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![Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing the Will of God Member Book [Revised]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51vUuD4qyXL._SL500_.jpg)
Top Reddit reviews mentioning Christian Discipleship books:
Oh yeah, that’s such an amazing story! Have you ever read Henri Nouwen’s book on the topic, The Return of the Prodigal Son? (It’s initially more about Rembrandt’s painting, but of course gets well into the parable.) Really thoughtful reflection with a lot of unexpected angles, if you’re ever interested.
You omitted the last verse.
And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.
He could have taken the kid to celebrate with his friends at any point. He's blaming his father for his own reluctance to be joyful.
I might as well be the first to recommend this book.
https://www.amazon.com/Return-Prodigal-Son-Story-Homecoming/dp/0385473079
The author spent literal hours staring at this picture and meditating upon it.
The Story is a pretty good resource, it essentially condenses the NIV translation of the Bible down into, well, a story.
As others have said, don’t read it like a novel. It’s not intended to be understood in that way.
What I would do is use bible.com or the Bible app and sign up for one of the whole Bible plans. That will also give you context into what you’re reading and they present themes or sections that go together well.
I personally use ESV as it’s the closest readable translation to what the original was. A lot of Protestant churches use the NIV.
If you do want to get the ideas in a novelization type format, you can use The Story but you’re not directly reading the Bible when doing that.
I can't recommend Gentle and Lowly highly enough.
I thought it would be about "Jesus is gentle and lowly - here's how you can be, too". But it's all about the person of Jesus and what he has done, is doing, and will do. It emphasizes things that I think we reformed (or at least I) don't really consider as much.
I can take a stab at some of these and maybe direct you to some resources:
With the nature of repentance and total depravity, just because the text doesn't say something doesn't mean it's not there. That's not to say the passage makes a case for Total Depravity, but it also equally does not speak to a lack of divine action in softening the heart. We have to let the authors speak to what they want to speak to, in the same manner we shouldn't chide James for not filling out salvation by grace alone through faith alone in the same way Paul does. We have other, more directly relevant passages that indicate the natural hardness of man's heart and the need for a heart of flesh, and so we can assume the universal to be true in this instance as well.
Romans 1 also gets into the exchange as well, where man exchanges the glory of God for created things and God also gives them over to these things for destruction. The relationship between God's will and man's will is not as mechanical as one side or the other, but there is an organic outworking between what man wills and what God has willed.
We could also say this is relevant to the matters concerning Christ's complaint about the lack of repentance. Man is still responsible for his sin and lack of repentance, even as it's within God's soveriegn will.
Resource wise I would recomend RC Sproul's book Chosen by God. Not overly technical and I think fairly pastoral. I gave it to my dad when I became Reformed so he was assured I wasn't an absolute heritic.
Uhh... I'm confused. He is "agnostic" (i.e., doesn't believe in the existence of God), but "believe[s] sorta kinda in God"? He isn't an agnostic; he is a polytheist. And also, you said he doesn't believe in "one word the Bible says", but believes in multiple gods because of the First Commandment? The first commandment is biblical, right?
>What are some tips on how to approach this?
Well, I would follow Greg Koukl's <em>Tactics</em>. Instead of presenting arguments, I would ask questions to expose the inconsistencies in their worldview (that's similar to the Socratic method). If you ask questions (genuinely and curiously), you're less likely to provoke a defensive reaction -- and a defensive reaction will only prevent a change of mind. For instance, you could ask, "You said you don't believe what the Bible says, but you also said you accept polytheism because of the First Commandment. So, why do you believe in the first and not in the others? I'm a bit confused.. can you help me understand your view?"
Haha. Nothing he said actually challenges OP, so his comments don't bother me at all. It is all irrelevant gobbledygook.
However, I'm interested in people who primarily use questions to debate. This tactic of using questions is recommended by religious apologists like Greg Koukl and Frank Turek. Basically the idea is to reverse the burden of proof and put the pressure on your opponent while you just sit down and relax. The opponent has to do all the hard work while you just keep shooting questions.
Apparently that's exactly what this individual is attempting to do here.
> I believe in Jesus as my savior but it feels like my faith just ends there. You wouldn't be able to tell I'm a Christian by my heart or actions.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer would call that cheap grace; the grace you bestow on yourself without discipleship.
