This autobiography has special significance for me, as Hudson Taylor is the namesake of our son, Hudson Coia. We like that our son is named after the man who impacted China with the Gospel of Jesus Christ by becoming one of the Chinese, adopting the language, cultures, and practices.  Taylor follows the Apostle Paul at Mars Hill, and our prayer is that our Hudson will have a passion, love, and longing for a people group in this world.

Read this short book, and your faith in the God of all peoples will increase.

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Here’s a truncated version of the book review I turned in for my theology class:

Looks can be deceiving, and upon first glance, I would not have anticipated such breadth and depth to reside within the cover of John Murray’s petite text, Redemption Accomplished and Applied. Admittedly, I also did not expect that Murray would be able to carry on a discussion of redemption that was so consistently profitable, systematic, and concise. As I pressed on into this text, I was delighted and challenged by Murray’s presentation, motivated to draw ever closer to the treasures of the atonement described therein.

Murray has a knack for knowing when to switch gears in order to be better understood, and he rather effortlessly flows between academic language and writing that is more accessible to the average reader. It was a comfort to know that whenever I saw phrases like “in other words,” I was about to receive clarification on a rather heavy point the author did not want me to miss. That is one of the beauties of this text. Murray genuinely desires to get through to his audience, as the eternal weight of the subject matter demands it.

While other books on doctrine and theology can be somewhat convoluted and thick enough to use as an end table, Murray allows readers to gaze into his own meditations in a format that is neither daunting nor drab. His immediate goal is to impart knowledge and understanding so that gaps might be filled and what is out of joint might be corrected; his ultimate goal is that God would be glorified as joy and marvel in Christ’s redemptive accomplishment abounds.

The book is divided into two distinct parts, which lends to Murray’s sense of organization and linear thought. Part one addresses four aspects of Christ’s redemptive accomplishment—its necessity, its nature, its perfection, and its extent—while part two addresses the application of redemption in the life of the believer. In general, each chapter launches into a series of questions. Murray then seeks to respond to those questions through Scripture analysis in a very sequential and progressive fashion. Often times, these answers expose additional questions, which Murray also addresses with great detail and attention.

So what does a reader walk away with after investing time and thought into this book? Certainly more than can be portrayed or deliberated in this review! In his preface, Murray explains that his goal in writing this book is to bring facets of the truth of Christ’s redemptive accomplishment into clearer focus. I would say enthusiastically that Mr. Murray has achieved his goal. Though I will have to read this book a few more times before I will fully be able to wrap my head and heart around all that is explained, the author’s meticulous efforts have helped clarify a great deal relating to the atonement and its application in my life.

The doctrines and biblical truths set forth in Murray’s book incite awe, celebration, and humility. Part I lays the foundation for such a response, then Part II serves as icing on the cake as it informs the reader of the initial, continuous, and future activity of the Godhead in the life of the believer. In Hebrews chapter 10, the author discusses the full assurance of faith for the redeemed. I sense that my assurance has increased over the course of this semester. I believe the Holy Spirit has used this text to open my eyes to the intricacies of the truth to which I am holding fast, thus making my grip more firm and empowering me to wield that truth more accurately as I live out the gospel message.

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Malcom Gladwell set out to answer the question, “Why do some people really succeed, while others don’t?”  In particular, why do the best of the best succeed? For example, in this book, what was it about Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, The Beattles, professional hockey players, top lawyers like Joe Flam, and Asian students who excel in math?

As Americans, we love the “pulled up from their own bootstraps” “rags to riches” success stories.  Parents often tell their kids, “you can be anything you want to be when you grow up.”  But is that true?  Is it all just a matter of hard work and perseverance, or are their other factors in play?  Is it just natural talent?  Is that what made Mozart – Mozart?

In this book, Gladwell argues (convincingly) that there are other factors.  To be sure, extremely hard work and intelligence are necessary conditions for the successful (sorry, no shortcuts to success), but there almost always is one very key element to a person’s meteoric rise to the top; opportunity.

