat Tip to the Internet Monk -- devotionalchristian.com is giving away a bunch of books. If you enter and win, split your winnings with me. ;-)

Thanks again to Laura Bartlett and the blogger review program at Tyndale House Publishers, I've been looking at a copy of 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus, Hebrews (Cornerstone Biblical Commentary) over the past few weeks. This is part of a projected 18 volume series (not all volumes are available yet) covering the entire Bible, using the New Living Translation (NLT) as its basis.

When offering the review copy, Laura wanted to make sure I kept in mind the "intent, audience, and level of the series: it's an exegetical, theological, and translation commentary for students, pastors, and laypeople, not requiring knowledge of Greek." As a layperson (with essentially no knowledge of Greek) who teaches, I'm always looking for good commentaries and wanted a chance to check this one out. Currently, my commentary library consists of a few broad single-volume commentaries that I usually go to when preparing my lessons. They're great, but because their scope is so broad, they don't have the time to dig very deep on any given passage. I was excited to have the chance to explore a more detailed commentary.

I think the most interesting way to review my experience with this commentary is to simply describe how I got familiar with it. The first thing I did was thumb through it to see if how quickly I could figure out how it was organized. I was extremely impressed (and somewhat surprised, actually) with how easy it was to figure out how the book was laid out, without consulting the table of contents. The top of the each page indicates what passage of scripture is being discussed. The main portion includes the scripture text (NLT), followed by several brief notes, followed by the commentary. Additionally, there are two good introductory articles: one for the pastoral epistles (1 & 2 Timothy, Titus) and one for Hebrews. These articles are similar to introductions to books you find in many study Bibles, but with much more depth. All in all, the layout of this book is great -- it's very easy to find a passage you want to look at.

After getting a good overview of how this commentary was laid out, I settled in to look more closely at the content. Immediately, I enjoyed one of the advantages of using a multi-volume commentary: the scripture text is in the same book as the commentary. I also appreciated the way it is presented. Normally, I am not a fan of double-column text, so when I noticed that the scripture was double-column (the notes and commentary are single-column), I was a little put off. However, I have changed my mind on that point in this instance. Because the amount of scripture presented at any given instance is fairly small (4-10 verses seems to be the norm), it doesn't get tiring to read the double-column format. Combined with the fact that the scripture is in bold text, it also has the advantage of visually breaking up the page, making it easier to separate the scripture from the notes and commentary.

After the scripture, there is a section of notes. These notes are about the text itself: words, phrases, grammar, etc. They often include key numbers for words being discussed so that you can use a key numbering system to link the translation back to the original Greek. I especially like how the notes provide more detail to the particular language used in the original scripture. For example, the NLT translates 2 Timothy 4:1 as "I solemnly urge you in the presence of God and Christ Jesus, who will someday judge the living and the dead when he appears to set up his Kingdom". There is a note on "will someday": The Greek phrasing... can mean that something is going to happen (without implying how soon), is about to happen (implying imminency), or is destined to happen (inevitability)." If you are looking for a better understanding of the original language behind the translation, these notes appear to be a great resource.

Finally, after the notes, comes the commentary. Each section typically runs between 3 to 10 pages. This is in-depth discussion of the style, content, theme, etc. The commentary is extremely readable and accessible, without sacrificing scholarly discussion. The commentary also strives to be relevant to modern life. E.g., when I looked at the commentary for 2 Timothy 2:16 ("Avoid worthless, foolish talk that only leads to more godless behavior."), I found a discussion on how a command to avoid certain kinds of talk is a difficult command to hear in a society that prides itself on "free speech and the unrestricted exchange of ideas." If you are teaching or preaching on a passage, the commentary in the Cornerstone Biblical Commentary offers a wealth of information and ideas on how to shape your message, while remaining accurate and true to the scripture.

All told, I'm impressed with this commentary. After spending some time with this one, I wanted to start preparing a teaching series on 1 and 2 Timothy, so I'd have a good excuse to really dig deep into the commentary. If you preach or teach, you will probably find this commentary a valuable addition to your library. For someone like me, with essentially no knowledge of Greek, it's a great resource for linking the translation back to the original language in a way that is understandable. Next time I teach a class based on one the books of the Bible, I will probably get a copy of the relevant volume of the Cornerstone Biblical Commentary to use while preparing the lessons.

For more information, check out amazon.com.