> So how do I get a true, transformative faith?
A great start would be reading and working through The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born in Breslau in 1906. The son of a famous German psychiatrist, he studied in Berlin and New York City. He left the safety of America to return to Germany and continue his public repudiation of the Nazis, which led to his arrest in 1943. Linked to the group of conspirators whose attempted assassination of Hitler failed, he was hanged in a concentration camp in April 1945 just a few weeks before Germany surrendered.
Anthony de Mello - Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality
(actually, the freely available audio talks these are a transcript from). Coolest Jesuit priest ever IMHO
I've just started reading Tactics ( https://www.amazon.com/Tactics-10th-Anniversary-Discussing-Convictions/dp/0310101468/), which seems like a generalist's appologetic approach.
I have been most effective by reading the bible and reading their texts. E.g. read the bible and the quran to speak to Muslims. The bible and the Book of Mormon to speak to Mormons. Etc.
I have found that not all Muslims believe the same things and not all Mormons believe the same things. You really have to tailor the message to the individual person you are speaking with. I think, if you are just looking for a list of arguments you can tell Hindus and have them turn to Christ, you are going to be disappointed.
God created us to enjoy him. Basic premise of Christian Hedonism is that God made us for our joy and our greatest joy is in Him in sharing His greatness with us.
To your question, Idolatry is worshipping/pursuing anything above God, which would make God an idolater if He didn’t put himself first above all else.
John Piper outlines the concept of Christian Hedonism really well in a book called Desiring God
Tactics was my first intro into apologetics and I loved it.
Tactics, 10th Anniversary Edition: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions https://www.amazon.com/dp/0310101468/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_427GKWES9HQ91ZVMNBA7
But we can sow the fields.
Tactics is a great book about it.
Tactics, 10th Anniversary Edition: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions https://www.amazon.com/dp/0310101468/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_427GKWES9HQ91ZVMNBA7
Ask King Jesus to teach you to receive His saving work. We often try to earn it, but we can't! It takes us quite a while to learn to receive His mercy, His grace, His love.
Not sure if this book will help you, but we really, really, really need to know, experience, and be told again and again by Holy Spirit just how much Jesus loves us. This book was helpful for me to know more of Jesus' heart for me (and others):
Prayed that you no longer experience condemnation and shame and failure, but that you learn to receive Christ's amazing love for you, personally, deeply, richly, abundantly. And you become secure in that amazing love He has for us. In Jesus' name: amen.
It's interesting that we have somewhat different (though I guess not incompatible) viewpoints here. Because my impression was more <em>ordinary</em> intensifies since I see this as a very ordinary thing Christians should be doing - only much much better. I mean, I can sit in my AC watching Peacock and give $100 for mosquito nets (I haven't, but it's certainly something I could do!)
This book was a far better and more mature response to this. God has many different callings for different people. If he was living egregiously in sin, I would agree. But it sounds like, from this post, that he's a faithful practicing Christian who is upholding his responsibilities as a husband and father. I very much dislike the emotionalism of American Christianity that is disconnected from a mature understandig of faith - the idea that unless you are "on fire for the lord" and only want to talk about Jesus and adhere to a hundred other subjective demands you are not a real Christian, when the spiritual lives and sanctification of actual people are a lot quieter or messier. Christianity is not Pelagianism, our assurance comes from our participation in the church and sacraments, not the individual competition over piety: https://www.amazon.com/Ordinary-Sustainable-Faith-Radical-Restless/dp/0310517370
I think what you might be looking for is The Story. It is however, not just the first five books but the whole Bible - written to read like a full story.
> So what is the point of trying to be better?
The phrase "cheap grace" was used by Dietrich Bonheoffer in his book The Cost of Discipleship.
Drawing on the Sermon on the Mount, Dietrich Bonhoeffer answers these timeless questions by providing a seminal reading of the dichotomy between "cheap grace" and "costly grace."
"Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves...grace without discipleship.Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner.
It'a a good read.
I may get flamed for this, but you have to cross examine this with the "U" in TULIP. It is not a doctrine for the faint of heart. There will be many good people who do not goto heaven because they are not elect. And this has been taken care of long ago.
It is good to xref this with Romans 9:10-18. Which which is also upheld by Romans 8:29-30.
