The Book: The Prodigal
God - Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith
Author: Tim Keller
Keller is the
founder and pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, which has
grown to draw about 4000 congregants on a Sunday, mostly in the 20s and 30s age
range. From what I know of it through reputation it has done amazing work
towards changing the work of inner city churches and for bringing the gospel to
young ambitious professionals, a group which it has been difficult to reach
thus far. Redeemer has also planted about 100 smaller churches in the Manhattan
area and has just bought some property to start building its own church
building. http://www.redeemer.com/
Topic: The Gospel!
As you can probably
tell from the title the book focuses on the Parable of the Prodigal Son, or as
Keller renames it, the Parable of the Two Lost Sons. By about page 2 you'll
realise why he does this. As Jesus does, Keller tells the gospel through the story,
identifying characters and moods that you may not have considered before. He
uses it mainly to spell out the Christian message, to help us realise if we can relate to the
characters in the story, and therefore see if we are held back in our
relationship with God. There is also some very helpful commentary on what the
different types of characters mean for our churches today.
Length: Short
I would say that I read at an average pace,
not very quickly, but also not too slowly. It took me three weeks to get
through the book. I didn't read every day, but when I did read I read for about
20-30mins. Sometimes this is long enough to get through a chapter, but there
are two particularly long chapters which you can't get through in this time.
This is a bit of a shame as we all know that life is busy and sometimes we only
have 20 mins to sit down with a good book and it's nice to get to the end of a
chapter or section so we can think about the whole picture it portrayed.
However, the longer chapters are split up with lots of subheadings so it is
very possible to break up the reading so you don't get lost in the middle of a
paragraph. If you are committed to
reading about 20-30 minutes each day then you'll have read it in under two
weeks.
Style: Easy reading,
but thinking required
If you want a book
which you can read without really thinking and still take something in, this
isn't it. With Keller you have to think. That is what he intends you to do and
he is very good at achieving that goal through his writing. Having said that, it
is easy to read (with one quote from C S Lewis which I needed to read again to
see what it was on about!) and I didn't have to look up any words in the
dictionary. Still, it is not a book you can drift through and still take in
what that author intends you to. I would say that, if you are anything like me,
this is a book for when you have not read anything in a while, or when you've
just finished a similarly easy to read book. It probably isn't one for when
you've just work your way through a big, hard-to-get-your-head-around book and
you are wanting a break. Be warned also Keller has the American tendency to
quote films. It's amazing how quickly he can change from writing about the
socio-political state of the church to quoting from Lord of the Rings.
Why this book?:
If I'm honest the
reason I picked up this book is because I felt like my spiritual life was a little lifeless. All I could do was think back to just over five years ago when I
first put my trust in Jesus as my Lord and Saviour. I remembered how much I got
who Jesus was, how amazing the gospel was to me and how on fire I was for
spreading the gospel, living for Jesus and serving his people and his church.
And then I looked at my life now. A life still full of trying to tell people
the gospel, trying to live for Jesus and serving in the church, but it was
flat. There was very little joy, apart from when serving in children's work,
which is just joyful because of the small people! I wanted to go back to Jesus.
To who he was, because, as Keller points out in his introduction, unless we get
that then we don't get the Christian message.
Keller also stated
that it is a sign that we probably haven't got it fully if we are sure that we
have. It's one of those amazing, wonderful things that we shouldn't be able to
get our head around properly. It's too great for us to really be able to! So I
was looking for a book, apart from the Bible, which would get me back to
basics. A book that would help me see Jesus and his message, and once I saw
that help me to keep going in faith and with joy in Him.
What it's taught me:
I know I put too
much store into books. I'm a book person. However, even though it's a failing,
I'm glad I realise this about myself because it means that I also know that a book
can not change my life. But Jesus can, and the book has given me good things to
think about and pray about. It has taught me that I'm uncomfortably close to
being one of the characters in the parable Keller explains to us. I have been
greatly challenged on the way I go about my Christian life, about serving, and
about my relationship to God. I have also been shown what a serious, dangerous
and spiritually desperate state this was to be in.
In all honesty I was
quite sad by what the book taught me in the first 6 chapters. This is because
God was challenging me through this book that I must change. It's never that
much fun to be challenged in that way. But I see that God wants me to change into
the person that He would have me be and to draw closer to Him, which is
amazing. God is inviting me to do this and telling me that I can draw nearer to
Him! The God of the whole universe is saying to me 'Come in', just as the
father in the parable does. I think I've only just got how incredible that is
while writing this review.
In the 7th chapter
Keller turns to the practical, describing the four ways our life can be changed
by our salvation. He offers what I believe is very godly advice into how we can
change. I don't want to give it away - I want you to read the book - but the gist is that we need to think about Jesus.
Not that surprising, is it?
Favourite quotes:
"Jesus's
purpose is not to warm our hearts but to shatter our categories"
And
"We can only change permanently as we
take the gospel more deeply into our understanding and into our hearts"
These seem simple,
but show a good outline of the book. The first is found in chapter 1, and the
second in chapter 7 which is the final chapter. Keller starts by helping us to
see how Jesus shatters our categories. At the end, after having had our categories
shattered, he shows us what Jesus wants us to know and offers help for how to
go about doing it.
Who is this book
for?
It seems this book
has taught me a lot. I would encourage everyone to read it, especially if, like
me, you have ever felt like your spiritual life was a little flat or
lifeless. This would also be a good book
to give someone who has had an interest in Christianity for a while but has not
yet made the commitment to trust in Jesus for their salvation. The book is not
without Christian jargon, so it is probably not a book to give as an
introduction to Christianity.
When you read this
book pray to have your categories shattered, and prepare to be challenged.
Final thoughts:
I have really
enjoyed reading this book and writing this blog. It's taken me a while, partially because it was the
first time I have written anything like this, but also because I didn't want to
force myself into writing. If I had done that this review would not have been
written from the heart. It would have been more utilitarian than personal,
which is not what I wanted. As has become clear, this first review has helped
me achieve one of the reasons I wanted to start writing. While writing this
review I realised the amazing truth that God is inviting me into his house, to
share in being his child, by challenging me through reading the book. So
writing has really helped me to take in what I have read and apply it to my
life. I just hope that this review can also achieve the other reason I wanted
to write; I hope that it has been helpful to you, my friends.
What's next?
Next I am diving in
at the deep end. I will be starting to read 'Heaven' by Randy Alcorn this week. If you would like to join me in
reading it you can buy it from 10ofthose.com: https://www.10ofthose.com/products/2242/Heaven/
Anyone who has seen
this book will know it's not the shortest. It is split into three parts though
so I will review each part as I finish it so there hopefully won't be too long
in between each post.