Opportunity is the reason Bill Gates became the richest man in the world.  Two key factors for Bill: First, he was born in 1955 – which turns out to be the exact right time to be born to be a pioneer in the world of computers (by the way Steve Jobs was also born in 1955).  Second, as a teenager, when access to a computer terminal was very limited and very expensive, Bill Gates was given the opportunity to have unhindered access to just such a computer at the nearby University of Washington.

Opportunity is what set the Beatles up for their unprecedented success. They were given the opportunity as a young band to play for eight hours a day, every day in the clubs of Hamburg Germany. After about 10,000 hours (the number of hours one needs to become an expert in any field – including Bill Gates time as a teenager on a computer), when the band returned to play in England, they were much better when they left, and much better than anyone else at the time.

Those are just two brief insights and examples from this book.  In Part two of the book, Gladwell goes on to demonstrate just how profoundly our heritage and the legacies we inherit shape us in both positive and negative ways.

This was a thoroughly enjoyable book to read.  I also have a renewed gratitude for all of the opportunities I have been given.

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This true story recounts one of the key moments in modern missions history, when God seized the hearts of 7 Cambridge students, all very different from each other, and compelled them to give up their all to join Hudson Taylor in bringing the Gospel to the lost of China.

The book focuses on how God beautifully worked and weaved these men’s lives together in a way that not only brought the Good News of Jesus Christ to hundreds in China, but also awakened thousands of Western Christians to embrace the long neglected command of their Lord to take the Gospel to the ends of the earth.

Although at times difficult to follow due to the stilted writing style and many names to keep track of, this book was a thrilling and encouraging read.  It was thrilling because the hand of God is so clearly seen as He responded to the prayers of His children, from a missionary professor in China to an old widow in a poor English cottage and countless others, so that at the right time and the right place the right men would respond to His call.  It was encouraging because the author was not shy about conveying not only these men’s victories but also their failures.  In particular, Stanley Smith, the foundational member of the Cambridge Seven, was a man of great ebb and flow in his spiritual growth.

As my wife and I move towards pursuing missions in Indonesia, the story of the Cambridge Seven will be a clear reminder of the power and necessity of prayer and the truth that, “God does not deal with you until you are wholly given up to Him, and then He will tell you what He would have you do.”

“…the very content of the word ‘sacrifice’ seemed reversed: and each man wondered whether he could afford the cost, not of utter devotion and worldly loss but of compromise and the loss of spiritual power and joy.  Nothing less than the experience of these two men was worth having.”

- the reflection of an undergraduate who had heard Stanley Smith and C.T. Studd speak of their surrender to God’s call

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When I told people that I was currently reading a book on the start of Zappos.com, the response was always the same: “Why?” I’m not exactly sure what interested me in this book, but I found it in the thrift store, and I was eager to read it. Aside from theology, my favorite topic to read is the history and evolution of the computer industry. Reading a book on how an online shoe store became a powerhouse retailer seemed to be perfect.

This book is part autobiography of Tony Hsieh and part how-to-be-a-leader book (a genre that I usually try to avoid). I enjoyed reading the start of young Tony with his entrepreneurial endeavors and accidental encounters that led him to Nick Swinmurn, the owner of a business called shoesite.com, which then transformed into what we now know as Zappos.com. Tony’s dedication to Zappos (even when business logic told him it is a losing proposition) was inspiring. It made me want to buy shoes at Zappos.

Before you readers get too inspired and leave this review to buy the new Nike Frees, I want to give what annoyed me most about this book: Tony Hsieh himself. He is an arrogant, condescending, and strange man. He is smarter and richer than you, and he makes sure you know this. He loves to refer to his friends as his “tribe” (so annoying), and tells of the epiphany he has in a rave. (Tony makes it clear that he liked raves before they were popular). Somehow, that trippy experience inspired him to provide excellent customer service.

Hsieh pontificates how amazing the Zappos culture is, and, frankly, I don’t care. While I appreciate good customer service, let’s keep in mind that they are selling shoes, not running the United Nations.

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For this review, I decided to use the questions from our Apologia study of this book last month. I hope that you or your group can use these as you discuss this excellent book.

1.    Define moral relativism and give examples of this worldview in practice. What were your thoughts on it before reading this book? How did reading this book help your thinking on the issue?

