**BOOKS** November December 2021

NOTE: I don't know how often I will update these posts, but I wanted to start sharing books that I find especially good for the Christian reader.

To start off, here are some I have read in the past few months. By the way, I include Amazon links because that's where I get most of my books because they have good and cheap copies available used. You can also find a lot of them at Christianbook.com. All of these are available to listen to for free on my library's audiobook site. Check your library and see if you can find them in audio or ebook format.

• The Story of Reality: How the World Began, How It Ends, and Everything Important that Happens in Between (by Gregory Koukl) I have raved about this to family and friends because of the readability and clarity. I tell people that this is a book for anyone with questions about Christianity or faith in Christianity. The next book is by the same author so you can tell I like his writing style.
  
• Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions (by Gregory Koukl). I found that this one is very useful for someone like me: timid but anxious to share and/or defend my faith. Again, very readable.

• 
  Unparalleled: How Christianity's Uniqueness Makes It Compelling (by Jared C. Wilson). This has become my favorite book to gift to people who are considering Christianity but have questions. 

• Pagan Christianity?: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices (by Frank Viola & George Barna). This one is (because I am still listening to my library copy) a bit mindblowing for me. It reinforces many of the personal thoughts I've had about church practices and addresses so many questions - why and what for - but never knew there was a book to delve into the answers.  I added a Preview link to this one on the blog sidebar. I will leave it up for a while so folks can have a peek at the book contents.

I may already have talked about some of these books here before. Never hurts to reiterate.

By the way, some people don't know if their local library has audiobook available. Check via the Overdrive, Libby, and Hoopla apps. Those are the ones used by my library. 

Peace

--Free

God Is In the Details

When I am doing Bible study, I often forget that everything in that collection of books - prophecies, parables, incidents - is all tied together in a way that would be impossible without divine intention. As Chuck Missler points out, "every detail in the Scripture is there by design".

In my recent Bible study, I was listening to the audiobook of "Heaven and Hell" by Missler. I am never disappointed by one of his sessions and it's because he always points out details other teachers miss. One of those intentional details.

In one part of the session, he spoke about how when God promised to give back double what Job has lost. I have studied the book of Job so many times (because I tend to turn to that book when I am going through trials myself), but I missed an important detail.

Everything Job lost was replenished two-fold - except for his children. He started with 7 sons and 3 daughters and after his testing, he had 7 sons and 3 daughters.

This has always stumped me and it's been used by scoffers to explain their disbelief. Missler teaches in other studies that we should take notes of anything like this - things that we cannot understand - so that we can look back on it later. (I'm paraphrasing badly, but...)

The children Job lost are alive in Heaven so when he gained another 7 sons and 3 daughters, he had his two-fold share of them.

Once Missler pointed this out, I realized that, as usual, I had been isolating my study of Job from the rest of the Bible. The situation of Job's children having been replaced is tied together with other promises in the Bible.

I just wanted to share that little tidbit with you. I'm sure that we all run into things that stump us when we are studying the Bible. For sure, things like this are thrown at us by people contesting the truth of the Bible. I hope that we Christians remember to use these incidents to strengthen ourselves and our witnessing to others.

When it comes to the Bible, to salvation, and to faith, it's God the Father in the details. He owns the details.

Peace
--Free

 I am listening to the study on an audiobook available from my library. 

You might find it in yours via the Libby, Hoopla, or Overdrive apps.

I thought I would include this for anyone who has not seen it before now: