THE STORY Week #2, "Covenant"

THE STORY

Chapter 2—Covenant

            The focus of the week two text in THE STORY is rooted in the concept of covenant.  More specifically, in God making and living into the covenant promises he had made to Abram/Abraham.  In the Bible, the Lord makes two different kinds of promises with his people: covenants and eternal covenants.  Reformed theology, of which I am an adherent, is rooted deeply in the principals of “covenant theology.”  That is, we understand and know God through a series of covenants within which God has entered into with humanity--with the greatest covenant reality of God being the incarnation of Jesus. While this interpretive framework had been around since the earliest days of the church—the Apostle Paul certainly held to the importance of God making covenant with humanity—Augustine of Hippo was one of the first Christian theologians to truly systematize it.

            The concept of an eternal covenant between God and a person/people is found in fourteen different books—ten in the Old Testament, three in the Apocrypha, and one in the New Testament.  For the purpose of this refelction, we will only be concerning ourselves with the writings in the Old and New Testament texts.  The Old Testament texts that speak of an everlasting/eternal covenant (diaqh/khn ai˙w¿non LXX;

תָּמִ֑יד מֵ בְּרִ֥ית in the Hebrew Masoretic Text) include: Genesis 9:16, 17:7, 17:13, 17:19; Exodus 31:16, Leviticus 24:8; Numbers 18:19, 25:13; 2 Samuel 23:5; 1 Chronicles 16:17; Psalms 105:10; Isaiah 24:5, 55:3, 61:8; Jeremiah 32:40, 50:5; and Ezekiel 16:60, 37:26.  The lone New Testament text to reference eternal/everlasting covenant is Hebrews 13:20.                     

          Dr. Andrew Dearman, who I was truly blessed to study under, writes that “In theological terms

Dr. J. Andrew Dearman

 the word ‘covenant’ refers to God’s relationship with another entity that is initiated by God and established by his solemn oath.”[1]      

It is important to understand that it is God who is the initiator in the making of covenants—particularly those as supposedly permanent as an everlasting covenant.  Dearman goes on to write, "A covenant instituted by God is not a parity relationship.  In making a covenant with an entity God may or may not require a response.  In the OT God establishes a covenant with Noah and all living beings, with Abraham and his descendants; and through the prophets God promises a new and everlasting covenant in the future for his people."

    

            Of the four uses of eternal covenant in Genesis three of them revolve around Abraham—who is the primary focus of chapter 2 of THE STORY.  The first mention in the Bible of an eternal covenant is found in Genesis 9:16 (chapter 1 of THE STORY) and is made by God with Noah after the flood waters had subsided and his family and animals had come out of the ark.  Gerhard Von Rad writes,

A covenant of God with Noah is not mentioned elsewhere in the Old Testament (outside of the flood narrative). This covenant with Noah differs from that with Abraham, the covenant on Sinai and all other covenants in that in the latter instances the individual or the nation was called quite personally into a relation of fellowship with God and thereby faced with the question of affirming this ordinance.  Here the sign of the covenant with Noah, absolutely without any confessing appropriation by the earthly partner, is high above man, between heaven and earth, as pledge of a true gratia praeveniens (grace coming before the will)!  God’s gracious will is made visible to give mankind terrified by the chaotic elements, renewed assurance that God will support this aeon and to guarantee the duration of his ordinances.[2]

            This eternal/everlasting covenant with Noah is a promise to never again destroy the earth by flooding.  But is more than that.  It is a glimpse into the deep love and faithfulness that God has for his creation.  This covenant, as Von Rad notes, is all about God making promises—it is not about God expecting any type of response from humanity.

            The remaining Genesis texts pertaining to an eternal covenant (17:7, 17:13, 17:19) all revolve

Abraham's descendants will be as numerous as the stars.

around God’s relationship with Abraham.  This relationship, initiated by God in Genesis 12 matures as time goes by.  Abraham (Abram) becomes very successful due to his blessing by God, so much so that he and his nephew Lot decide to separate their families and flocks (Genesis 13).  After an exciting story in Genesis 14 of Abram rescuing Lot from enemies, he receives a special blessing by the mysterious king/priest Melchizedek.  It is chapter 15 that God makes his official ‘covenant’ with Abram, promising to bless him with descendants as great as the stars (15:5) and to give him the land in which he was living (15:7).