God hated Esau. Mentioned in both Romans and Malachi. The end of the matter is that before time, Rom 9:18, that God had mercy on who he elected and hardened the hearts of others.
A great book on this subject that opened my eyes to this reformed doctrine is Chosen By God by RC Sproul - https://www.amazon.com/Chosen-God-R-C-Sproul/dp/0842313354
If I missed the mark or helping with clarity, forgive me.
Serious answer: leaving it up to someone’s individual perceptions of “insert blank” helping them to love yourself, others, and celebrate God can be problematic.
Christian liberty is a thing and within that framework is causing another to stumble.
Many confuse and conflate liberty and freedom. Freedom is not the freedom to do whatever you please — that’s anarchy.
Liberty is freedom within set boundaries. Liberty denotes freedom to engage in privileges recognized under a code of conduct (aka law) that’s essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by a free people.
Christian liberty operates within God’s codes of conduct AND the Christian must take into account the perceptions of the weaker brother or sister in Christ.
In his book The Cost of Discipleship draws on the Sermon on the Mount to answer timeless questions on the dichotomy between "cheap grace" and "costly grace."
Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves — grace without discipleship.
Can a Christian smoke pot with gay atheist furrys?
Perhaps but how does a Christian doing that affect the gay atheist furries perception of God? Does it make them recognize their sin, submit to grace and convert to Christianity?
How does that affect the perceptions of a weaker Christian who sees me doing that? Does it make them believe a Christian can act just like any another worldly person?
I’m pretty liberal on social issues but just pointing out that a broad sweeping “You’ll be fine” might be too general.
A great evangelism book is Tactics. I think it will answer a lot of your questions.
When people attack you always ask a question back. For example "you are an idiot to believe ...." what do you believe in you ask . O I believe in evolution says the other person. Wow you say you have more faith then me to believe that something came from nothing.
A very good book is from Greg Koukl https://www.amazon.com/dp/0310101468/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_glt_fabc_TW1CH616Q3G6XS6MAYCN
Diversify your spiritual diet :-)
I suggest Dane Ortlund's "Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers" (podcast also available here), of which it has been said:
“My life has been transformed by the beautiful, staggering truths in this book. Dane Ortlund lifts our eyes to see Christ’s compassion-filled heart for sinners and sufferers, proving that Jesus is no reluctant savior but one who delights in showing his mercy. For any feeling bruised, weary, or empty, this is the balm for you.”
―Michael Reeves, President and Professor of Theology, Union School of Theology, UK
The issue is “once saved always saved” can lead some to abuse our Christian liberty and ignore the cost of discipleship.
It’s true that Christianity isn’t primarily a religion of rituals, codes and laws BUT that doesn’t mean Christians can ignore the law and works to just do whatever we like.
For comprehensive overview I highly recommend The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. “Drawing on the Sermon on the Mount, Dietrich Bonhoeffer answers these timeless questions by providing a seminal reading of the dichotomy between "cheap grace" and "costly grace." "Cheap grace," Bonhoeffer wrote, "is the grace we bestow on ourselves...grace without discipleship....Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the girl which must be asked for, the door at which a man must know....It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life."
Yes it's called Tactics. I recently bought a copy of the book and I'm half way through amazing stuff. I bought because I wanted to be able to talk to my co-workers which are very harsh or stubborn towards stuff of God but this book really helps you in telling you how to navigate those circumstances in a positive way. Tactics, 10th Anniversary Edition: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions https://www.amazon.com/dp/0310101468/ref=cm_sw_r_u_apa_i_45oKFb58BSCHY?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
This occurred to me the other day, thoughts are the domain of the ego, you will never win there. It seems one of their main purposes is to ensure the continuation of the ego, outside of just being a miscellaneous collection of crap.
This reminds me of 'Awareness' by Anthony de Mello. Good stuff:
I recently listened to this book on audible:
https://www.amazon.com/Gentle-Lowly-Christ-Sinners-Sufferers/dp/1433566133/ref=nodl_
And I can’t recommend it enough. Some books aiming to provide encouragement come off as minimizing worries. This book tries to maximize your view of the only comfort we have - that God delights in being gentle to his beloved.
A good Christian (unfortunately not Catholic, but it’s still very informative) book is called Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions. I’ve found it very helpful and respectful. I’m glad that you are trying to defend God! It’s hard, good job! God bless you on your journey!