2.    Read the following quotation and discuss why this is the proper result of moral relativism’s worldview:

“What kind of world would it be if relativism were true? It would be a world in which nothing is wrong­–nothing is considered evil or good, nothing worthy of praise or blame. It would be a world in which justice and fairness are meaningless concepts, in which there would be no accountability, no possibility of moral improvement, no moral discourse. And it would be a world in which there is no tolerance” (69).

3.    Explain the difference between the moral ought and the rational ought and subject/object truths (26-27). Does this help frame the discussion?

4.    What are the three types of relativism as described in the book (36-39)? Describe each. Which one do you hear/see/read about the most in our culture?

5.    This book (and Tim Keller’s The Reason for God) discusses the story of the blind men and the elephant. What is the story indented to show, and how can we properly discuss it?

6.    What is the “reformer’s dilemma” (52-53)? How can this be an important discussion point?

7.    Discuss relativism’s seven flaws (61-69). Which would you find most powerful in your discussions on the topic? Least helpful?

8.    What is the difference between moral absolutes and values clarification? How prevalent is the values clarification model today? Are there modern examples?

9.    How is our politically correct culture and multiculturalism a natural offspring of moral relativism? How is it a contradiction of it?

10.  How are the hot-button topics like abortion and same-sex marriage used in this book to display the problems with moral relativism? In your opinion, are the authors effective in their use of the issues?

11. As we did with the seven flaws, review and discuss the four tactics to refute relativism (143-155). Which do you find strongest and weakest?

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In my continuing effort to read the books I should have read in high school, today I read this short classic during typhoon Songda today.  Earlier this year I read Steinbeck’s East of Eden novel, which I thoroughly enjoyed, and which is about 900 pages longer than this one.

Once again, like a well trained artist, Steinbeck vividly paints each scene and character.  This would be a good short introduction to Steinbeck and his literary prowess esteemed by english teachers.

Of Mice and Men is the story of George Milton and his mentally disabled but extremely powerful and large sidekick Lennie Small.  As Migrant workers during the great depression, the two have dreams of one day owning their own small farm and “livin off the fat of the lan!”  Their plans, however, keep getting sidetracked as they are constantly on the move because Lennie keeps “doing bad things”.

Lennie loves to pet mice, and puppies, and one time a little girl’s dress. Both the mice and puppy are eventually manhandled to death by the imbecile.  These incidents all foreshadow the death of a young promiscuous wife on the farm.  In her flirtatious way, she allows Lennie to stroke her soft hair.  He likes it, she freaks out, and as she pulls away Lennie gets scarred and squeezes and shakes her to death in the hopes that she’ll be quite.   In the end, his friend George is forced to shoot and kill his friend in the back of the head – which was the same fate of an old dog earlier in the book.

As you can tell, the storyline is dark, without any redemption in the end.  It leaves the reader sad… we’re so used to the stories that have a rise, a fall, and a redemption, that when we read otherwise it seems like something is wrong.   Indeed, apart from the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the grand story of Creation would end like Steinbeck’s novel.

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In 1985 the late Neil Postman wrote the book, Amusing Ourselves to Death where he famously critiqued our modern culture and the way the technology of television had eroded our societies ability to think and discourse deeply on the serious issues we face.  He argued that television had turned even the most serious of news into a form of mind-numbing entertainment.

But that was 1985, before the modern advances of the internet, email, twitter, facebook, the iPhone, etc.  Did we heed Postman’s warnings as we embraced these new advances in technology? Hardly.

In The Next Story, Christian author and blogger Tim Challies seeks to help God’s people to develop a God honoring theory, theology, and experience of technological engagement.   To be clear, Challies is not a Luddite, as mentioned, he is a blogger, he uses facebook, twitter, an iPad, and an iPhone.   He argues that technological advancements are part of God’s command to humanity to have dominion over the earth.  He says that technology is not inherently evil or good, the issue lies in our own, often sinful,  hearts.

If you’ve ever felt like the pace of the modern world and the demand for your constant attention is either draining your energy or causing you to obsess over the facebook world, then this would be a great book for you.