            Abram, in an attempt to take things in his own hands, and perhaps force God’s actions after waiting ten years, took Hagar, his wife’s handmaid, and married her.  She bore him a son whom he named Ishmael (chapter 16).  Yet God told Abram that Ishmael was not the one who would inherit the promises that God had made with Abram (17:15-22).  It is in this setting in chapter 17 that God reaffirms his covenant with Abram he had made in chapter 15.  This time, on three separate occasions, God stresses that this promise is an eternal one.  It is within this context that Victor Hamilton writes,

This covenant with Abraham is something that God initiates, something he maintains, and something he brings to fulfillment.  No less than three times in this chapter (v 7, 13, 19) we are told that God’s covenant with Abraham is an eternal one, and one time (v. 8) that Canaan was to be the permanent possession of Abraham’s descendants…it may no accident that the word eternal is present in ch. 17 but absent from ch. 15.  Is it not interesting that in the chapter where at least four covenant stipulations are placed before Abraham—walk before me; be blameless; keep my covenant; circumcise yourselves—the covenant should be thrice described as an eternal one?  This repetition of eternal emphasizes that God’s covenant with Abraham has not suddenly shifted away from the unilateral emphasis on ch. 15 to a bilateral pact her in ch. 17.  To be sure, God has expectations concerning Abraham’s behavior, but these do not become grounds for establishment and authentication of God’s covenant with Abraham.  Rather, the covenant remains a personal commitment by God in which he binds himself to this open-ended promise to Abraham.[3]

"The Sacrifice of Isaac" by Rembrandt

           

            The culmination of the Abrahamic story is known as, “The binding of Isaac.” After responding faithfully to God’s testing to sacrifice his son Isaac, God swears a solemn oath to Abraham, “By myself I have sworn, declares the LORD, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven, ans as the sand of the seashore.  And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all nations of the earth by blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.” (ESV)  Scott Hahn writes,

The oath that God swears to Abraham in Genesis 22 represents the sum and substance of the covenant grant, particularly as it relates to the worldwide blessing and future triumph of Abraham’s “seed.” The Aqedah (the binding of Isaac) is inseperably linked to the divine oath, which assumes foundational importance for the life of and history of Israel and for the nations as well.  The divine oath in Genesis 22 represents the ultimate purpose of God’s calling, promises, and covenants to Abraham: the mediation of divine blessings to all nations through Abraham’s seed.[4]

            The rest of the story of salvation, and so, our study this year in THE STORY, will be rooted in this eternal covenant that God made with Father Abraham, and ratified by a solemn oath after the binding of Isaac.  We will return to this story multiple times in the coming days, weeks, and months, as we learn how our story is rooted completely in God’s story.

---

[1] Dearman, J. Andrew NICOT: The Book of Hosea (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010) 51.

[2] Von Rad, Gerhard Genesis (Louisville: Westminster, 1972) 133-134.

[3] Hamilton, Victor P. NICOT: The Book of Genesis Chapters 1-17 (Grand Rapids: Eerdman, 1990) 465-466.

[4] Hahn, Scott W. Kinship by Covenant: A Canonical Approach to the Fulfillment of God’s Saving Promises (New Haven: Yale, 2009), 134.

THE STORY Week #1, "Created with Intention"

THE STORY

Chapter 1—Created with Intention

How does a person begin an epic tale of love, intrigue, murder, brokenness, and redemption?  Some writers begin at the end of the story and then take the reader back to the beginning.  Others, start in the middle of the story, and then give background material to catch the reader up before moving forward. In God’s story of salvation, the tale starts at the beginning.

In the Septuagint (the Greek Old Testament), the opening words in the Bible are ∆En aÓrch (en arkae)vØ, which means, “in the beginning.” The Hebrew Old Testament begins with, ty™IvaérV;b (bear a

sheith), which means, “in the beginning.”  Those three simple words have remarkable power because they assert that God was already present before there ever was a beginning.  This God, who has always existed, didn’t create the heavens and the earth because he had to, or because he was compelled to.  Rather, he created because he WANTED to.  God had a vision for what he was going to create, and the Bible is God’s story of how that vision would come to be—despite his creations best efforts to derail God’s vision.

