This is a good compliation of thoughts by several well know Christian writers / preachers. It is a short book but a profound book for all of us to read, understand, ponder and then put into action.
The goal of the book is to push us beyond the fact that the Christian Life is that of engaging the intellect. We also need to put into action that which we are reading. I think that the opening line in Thabiti Anyabwile's chapter sums this up, "The fullest expression of Christian living is a combination of head, heart and hands. In involves receiving truth through the head, which ignites new affections in the heart and flows out in action through the hands." To many of us are so busy gaining knowledge that we neglect to put what we learn into action.
In the first Chapter, Rick Warren mentions how he went to church on Sunday morning and in Sunday school was encouraged to take an application from the lesson. Then in service he got another application, then on Sunday night a third application from scripture and on Wednesday night a fourth application. He was so busy getting applications he was suppose to follow through on that he never had time to follow through. Does that sound like your church?
We need to follow Thabiti's thought and put the head knowledge into our heart and let it flow out through our hands as we take action to apply all that we are learning about scripture.
But further the book challenges us that we as Evangelical's in the West have lost the art of "Thinking." We critically think about what we read or learn. We don't delve into learning about God so that we can "Think" about who He is, what He does and what He desires His children to be doing. Christians today are not challenged to THINK. They are challenged to sit and listen to others who have supposedly done the thinking for them.
Rick Warren's chapter challenges us as Christians to become learners, to immerse ourselves in learning about God, to read continually, to saturate our minds with the things of God so that when we act we are acting out of a knowledge base of Biblical thought.
Art Mohler's chapter delves into the need to look at Worldviews, see how they have developed, why they have taken hold in our cultures and what we need to understand regarding them so that we can critically anyalsis and respond to them. We need to study not just our own Christian worldview but the worldview of others so that we can acknowledge and address them in a way that challenges them to look at Christianity to find the truth.
R.C. Sproul then takes us through a study of Philosophy and the Philosopher's of the past. He looks into what the early philosophers were thinking, how they pondered our world and cultures and why they came to the conclusions that they came to. He then works through Paul's address in Acts to the philosopher's regarding their statue to the 'unknown God.' He knew their thoughts and that they gathered everyday to dialogue about "what is new?" He brought them the answer to what is new and it was in the form of Jesus Christ. But to do so he had to study, learn, understand others thought processes and then see how Christianity fit into that mode of communication to help people come to understand Christ. Today we don't think that way.
The Thabiti gives us in his chapter a dilogue about encountering Islam with the Mind of Christ. It is a challenging chapter that will help you develop a critical mindset on how to approach our fellow humans who happen to follow the teaching of Mohammad.
Finally Francis Chan challenges our thinking and our lifestyle. His chapter sums up the problem and approaches us with a challenge of how are we going to live today.
This book is short, but very challenging. It will push you to want to "THINK" and learn and grapple with today's issues but then to take your Christianity, your faith, your love for Christ and want to love others enough to do something about sharing what you have learned so that they to can come to know the Savior.
This books is one that would be great to read as part of a book club and then talk through the lessons learned and then hold each other accountable for how you are going to put it into action.
Enjoy and Think while you read!
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