Thanks to Laura Bartlett and the blogger review program at Tyndale House Publishers, I have a copy of Discover God Study Bible: New Living Translation that I've been looking at for the past couple of weeks. I like this Bible and anticipate using it regularly as part of my devotional reading and personal study.

Like many study Bibles, this is a fairly thick book. It's a hardcover, with close to 2500 pages. It's dimensions are similar to textbooks I had in college -- it's big enough that you'll think twice before toting it to church, but not so big that it keeps you from opening it and diving in. The text is the New Living Translation (NLT), which I am liking more and more, the more I use my NLT Study Bible in conjunction with this year's Bible Study at church. The text is laid out in single columns, with cross-references in the gutters, and study notes in double columns in a slightly smaller font. This is by far my favorite way to present the text of the Bible. There are full-color maps in the back and additional study aids in the front (more on this later). The only aspect of the physical layout of this Bible that I don't like is that the words of Christ are in red. When I was a kid, I loved red letter Bibles, but not so much anymore. All in all, though, that's a fairly minor complaint.

So what sets this Bible apart from other study Bibles? Why turn to yet another study Bible when there are so many choices already out there? For me, I like having lots and lots of choices. Editors bring different biases to each edition, and I think that having more choices helps keep everyone honest. I like to use different versions so as not to become too dependent on any one particular interpretation. Here's what Tyndale says sets the Discover God Study Bible apart from other choices:

Every problem in life is based on an incorrect view of God. The Discover God Study Bible is the first study Bible specifically designed to address this problem. Every note and feature draws the reader to a deeper understanding of who God is and how He can transform their life. it features an easy-to-use TopicGuide to every major topic and teaching of the Bible.

This study Bible does a good job of fulfilling the goal of relating the study notes to a deeper understanding of who God is. I think this focus in the notes is one of the primary things that makes this a good Bible for devotional reading and personal study. I've skimmed through most of the notes and read all of the notes for 1 John. They remind me of the notes in a "life application" study Bible, but with a little more scholarly feel. These are not the notes you'll be going to in order to debate finer points of theology or original language studies, but they are the notes you'll be going to if you want to be challenged to seriously think about what the Bible text says about God, and how you relate to him.

The introductions before each book are well done. They're usually two or three pages long and give a good overview of the book: the author, main themes, date of writing, etc. They also include a "Discover God in..." and a "Growing Through..." section that are very good at guiding you how to read through the book with an eye to deepening your understanding of God and encouraging spiritual growth.

I'm a sucker for special features in Bibles, and the Discover God Study Bible has a great one: the Topic Guide and Topic Link System. At the beginning of the Bible are about 50 pages listing important scripture passages, categorized in 10 topics: Bible, Holiness, God, Warfare, Salvation, Church, Worship, Purpose, Adoption, and Ministry. Each topic is further subdivided into more granular subtopics and passages related to the subtopic are listed. For example, under "God -> God's Attributes -> All-powerful," we see that God has power to deliver (Exod. 13:3; Judg. 7:2; Ps. 7:1). No, it's not a comprehensive list, but it's a good representative sampling. In the notes for the text itself, there are frequent references to the Topic Guide, so when you're studying a given passage, it's easy to find other passages related to the same topic.

All in all, if you're looking for a Bible to use for devotional reading and personal study, the Discover God Study Bible is a great choice. For more information, check out Tyndale's promo site (which includes a "how to use" video) and amazon.com.

I'll be having some more book reviews here soon. I received a couple more books from Tyndale as part of their blogger review program: Discover God Study Bible: New Living Translation and 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus, Hebrews (Cornerstone Biblical Commentary). I'm really looking forward to diving into both of them, especially spending some time with the commentary, as it appears to have some meat on it.

Based on the recommendation from the Internet Monk, I added Treasury Of Daily Prayer to my wishlist. I was thrilled when I opened my birthday present from yarbiedoll to find my wish granted. I immediately started the task of unsticking all the gilded pages and browsing through the book. I set up the six-ribbon bookmark system (which is awesome) and picked which options I thought I'd like to use for incorporating the resources in the book into something that I'd use in a structured personal prayer/worship setting.

Over the next several days, I diligently used the book. I decided some of the choices I made with my initial set-up weren't very helpful. I tweaked it a bit. I kept up with the reading for a while and was really starting to get into a groove with the book. I really like it.