In Genesis chapter 1 we are given a day-by-day account of the creation process.  God speaks, and the universe is drawn into existence out of nothing.  The church has always taught that God creatio ex

nihilo; that is, God created out of nothing. Or, perhaps another way of stating this is that God made that to be, which never had been.  The greater church has been in a protracted argument for many years regarding the creation process.  Was creation formed in six literal twenty-four days, or, was creation formed in six distinct time periods that took place over millions of years?  While I do have a pretty strong belief on this matter, I think both of these interpretations are faithful.  The point isn’t whether creation is millions of years old, or whether it is aproximately 5,000 years old—the main point of Genesis chapter 1 is that God created everything out of nothing.  We can surely agree on that, can’t we?

The magnum opus of God’s creative hand is found at the end of chapter one and is flushed out in more detail in chapter 2.  The greatest event in the creative cycle of God is forming humanity out of the dust of the earth into the very image of God.  The more I ponder the creation of humanity in the image of God, the more I stand in awe of the Creator.  Out of the 100 billion or so galaxies in the universe; out of the 400 billion plus stars in the universe; and out of the 240 x 10²⁴ planets in the universe—God chose earth to be the place where humanity, formed-and-shaped-and-breathed-the-breath-of-God, would dwell.

While I love Battlestar Galactica, Star Wars, Star Trek, and science fiction in general, I think it is pretty safe to assert that because humanity is formed in God’s image, and because we were placed on   earth, that is the place where humanity dwells.  That is, while biological life may exist on other planets or moons out in the vastness of the universe, humans exist only on earth—because we were formed in God’s image and placed in the Garden of Eden for a particular task. Genesis 2:15 (ESV) reads, “The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.”  That is, Adam - and then Eve with him -  were charged to be the divine stewards of the Royal Garden of the Lord (my term).  What were the implications regarding this stewardship? And how were those purposes affected during the fall of humanity, and so , all of creation, into sin (Genesis chapter 3)?

James Torrance, in his wonderful little book Worship,Community, and the Triune God of Grace writes,

God has made all creatures for his glory.  Without knowing it, the lilies of the field in their

Dr. James Torrance, 1923-2003

beauty glorify God with a glory greater than that of Solomon, the sparrow on the housetop glorifies God, and the universe in its vastness and remoteness is the theater of God’s glory.  But God made men and women in his image to be the priests of creation and to express on behalf of all creatures the praises of God, so that through human lips the heavens might declare the glory of God.  When we, who know we are God’s creatures, worship God together, we gather up the worship of all creation.  Our chief end is to glorify God, and creation realizes its own creaturely glory in glorifying God through human lips.

But nature fails in its realization because of our human failure.  Instead of singing songs of joy, the whole creation groans in universal trevail, waiting for the fulfillment of God’s purposes in human lives.  Does God then abandon his purposes for humanity and for all his creatures?  Does God leave all nature to be subject to vanity and futility—to be ruthlessly exploited and abused—and forget he has made us in his image for a life of communion and shared stewardship. (pages 13-14)

God communicates and binds himself to his creation through the use of covenant.  Next week THE STORY will take us to God’s binding of himself to Abraham.  We cannot begin to understand the saga of the story of salvation without first taking a serious look at covenant, just as we cannot begin to understand the understanding of God’s story without first having a basic grasp of “in the beginning…”  Despite the epic failing of our first earthly parents Adam and Eve, God is not through with us.  His vision for his creation WILL come to fruition; and God will go to great lengths to ensure that it happens, and that humanity-his magnum opus-is along for that wonderful act!

Dad's Birthday

Dad and I, Thanksgiving 2009

My heart is heavy today, and I would like to share some thoughts with you about a wonderful man who had a profound, positive impact on my life. This post will be personal in nature.  If you don't like mushy reflections, you had better stay clear of this one.

Today would have  been my father, Harry Hughes', 76th birthday.  As a young boy, and then as a young man, husband, and father, he was my hero.  Please don't misunderstand me. I know he wasn't perfect and that he didn't have superpowers; but he was my dad.  He loved my mother, my sisters and me unconditionally.  He was kind, generous, and always willing to help.