As God’s people we’re called to think deeply and live out our faith in a meaningful context of community.  While email, twitter, your smartphone, and facebook  offer a type of community, it isn’t typically meaningful or soul satisfying community. Yet as more and more of our time is sucked away by these things, our ability to engage in the one-on-one, slow, thoughtful, and meandering conversations begins to disappear.  If you’ve ever been out with your friends and have each simultaneously been checking email, or surfing the internet, instead of talking amongst yourselves, you’ve fallen prey to this (confession: I certainly have).

So how now do we live?  That’s a good question, and a good starting point for figuring out how to live in the sweet spot where theory, theology, and practice of technology overlap.  To begin to break the bondage of our cultural captivity to technology, a good place to start would be by reading and applying this book.

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This first major work by Victor Hugo written in 1829 was intended to be a protest against France’s public death penalty, specifically execution by means of the guilotine (which was still a legitimate form of execution in France until 1981).

Hugo makes his case not directly but by means of the criminal’s first person account from the day of his sentencing to his execution six weeks later.  The reader cannot help but be moved at the mental torment that this man goes through.  By far the most heartrenching scene is near the end where, hours from his execution, he gets to see his soon to be orphaned three year old daughter only to find out that she has no idea who he is and is repulsed by his tears and haggard appearance:

“The poor child had not seen me for a year.  She had forgotten me, –my face, my words, my voice.  Alas! who, indeed, would recognize me with this beard, these clothes, and this palor? What! already forgotten by the only one whom I wanted to remember me! What! no longer a father, even now!  To be condemned never again to hear the word in the language of children, which is so gentle that it cannot belong to that of men – ‘Papa!’”

Most of the details surrounding the identify of the criminal and his crime are left shrouded in ambiquity.  Furthermore,while the guilt of the criminal is not in question, whether or not he is remorseful is left murky.  This forces the reader to decide whether or not to pity him, and even more importantly – what factors and in what circumstances is pity and compassion merited?

Here are a few thoughts I will takeaway:

- I love Victor Hugo’s writing.  I already knew that though.

- Sin is terrifyingly destructive.

- In a world poisoned by sin, God has given government the responsibility to maintain order (Romans 13) which can include the death penalty.

- I am thankful to live in a country that values justice and seeks to maintain it in a humane way

- True justice will never be satisfatorily found this side of eternity.

- The last days of this man’s life would have been very different if he had known the hope of Jesus Christ and the power of His resurrection.  That story would have been one of the triumph of God’s grace rather than the tradgedy of sin.

Victor Hugo did not change my view on capital punishment, although I doubt I will ever be excited about it.

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Joy is one of those things that seems to be misunderstood in most Christian circles.  I think of it as the forgotten fruit.  We can all see how to practice love, peace, patience, kindness, self-control, etc.  But how do you practice joy?  Isn’t joy an emotion like happiness?  It’s an understandable question and exactly what John Piper answers.  He takes his readers through what joy is and isn’t and does it with his usual saturation of scripture.

Piper’s reasoning for this book stems from his fundamental mantra from Desiring God that “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.”  This ‘satisfaction’ is the pursuit of our joy.  But inherently there are people that struggle with joy; they get stuck in a funk, unable to escape the darkness.  Piper addresses this with care, understanding, and clarity.  It should bring hope to those who struggle to maintain joy.

There are a few insights on joy I found particularly helpful.  Piper references 2 Cor. 1:24, noting that faith and joy are interchangeably used.  Just as faith is a gift of God but must be pursued and strengthened, so our joy is a gift of God (the joy of Christ as our salvation) and must also be worked and perfected throughout our walks with Him.

Part of this working out of our joy means preaching the gospel of Christ to ourselves regularly.  The Psalmist does so in Psalm 42 and Piper applies a great quote from Martyn Lloyd-Jones: “Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself?”  What a powerful truth.  Something I must constantly remember!

Overall, this is a great book that I’ve been working on for quite a while and finally finished.  I have always found joy to be fascinating but often misunderstood.  I wanted to be able to speak to this topic more confidently and authoritatively; I think I’m definitely closer to that.

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