Then, for various reasons (none of them good), I got out of the habit of using the book. Not surprisingly, my prayer life suffered. Where I had been establishing a regular practice of prayer, I found myself sliding back into a more haphazard pattern of personal prayer. Several times, I almost started using the book again, but quit just short of actually opening it.

I recently picked it back up and resumed using it. Hopefully, I won't set it back down again.

Treasury Of Daily Prayer is a Lutheran resource, and that fact is especially evident with the selection of readings that are appointed for each day. They're all form the early reformers and many of them are from Luther. So if you know that's going to cause you to argue with the book instead of use it to guide your prayer life, stay away from it. Otherwise, I highly recommend this book. It's great for individual use. I'm sure it's great for family use, too -- there is a lot in it that is in call-and-response format. For me, it's especially great because it helps make sure I stay focused when I use it.

I can't add any more in the way of a review that Michael didn't say in his review, so read what he said and imagine me agreeing with pretty much everything he says in it.

Trevin over at Kingdom People is giving away a big stack of books. At least two of the books on the list have been on my mental list of books to read as soon as make the time for more reading. Check it out, and enter the contest.

Hat tip to The Voice Of Stefan.

Yesterday, I finished reading Pagan Christianity?: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices (website), which I recently won from Steve Brown, Etc.. All in all, I think I enjoyed it.

It's a book that is attempting to start a conversation about the current practices of Christianity, mostly focusing on Protestant Christianity. (Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy are briefly mentioned occasionally.) The authors claim that pretty much everything about how Christianity is currently practiced (church buildings, professional clergy, the modern sermon, seminaries, method of sacraments, etc.) is based on pagan practices, does not represent the New Testament Church practices, and should be abandoned. After reading the book, I'm relatively convinced of the first two points, but not the third. They back up all of their claims with copious footnotes and encourage the reader to check their sources (I didn't) to confirm that they're not making these things up. Because I wasn't convinced that their conclusion was the logical or necessarily reasonable product of their thesis, I didn't care to research their claims and try to confirm them.

It was really interesting reading about how many of our current church practices are rooted in non-Christian culture. I'm just not convinced that's a good reason to abandon the practices. It did, however, make me think about how the Church does things, and whether any of those ways should be changed. I think the obvious answer is, yes, there are definitely things that should be changed. So, in that respect, the book did what it sought out to do -- it started a conversation with me about what proper church practices should be. It just didn't pull me all the way to agreeing with their conclusion.

Because I wasn't convinced, the book started to get somewhat tedious about halfway through. It just came across to me as though they were trying to hard to convince me of something that I just wasn't going to buy into.

Viola is a proponent of the house church and/or organic church movement, and this book really does a great job of explaining a lot of reasons that those movements should be embraced. That is, if you buy into the conclusion that pagan-inspired practices of the church must be abandoned.

Should you read the book? Even though I found it tedious at times and disagreed with the conclusion, I'm glad that I read it. If you're interested in how the Church does what it does, you might want to give it a read. Pick it up from the library, though, 'cause unless you agree with their conclusion, I don't think it's the kind of book that you'll be coming back to after you've read it once. After yarbiedoll reads it, I'm giving my copy away.

There's a sequel, Reimagining Church: Pursuing the Dream of Organic Christianity (website) that recently came out. I may check it out from the library eventually, but it's not high on my list right now....

Next up on my reading list: The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith and Politics in a Post-Religious Right America by Jim Wallis.

I just finished reading It: How Churches and Leaders Can Get It and Keep It. I picked up a copy at the conference I was at last week, on the recommendation of one of the presenters.

Wow.

On the heels finishing up unChristian last week, this was a great follow-up read. The conference I was at last week was a leadership conference designed for church leaders and the session I was in where this book was recommended was a session about transforming Sunday morning groups from ordinary to extraordinary. I signed up for that sessions because I believed that it would be beneficial with my Sunday School class. It was, and I left the session (and the whole conference) incredibly enthused about the work I do at church and eager to step up my game. Hopefully soon I'll find the time to write up about the conference. But for now, I'll write up a quick book review.