He was born September 11, 1937 on the family farm just outside of Waynetown, Indiana which had been in the family for generations.  It absolutely broke his heart when his sister and he sold it in 2009 due to his poor health.  Dad's mother loved and doted on him and his sister, but I have learned that his father was a bit of a tough cookie--not one to readily show his emotional side.  I never knew my paternal grandmother.  She died six months before I was born of cervical cancer.  My grandfather died when I was fifteen years old.

Harry Hughes, autumn 1954

My dad loved sports, but basketball was his absolute favorite.  He played high school basketball for the Alamo Warriors, a small rural high school in west-central Indiana.  He graduated in 1955, and loved to talk about how the small town Milan High School Indians won the Indiana State Basketball Tournament in 1954.  Milan was the smallest school to ever win the title, and he always shared that Alamo was smaller than Milan. The picture to the left was taken in the autumn of 1954 at the beginning of his senior year's basketball season.  It's hard to believe that skinny kid grew into a 6''3" 230 lb. man.

Retirement picture from JC Penney

After graduation from Alamo High School, dad matriculated as a freshman at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana in September of 1955.  He met my mother on campus in 1956.  They would eventually marry on June 4, 1961.  Dad graduated from Purdue in May 1959 with a B.S. in Agricultural Economics.  He then spent 6 months on active duty in the US Army and 5.5 years in the US Army Reserve. In January of 1960 he went to work for the JC Penney Company in store management.  He would work for them until his retirement in January of 1998.  If he had a vice, and I'm not sure that he did, it was a near fanaticism for the Purdue Boilermakers.

My two sisters and I all played sports throughout elementary school, junior high, and high school.   We also played in the band and were involved in lots of school and church activities.  I cannot remember one time when I looked out into the crowd, home or away, and didn't see his encouraging face staring directly at me.  Don't get me wrong, I am sure that there were times when he simply could not make it to a function or a game, but he was at such a huge percentage of them that I have forgotten the ones he couldn't make it to.

Dad loved his family with a passion--I will never forget the day that I was shipping out to spend a year in South Korea during my time in the US Army.  Mom and dad drove me to the airport in St. Louis to see me off.  I will always remember that day because tears streamed down his cheeks and he held me tightly in a protective hug, only reluctantly, at the urging of my mother, letting me go...

He delighted in his children and LOVED being a grandpa. He never had the opportunity to meet his youngest grandchild, my younger sister's daughter Arwen, and I fear my son Isaiah and nephew Hugh's memories of him will fade over time...

Dad with my daughter Rebecca, Feb. 1999. 

Holding my son Isaiah, Dec. 2006.

Dad with Rebecca, Thanksgiving 2010  He was very sick.

My father; no...my dad, died on January 30, 2011 after a prolonged battle with a rare bile duct disease that had turned into full blown cirrhosis of the liver.  It robbed him of his dignity and broke his body...but it could never break his spirit or his love for his family.


I miss him daily and tears still occasionally stream down my cheeks when there is something in particular on my heart that I want to share with him.  I always valued his wisdom and delighted in his huge, loud, laugh.

I suppose that I still grieve my dad's death--but my grief is not rooted in despair.  Rather, it is a grief for the brokenness of humanity.  We live in a world so completely broken by the power of sin that death, sickness, hunger, war, etc...are commonplace and we simply seem to accept them as the norm. But this is not what God intended when he created the heavens and the earth.

I am thankful that my dad's soul is at rest in the presence of the Lord Jesus. I am utterly confident that he is there because he readily confessed Jesus as Lord, and I trust in the promises of the Lord.  But I yearn for the day when Jesus returns to earth bodily/physically.  All of creation will be made new and there will be a bodily resurrection of the dead.  Those found to be in Christ Jesus will live for all eternity in the new Jerusalem; that is, the restored creation. I am eager to hug my father tight on that day and simply say, "Thank you for everything dad.  I love you, and have missed you..."

 I am eager for that day.  I am hungry for that day.  Come, Lord Jesus, Come.

Here is a link to his obituary if you are interested in reading it: http://www.hannibal.net/article/20110131/NEWS/301319819/?Start=1.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1...Takeoff!

Last spring I introduced to the church session (that's the church board for you non-Presbyterians out there) an idea for an all-church reading of Scripture that would begin in September 2014 and end in May 2015. This is basically the "programming year" for most churches.  The session studied the idea and the materials that would be used, prayed about the decision, and then voted to endorse the study, published by Zondervan, called "THE STORY."  After months of planning and prayer, THE STORY launches tonight!



