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Christina Fox | Christian Focus | 2019, 191 pp., $12.99 | Reviewed by Meg Spear
Author, blogger, and editor Christina Fox draws heavily from themes in Tim Keller’s Counterfeit Gods and applies them specifically to the arena of motherhood. A mother of two sons, she speaks with clarity and experience.
Fox asserts that, although people understandably say that a baby changes everything, one fact that doesn’t change is the problem of sin. In reality, this problem is multiplied “on a daily basis, as our sin clashes with our children’s sin, and it’s just plain messy.”
The first chapter, entitled “The Sanctifying Work of Motherhood,” challenges women to recognize the opportunities that this role gives to be conformed to the image of Christ. Although motherhood can be stretching and at times painful, we can expect God to be faithful as He transforms us by His grace.
The first half of the book lays a theological foundation from which the applications in the second half flow. Fox lays out how the human design to worship and glorify the Creator gets twisted as we search elsewhere for hope, peace, worth, and even salvation.
In the second part of the book, Fox turns to look at particular idols, including the idol of children themselves. Although children are clearly a blessing, when we pursue motherhood with an intensity above our pursuit of God, then it becomes idolatrous. She reminds us that our foundational identity is in Christ alone and that we must remember our primary identity in each of the changing seasons of our lives.
While recognizing that her list is not exhaustive, Fox also dedicates a chapter to each of the following idols: success, comfort, control, and approval. Each chapter explores the temptations and pitfalls of a particular idol and then reminds us of a corresponding gospel truth: worth in Christ, joy in Christ, security in Christ, and God’s love for us. I was especially helped by the “Heart Questions” at the end of each chapter.
As she concludes the book, Fox gives us pointers in recognizing and turning from the false gods we have built. As we turn from these idols, we are to turn to Christ, specifically by filling our hearts and minds with the Psalms of Scripture, which allow us to use God’s own words in pouring out our souls to Him.
Mothers will find this book convicting—perhaps especially the latter half, which helps us analyze our own hearts and root out sinful desires, replacing them with practical applications of the gospel.
Suffering: Gospel Hope When Life Doesn’t Make Sense
Paul David Tripp | Crossway Books, 2018, 224 pp., $22.99 | Reviewed by Pastor Harry Metzger
Everyone knows suffering. You have likely known pain, heartache, shattered dreams, mental anguish, betrayal, loneliness, or other troubles. Because we live in a fallen world, suffering is inevitable.
In his book Suffering, Paul David Tripp looks at this age-old problem. He begins the book by telling of his own suffering. When he thought he was at the height of his ministry and that he was as healthy physically as he had ever been, the unwelcome guest of suffering knocked on the door of his life, rudely entered, and ransacked every part of his soul. For Tripp, the suffering was acute kidney failure, which left him with unbearable pain and debilitating fatigue. He had to change his schedule drastically and cut back his ministry opportunities. But the biggest change was to his heart, for suffering always changes the heart.
Tripp examines not merely the cause of suffering but also the spiritual warfare behind the suffering, because there is a spiritual side to all of our suffering. In our suffering we can easily fall into one of six traps. There is the Envy Trap, which adds to the pain of suffering. We look at other people and wish that our life was as easy, fulfilling, carefree, or happy as theirs. Our suffering can easily turn friendships into jealousy. When we fall into the Doubt Trap, we question the goodness of God, His purposes for us, or His sovereignty. The Fear Trap makes us wonder if there will ever be relief from the suffering, and it brings anxiety and distrust into our life. The other traps the author analyzes are the Awareness Trap, the Denial Trap, and the Discouragement Trap.
In contrast to the fear traps to which our hearts may easily run, the author points us to the resources we have in Jesus Christ. He shares these resources under the heading of comforts: the Comfort of God’s Grace, of God’s Presence, of God’s Sovereignty, of God’s Purpose, and of God’s People. In this section, as throughout the book, Tripp analyzes various helpful passages of Scripture and relates poignant, true stories.
As expected, I found the author to be very practical, transparent, and helpful. Suffering brings drastic changes into our lives. Those changes can cause us to run away from God, thus becoming bitter and adding to our suffering and affecting those around us. Or, those changes can cause us to run to Jesus Christ and find the resources we need to embrace joyfully the suffering we face. I believe this book will help you see the beauty of the resources that Christ offers to those who suffer.
You Who? Why You Matter and How to Deal with It
Rachel Jankovic | Canon Press, 2019, 246 pp., $14.95 | Reviewed by Meg Morton
Rachel Jankovic’s You Who? Why You Matter and How to Deal with It seeks to refute feel-good Christian women’s books by encouraging readers to find their identity in Christ. She writes that “the goal of this book is to encourage and equip believing women to see their identity in Christ as the most essential part of them, and to see all the ways that will work its way out in their lives, manifesting itself as strength, dignity, and clarity of purpose.” Jankovic achieves this goal by first identifying the problem: Christians have been influenced by several unbiblical philosophies. The book’s early chapters define these philosophies of human identity and the unbelief at their root.
Jankovic argues that our identities are not self-constructed, a Pinterest board of our hobbies and roles, but rather that our identity must be found and founded in Christ. At the root of this is giving “your self-fashioned identity to Christ that it might die” because “when you submit your life to Him fully, you can live in Him, fully.” She directs our attention to seeking to live fully for the glory of God rather than in the empty pursuit of self-fulfillment. The book’s great strength is in its exploration of this truth.
Each short chapter packs a punch as Jankovic takes on the platitudes that have leapt from coffee mugs and Facebook memes into our worldview. Rather than trying to find ourselves through self-exploration, personality tests, or Christian princess-themed self-esteem boosters, Jankovic urges her readers to seek and to know the true and living God through worship and obedience: to lay down our personalities and preferences to follow God’s commands and to watch expectantly for him to bring beauty from that obedience.
The conversational tone and relatable examples make me eager to reread this book—I hope with some thoughtful Christian women—because there is much here worth considering. This book provides an excellent model of how Christian women can move beyond the vague arm-patting comfort of this world to an encouraging exhortation to know and glorify the true and living God. These themes will not be new to most believers, but Jankovic’s writing brings them to us with fresh urgency and joyful expectancy.
Acts: A Visual Guide
Kevin DeYoung and Chris Ranson | Christian Focus Publishing, 2018, 128 pp, $15 | Reviewed by Sam Spear
Is there a middle ground between childhood doodles and academic outlines? Is there any interface between the ancient art of preaching and the modern art of the infographic? Kevin DeYoung and Chris Ranson’s book of sketch notes covering 60 sermons on the book of Acts is an attempt to find that place.
If you are not visually oriented in your learning style, you will find this little book confusing and perhaps maddening. But for the visual learner, this book may open new insights into how to cement the messages of expository preaching.
The illustrator, product-design engineer Chris Ranson, displays his info-graphical representation of each of Kevin DeYoung’s sermons and models how to present the structure, logic, and feelings of a sermon pictorially. The text in the illustrations is large and readable, and the color scheme is easy on the eyes.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then this small book carries some weight. An additional benefit might come to those who are encountering Acts in corporate or individual study, as this way of looking at the early church may help stimulate and organize your thoughts.