Friday, January 23, 2015

Book Review: "If God is Good - Faith in the Midst of Suffering and Evil"


I was very excited about getting my copy of "If God is Good" by Randy Alcorn. I even the loved the cover (rose and thorns). I find Randy Alcorn to be an excellent author who is very scripturally sound. He does a pretty thorough job covering a very hard subject, evil and suffering, in this 500+ page book. This subject is a hard one for anyone to totally understand, but I feel Randy Alcorn, the author, did a great job covering the many angles of hand questions that surround this very question,  "if God is good, why all this suffering and evil?"  
Randy Alcorn (Author) takes 2 1/2 minutes to share on his book.

This book is divided into 11 sections and covers practically every aspect of evil and suffering from its origins to various views on the subject. I believe Randy did as good a job on covering the subject as anybody could ever attempt to do. To understand it more thoroughly than this, I believe we'll have to wait until the day we stand before the presence of God, and then that which is now dim and cloudy on suffering and evil, will become totally clear. But until then, I believe this book will help you better understand and deal with the suffering and evil that surrounds all of us. Not one of us is exempt from suffering and the consequences of evil in our world.  

I do believe this book will help you to see that you don't need to be getting mad at God over this subject.  It is so wonderful to know that through it all our God is in control and that God is good!

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher, in exchange for my honest review.  I was in no way required to write anything positive, all thoughts and opinions expressed here are complete my own.

Monday, January 5, 2015

My review of "Bonhoeffer Abridged - Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy"


This is the second book I've read on Dietrich Bonhoeffer in recent months.The last one was "Strange Glory," a very long book with a lot of detail, and for some people a little too much detail. My wife loves history and is from a German heritage, so I thought she would love "Strange Glory" - she didn't. She found herself getting bored with the details.  I have asked her to read "Bonhoeffer Abridged" and I think she'll really like it. One of the things I really like about this book is that it gives you a fast-moving account of Dietrich Bonnhoefer's life, yet being careful to cover most of the highlights of his life and ministry without dragging through little details. It is broken down into 12 chapters covering the years of his life from birth to death.  It's entire length is only 256 pages, but those pages  covers his life quite thoroughly. I never once found myself bored while reading this book - it is an excellent book. I believe it gave me good insight into the life and ministry of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I found it very easy to read and enjoyed it very much. If you want more details on his life and ministry, I would suggest getting the unabridged copy of this book "Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy" (624 pages) by the same author (Eric Metaxas).  I easily give this book 5 stars.

256 pages abridged 
or 624 unabridged.

Thank you to Thomas Nelson and BookLook bloggers for providing me with a copy of this book to read and review; all opinions are my own.  I was not required to give a positive review.