This is not the first first all-church Scripture reading plan that St. Luke JOY has undergone.  The session has been very supportive of encouraging the family here at St. Luke JOY to be in God's Word--to read it both individually and communally, pray it devotionally, and to live into it.

The past few years we have participated in the Essential 100 Bible Reading Plan, the 5x5x5 New Testament Reading Plan, and we have also participated in Scripture intensive small group studies by Dr. Tim Keller (The Reason for God, and Gospel in Life: Grace Changes Everything). THE STORY is different than any of these in that it is aimed at all ages in the life of the church.  From preschool kids to the elderly, and everything in between, the entire church family goes on the journey through THE STORY together.  Each week, all age groups have the same age appropriate lessons and readings, and then on Sunday morning, the preaching will support that lesson as well.

Marty Guise, LRM Executive Director

In March 2012, St. Luke JOY participated in a Lay Renewal Weekend focused on Celebration of the Word.  There was a lot of planning and prayer that went into the weekend, but it was worth every bit of energy it consumed to make the weekend happen.  Marty Guise, LRM Executive Director, and his team of lay volunteers, did a wonderful job in leading us through the weekend.  This weekend gently guided the family at St. Luke JOY into a new, realized, understanding of the importance of God's Word in the lives of God's people.

I am going to give LRM some free, unsolicited, praise at this time: LRM is great people!  If you are concerned about renewal in your local context (and you should be!), you need to give Marty a call.  I know that he would love to hear from you.  Lay Renewal Ministries offers a variety of weekend focuses that will bless you and your congregation.  Prayer, Abundant Life, Purpose, Celebration of the Word, and Equipping are just a sampling of the ministry opportunities offered by LRM.  Click on the logo below to learn more about them, and then give them a call. I promise it won't hurt!

The main lesson the St. Luke JOY family has learned from the above experiences is the incredible importance of knowing God's Word.  The Bible is not a collection of wisdom literature to be mined for wisdom, like Aesop's Fables.  Rather, it is a saga; it is an epic; it is the greatest story ever told, and it bears witness to the greatest Truth the world has ever known.  That Truth is simple: Jesus is Lord.  

THE STORY is a thirty-one week chronological journey through Scripture, whose purpose is to reveal the wonder, and power, of the all-encompassing story of salvation and redemption.  God's story is revealed to us in Scripture and we are called to participate in His story--so that God's story may indeed become OUR story.  

I am excited for the people who are about to embark on this journey tonight.  I pray that it not be a one time event in their lives.  Rather, I pray that this journey through God's story will instill in them a lifelong love for God, and so, of God's Word.  After all, Christians have always affirmed that Scripture is God's divine revelation to humanity, and that it bears witness to God's greatest gift, Jesus the Lord. My plan is to blog about this journey that St. Luke JOY is about to go on throughout the year.  May God be glorified throughout this time.  

Soli Deo Gloria!

To God Alone be all the Glory!

The Next Five (6-10)...

After posting the five books that have had the greatest influence on my life, several people let me know that on Facebook people were primarily posting the ten books, not five, that that had a profound impact on their lives.  So, upon their encouragement, here are the next five; although, to be honest, this was a real struggle as there are several books that could have probably made this list...

#6 To Kill A Mockingbird  by Harper Lee.
I honestly do not remember the first time I read To Kill a Mockingbird.  I believe it may have been in twelfth grade English class where we also read  Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath and Shelley's Frankenstein.  Nevertheless, this beautiful story of Atticus, Jem, and Scout in, "the tired old town of Maycomb, Alabama" during the depression has had a lasting impact on my heart.  Themes of racial justice/injustice, lost innocence, courage, and classism permeate the story.  I hate the ending of the story, and every time I read this book I dread the ending as those pages get closer with each page turn.  However, I continue to return to this book because it plays so heavily on themes of Biblical justice--not the "justice" I so often hear my theologically liberal pastor colleagues proclaim (where everything is a justice issue)--but rather a deep abiding justice rooted in God's mercy.  A mercy rooted in forgiveness, compassion, and restoration.