It is a passionate call for ministry leaders to seek that something (the author call it "it") that makes ministries special. It's really hard to describe, partly because the author insists on calling it "it" through the whole book -- there is no attempt to more precisely define it. A big reason for that is that it is incredible difficult to define, and much of the argument comes from a spiritual and emotional perspective were precise definitions don't necessarily make sense. I struggled with that a bit, as I really like to order things logically. Once I was able to get beyond that and open myself up to the book, it really took a hold of me.

I read most of the book on the plane rides from Kansas City back to Greensboro. It's a quick read. I'm hesitant to say it's an easy read because the book is very challenging. I was confronted with my need to honestly step up my game as it relates to ministry. I've been involved in groups that have "it" and I know that it's good. This book helped me refocus my desire to chase "it" and get "it" back.

I know this review probably sounds scatterbrained. I'm just having a hard time finding the way to express how glad I am to have read this book. If you're involved in leading any kind of ministry, I highly recommend it.

I'm on a reading kick right now and really enjoying it. And just as I finished reading It, I'm happy to come home and find that the copy of Pagan Christianity?: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices that I won showed up today. So far, I've read the prefaces and introductions and the first couple of paragraphs of the first chapter. It looks very interesting.

OK, I'm exhausted. And my laptop battery is dying. This will be my last post before going to sleep.

My pastor recently recommended that I read unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity... and Why It Matters. I picked up a copy from the library and finished it a few days ago.

It's an interesting look at how the Christian faith is perceived by both Christians and non-Christians. It's easy for Christians to say that the perception shouldn't matter -- as long as we accurately represent God's word, we're doing the right thing. The truth, however, is that perceptions do matter, and that many Christians simply don't accurately represent God's word. As a result, we're turning off a whole bunch of people who otherwise might be attracted to Christianity.

The book is based on a huge study that was conducted by the Barna group, so there's a lot of discussion about what was learned by the study. It was informative to look at the data they gathered for the study and read their conclusions. The biggest conclusion is that there is a lot of work Christians need to do -- that the current image of Christianity is not representative of what Christianity is supposed to be, and that many people who call themselves Christian are doing a terrible job of both representing and acting on their faith. The book focuses on a handful of negative perceptions that people have about Christians, explains why those perceptions are reasonable for people to have, and presents possible solutions on how to start reversing those perceptions. No surprise here, most of the solutions involve having Christians start acting on their faith instead of merely giving it lip service.

All in all, I'm very glad that I read the book. Especially as we continue to work on the new service at church and seek to get unchurched people involved, I think it's going to be helpful that I read the book. If you're involved in ministry in any capability, I recommend that you give this book a look. It's a very easy read, and you can skip around in the chapters to read them in whatever order you like.

A few weeks ago, I finished reading Hackers and Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age, a book one of my coworkers lent me. If you're in the IT industry, you owe it to yourself to read it. If you're not in the IT industry, there's a good chance that you'll enjoy it, too.

In the book, Paul Graham details what he thinks is required to be successful in the computer age. Basically, it boils down to being smart, willing to work hard, and take risks. Graham's in a good position to give this advice, having been behind a very successful start-up that was eventually sold to Yahoo. One of the most interesting aspects of the book is how Graham is able to stay away from a dry and technical style, and combine discussions about the great computer minds of our time with discussions about the great painters of the past.

All in all, I very much enjoyed the book. I definitely recommend it.

Oh, yeah. I finally finished Barrett's The Civil War in North Carolina last night. It was a very enjoyable read (and heavily footnoted), but I kept getting sidetracked as I read it, so it took me a while to work through it. I highly recommend it.

I haven't decided what I'm going to read next. I've got a stack of books waiting for me, and not all of them are Civil War related.

Michael C. Hardy was the guest speaker at our SCV meeting tonight. He spoke about the Battle of Hanover Court House, about which he has recently written a book. The talk was very interesting and I look forward to reading more about the battle soon. Whenever I go visit my family in Maryland, I drive close to where the battle took place. One of these visits, I'm going to have to take an educational detour and visit the site of the battle.

I also picked up a copy of Hardy's Remembering North Carolina's Confederates, which has already helped fill in the holes for some of the Civil War waymarks I've created (the memorials in Edenton and Tarboro). Thumbing through the rest of this book has already been a great joy -- I really look forward to reading it and examining the photographs in detail.

After the meeting, I chatted with Hardy for a bit, specifically talking about monuments in Eastern NC. He said that he's working on a second volume for Remembering North Carolina's Confederates, and that he'll be including more from Eastern NC in that volume. I'm already looking forward to that.

I'm also going to enjoy following Hardy's blog and reading about the research he's doing for upcoming books.

I'm currently reading The Civil War in North Carolina by John G. Barrett, which I am enjoying greatly. A couple of nights ago, I ran across a passage that referenced Columbia, NC -- the small town in Eastern North Carolina where my family is from:

Columbia, a small village in Tyrrell County, also felt the "Christian" wrath of Burnside's soldiers, but to a lesser degree than Winton. In early March, six companies of the Sixth New Hampshire were sent to the area. No Confederates were found, but a rumor that the local militia was to be called out was used by the New Englanders as reason enough to plunder the town. To the delight of the Negroes, the whipping post was torn down. Then the soldiers broke open the jail, clerk's office, "and the Dwelling Houses of such as were gone from home." In the abandoned homes the soldiers partook freely of available liquor supplies which made "them ripe for more mischief." The ransacking of at least one more home and the depleting of all smokehouses followed.

After reading that, I immediately went to the index of the book to see if Columbia made any other appearances. It didn't, although Tyrrell County got two more mentions, both of which were very brief. Anyway, it was pretty interesting to see portions of Eastern NC where I have family ties show up in this book.

As I already mentioned, I'm very much enjoying this book. I'm about 100 pages into the approximate 400 pages of the book. It is really doing a great job of exploring, in detail, the involvement of North Carolina in the US Civil War. Apparently, in 1963, when this book was published, there was no work that looked at how the US Civil War affected North Carolina, so Barrett wrote this to fill the void. I've noticed that Barrett has also written a book about Sherman's march through the Carolinas, which I may want to pick up after finishing this one.

Yesterday, I headed out to the local Barnes and Noble for the Neal Boortz book signing of The FairTax Book. They wrote up a little article about the event in the local paper:

National radio host attracts crowd to local bookstore

By Alexis Gines
Staff Writer

GREENSBORO -- Neal Boortz, a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host, stopped here Sunday to promote a book on tax reform.

More than 100 people gathered at a local bookstore to chat with him and to pick up a copy of his latest work.

Boortz -- along with U.S. Rep. John Linder, a Georgia Republican -- wrote "The FairTax Book." In it, they support legislation to place a national retail sales tax on new goods and services to replace the federal income tax....

Read the entire article....

I'm glad I went and picked up a couple of copies of the book (one for myself and one for my father). I've been a fan of The FairTax almost since the first time I heard about it a few months (a year?) ago. I read the book in its entirety yesterday, and I'm even more of a fan now than ever. Philosophically, I'm against income tax, so I definitely don't like the current system. I recognize that the government needs to be funded, and I think that a consumption-based tax like the FairTax would be a better system. The FairTax is designed to collect the same amount of taxes that is currently being collected -- so it's neither a tax cut or a tax hike. Instead, it's a much different way of collecting taxes. Whether or not taxes are too low or too high for the services that the government provides is an entirely different question.

I ended up reading the entire book yesterday. I showed up to the book signing 2 hours early, so I read a little less than half of the book before Boortz showed up. I read the rest of it before going to bed last night. I'm glad that I got to the signing early -- although the newspaper article says "more than 100 people" showed up, other estimates place the crowd size at about 800. The bookstore said that they had 500 books available and they sold out. Obviously, some people bought multiple copies (I bought 2, e.g.) and some people didn't buy any copies (a husband and wife might have only bought one copy, some people brought copies they had obtained elsewhere) so there's not a direct relationship between the number of books sold and the number of people who showed up, but from the crowd I saw in the bookstore, I would definitely put the crowd closer to 800 than 100. Since I got there early enough, there wasn't a big crowd when I arrived and I ended up near the front. By the time I left, I could tell that the large crowd that had gathered behind me would have made me much more uncomfortable if I were in the middle of the crowd instead of on the edge.

I highly recommend checking out the FairTax. Start with their website and go from there. Look for people who have bad things to say about the FairTax and see if the FairTax website provides a rebuttal or an answer in their FAQ. Buy the book and look at the pros and cons. One of the things that impressed me most about the book is that they devoted space to listing and responding to criticism. The plan is not perfect -- no plan will be -- but I think that it's definitely much, much better than our current system.

Full disclosure: the links to the book are via my associates account at amazon, so if you click and end up buying the book, I'll get a small referral.