#7 Norton Anthology of American Literature, Volume 1. 
As a sophomore at Western Illinois University in the early 1990's, I took "Introduction to American Literature 1 (Colonial Period-1865)" as a way to meet basic requirements for a Bachelor of Arts degree.  I was a history major and political science minor and I begrudgingly signed up for this class hoping it wouldn't bore me to death.  Little did I know how Dr. John Hallwas was going to help me fall in love with early American colonial writers such as: William Bradford, Anne Bradstreet, Cotton Mather, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, Philip Freneau, Washington Irving, and James Fenimore Cooper.

It didn't stop there, Hallwas's passion led us to the next generation of writers such as William Cullen Bryant, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Edgar Allen Poe, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Henry David Thoreau.  The list of writers could go on and on and on.  As a history major I came to value the importance of these early writers in our nation's young history.

This anthology is immense in size and scope. With close to 2,500 pages it is full of short stories, letters, biographies, poetry, and essays on all types of subjects.  I often find myself pulling this book off of the shelf when I am looking for something special from our country's history to dig my teeth into that has some meat on the bone.

#8 Roots by Alex Haley
As a person who has a strong interest in history in general, and our nation's history, in particular, I found Roots to be almost too emotional a book for me to handle.  I remember as a child watching the miniseries with my family on television back in the late 1970's.  I did not read this book until 2007 when my interest in this story was rekindled after watching the miniseries on a cable television network.

This is the story of a family--an American family--that endured unimaginable hardships, persecution, and slavery.  I know that many ethnic groups have endured intolerable conditions upon arriving in America, my Irish ancestors included when they landed in the 19th century.  However, no other race of people arrived here in chains, against their wills, to serve a lifetime as slaves.  Haley is not the best writer I've ever encountered, and I am aware that there were several lawsuits regarding plagiarism upon its release in 1977--all that being stated, however, the story that Mr. Haley weaves of Kunta Kinte's capture in the mid 18th century in Africa to his own generation in 20th century America is breathtaking in scope and scale.  This book blessed me, and helped me to better appreciate the history of the United States.


#9 Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
C.S. Lewis may be the single writer who has had the biggest impact in how I understand the nature of Christianity and the role of the world in the life of a Christian.   The Screwtape Letters, Miracles, The Great Divorce, Till We Have Faces, The Abolition of Man, The Problem With Pain, Surprised By Joy, and Reflections on the Psalms are books of his that quickly come to mind that have had a positive impact on my life.  The work of Lewis' that has shaped me the most (outside of the already mentioned Chronicles of Narnia in the prior posting) is Mere Christianity.

This book was put together from radio broadcasts that Lewis did for the BBC during WW2 to help encourage the British people in their darkest hours during the Nazi bombing campaign (The Battle for Britain) that ravaged many of their cities, especially London.  In this book, Lewis isn't out to try to lift up his own Christian tradition (high church Anglicanism) over any others.  Rather, his goal in this book is to give an outline of the barest of essentials to being a Christian.  This book has shaped Christianity in wonderful ways in that it has helped to bring Roman Catholics, Protestants (in all of their wonderful variety), and the Orthodox into a gentler understanding and appreciation of each other.  I am personally a confessional, Protestant, Reformed Christian.  Lewis, I know, had little time for my flavor of the faith, yet he saw the importance in Christian unity, whatever the stripe, and this book does a wonderful job in pointing out the basics.  WARNING: His rationale is rooted in Scripture and not in subjective experience!

#10 Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
I am not ashamed to admit that I love the Harry Potter books!  I also loved the movies, but this post is about books...and The Sorcerer's Stone is the first of the Harry Potter series of books.  Years ago I was an assistant store manager with Walmart Stores, Inc. It was oftentimes my responsibility to put out new release movies and books on the appropriate dates.  Every time a new Harry Potter book was released lines would stretch through the store with people waiting to buy them when midnight rolled around on the date of release.

I never understood what the big deal was about these books.  At first I thought they were just a fad; after all, in my time at Walmart I had seen other items be big hits for a few months and then quickly drift away in popularity.  But these books were different.  Each book that was released was met with bigger and bigger crowds hoping to get their hands on a copy.  I finally bought a copy to see what the big deal was about Harry Potter and his friends.  I was immediately taken away to an imaginary world of wizards, witches, giants, and death eaters...I was hooked from the first page.

My Top Five

I have noticed recently on Facebook that people are sharing lists of books that have had a powerful impact on their lives.  These lists are typically five or ten books in length, and they are books that the list maker return to regularly.  I have been fascinated at many of the books mentioned by people on their lists, both for the good and for the bad...

While it is hard to really draw a bead on just five that have had a powerful impact on my life, here is my honest effort--although, to be honest, I may redact this list sometime in the coming days.  Some of you will wonder, where is Dostoyevsky, Steinbeck, Fitzgerald, Orwell, Dickson, and the like...?  I have read them, and enjoyed most of them.  But this list isn't about the greatest literary works I have ever encountered.  Rather, it is a list of the five books that have deeply shaped me and I continue to turn to on a regular basis (and, at least two of them are considered literary giants!).

So, with no further adieu, here it is:


1. As a Christian, it goes without saying that the most important book that I have ever read is the Holy Bible.  Christianity is not a faith rooted in subjective experience.  Rather, it is a faith that is rooted in God's self-revelation to humanity in Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ.  The Bible is where we come to understand this self-revelation of God in Jesus.  That is, Scripture bears witness to Jesus.  It testifies to the truth of Jesus and gives us an objective way of understanding the nature of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  2 Timothy 3:16 informs us that, "all Scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness."  

2.  I was thirty-two years old before I read The Lord of the Rings for the first time.  The blockbuster movies were already in the theaters before I ever held this book in my hand.  At the urging of several friends I bought a used copy on amazon.com and eagerly began to read it upon receiving it in the mail.  I almost quit reading it the first day.  The history of Middle Earth and then the encounter of the hobbits with Tom Bombadil at the beginning was enough to make my head spin.  I stuck with it, though, and found myself blessed as the pages began to turn.  In the past ten years I have read this book six times...I try to pick it up every eighteen months or so.  I feel like I am going on a journey to visit old friends every time I pick it up.  While J.R.R. Tolkien denied that LOR was an allegory of the Christian faith, a person of faith can't help but pick up Tolkien's baptized Christian imagination as the pages fly by.

3. As with The Lord of the Rings mentioned above, I never actually read The Chronicles of Narnia until I was in my early thirties.  As a child I had watched the animated movies on television and seen the BBC recordings on PBS, but I had never actually read the books.  It was the release of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe as a motion picture in 2005 that compelled me to read them.  I loved them (well, except for The Horse and His Boy).  Some would say I am cheating by choosing a set of books, and that is a legitimate complaint, so I will narrow this down to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.  C.S. Lewis' imaginative world of Narnia is deeply rooted in the reality of the world in which we live today.  I love the Beaver family who faithfully remember the ancient magic and prophecies.  Ah Narnia, where it is always winter, but never Christmas...

4. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain is special to me for a number of reasons.  Growing up in Hannibal, Missouri I was surrounded by the legacy of Samuel Clemons (Mark Twain).  I first read this book as an illustrated children's book in elementary school.  I read the actual book for the first time in Mrs. Anders 7th grade English class at Hannibal Junior High School.  She helped to make the book come alive, which is a true gift.  Beyond having a great teacher/guide for this book, I grew up attending First Presbyterian Church of Hannibal, where Samuel Clemons spent many Sunday mornings as a young boy.  I also had the privilege of working at the Mark Twain Cave for three summers while in high school, the very cave where Tom and Becky were lost and where Injun Joe met his demise.  So, perhaps I don't love this book primarily for it's literary greatness-but don't be deceived; Twain has an uncanny ability to address societal evils with wit and bite.

5. As a minister, this little book by James Torrance blew my mind away.  Worship Community, and the Triune God of Grace is only four chapters and 125 pages long, but every page is dripping with the importance of the right worship of God.  He writes that, "Worship is the gift of participating through the Spirit in the incarnate Sons communion the Father." In other words, worship isn't about our personal experience or whether or not we got fed on any particular Sunday.  Rather, worship is all about lifting up our praise to the Lord God in all of his fullness: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  To quote from the back cover, "This book explodes the notion that the doctrine of the Trinity may be indispensable for the creed but remote from life and worship."  Only my Bible has more underlining in it than this book.