Book Reviews (June) : Masculine Christianity, The Bruised Reed, Religion & Science, and The London Baptist Confession of Faith

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Book Reviews (June) : Masculine Christianity, The Bruised Reed, Religion & Science, and The London Baptist Confession of Faith

July 1, 2021

This episode is dedicated to the books I have been reading this past month. At the beginning of each month I will upload a short book review for everything I have been reading to give you an idea of the things I like to read and possible give you ideas for what you would like to read. I hope this is enjoyable! Thanks for listening!

1st book: The Baptist Confession Of Faith 1689 (updated by Peter Masters) -> https://www.amazon.com/Baptist-Confession-Faith-1689-Scripture/dp/1870855248/ref=sr_1_3?crid=385XG456KMTTB&dchild=1&keywords=1689+london+baptist+confession+of+faith&qid=1625147265&sprefix=london+baptist+confession%2Caps%2C547&sr=8-3

2nd book: Religion And Science (Bertrand Russell) -> https://www.amazon.com/Religion-Science-Bertrand-Russell/dp/0195115511/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1625147531&sr=8-2

3rd book: Masculine Christianity (Zachary Garris) -> https://www.amazon.com/Masculine-Christianity-Zachary-Garris/dp/1735473901/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=masculine+christianity&qid=1625147587&sr=8-1

4th book: The Bruised Reed (Richard Sibbes) -> https://www.amazon.com/Bruised-Reed-Richard-Sibbes-ebook/dp/B00439GLBG/ref=sr_1_1?crid=20VBO96L6D3LR&dchild=1&keywords=the+bruised+reed+richard+sibbes&qid=1625147632&sprefix=the+bruised+reed%2Caps%2C215&sr=8-1

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Transcript

(music) Hello, For The King listeners. For The King community. For The King kingdom servants.

I hope everyone is doing well wherever you're listening to this at. Thanks for tuning in. Thanks for listening to the podcast.

Doug Wilson always says, speaking is...for a seasoned speaker it can be the easier task. Listening is just as equally as hard of a task as speaking can be at times. So thanks for listening guys, I really do appreciate it.

This episode is not the conventional episode. This is me by myself just talking about the books that I read. So I added on the website sort of calendar slash...I guess it's more of a table that talks about what the purpose of each upload date and upload time is.

So on Sundays I release something theological, something concerning Scripture and what it means to follow Jesus, what God has revealed in His Word to us. But on Wednesdays I have...I call it wonky Wednesdays where it's just something a little bit more off topic. I'll do a series on there sometimes.

But that one is more Christian worldview implication. So from what we know about theology, because I think theology is the highest order of human thought and all things should flow from that, even science. But I don't think even philosophy is undergirded by theology.

All disciplines are undergirded by good theology. And if you have bad theology then you will really reach bad conclusions in these fields. So Sunday is the more foundational theological understanding and then Christian worldview implications from proper theology.

So I talk about science, I talk about sociology and anthropology and all sorts of political philosophy, political thought, all of that which stems from a good right understanding of theology. So that's what happens on Wednesdays. But I wanted to add a brand new, not really series, but upload that has a purpose.

So every single month I love to read. I'm an avid reader. So I will upload at the end of each month what I have been reading and what books I've been reading.

And they're not always theological. Sometimes I just read books that are kind of off topic or not really off topic or something that just straight up interests me like history or whatever. So this is just to get to know me more and to get to know the things I'm reading and then also to give you guys ideas for things you should be reading.

I think reading and books are some of my favorite things and they're an extremely important part of human reality. God has revealed Himself to us through a book. Words have so much meaning and words written down and communicated over generations are such an amazing thing that we have.

And we really do stand on the shoulders of giants. All right. So without further ado, let's just get into it.

And I'm just going to talk about the books briefly, give a real quick brief book review and then move on. So the first book I read I got to finish up this last month. The month of June was the London Baptist Confession of Faith, the 1689 version.

So it's the updated English with notes by Peter Masters. He's just a pastor at Spurgeon Church. So that's who he is.

And all he does is just kind of give commentary and dialogue on each part of the confession, this London Baptist Confession of Faith. So I do consider myself a reformed Baptist. I definitely am not an adherent of Paytail baptism.

So I don't really. That's why I'm not. If I if I did think Paytail baptism was true, I'd be a Westminster Confession of Faith guy.

But I really enjoyed reading this. There's a lot of just really good understanding things that would take me a very long time to describe about the faith. These guys do it in a few sentences and it's just it's just really, really good.

So, you know, I just opened it up and I'm looking at something right here on Christ as mediator. The 10th Article 8, I guess, point 10, this number and order of offices, prophet, priest and king is essential. So I these guys are where we get all this.

They just concisely put together all the things that scripture has plainly laid out to us and they just confess them through written word and sentences. So confessions are good. Confessions aren't hurtful to the church.

They're really just us. We would do it verbally anyways. Somebody said, what do you think about Jesus? Well, these guys just lay out 10 points like the part I'm saying now in Article 8 is just Christ the mediator.

So it's just they're just confessing who they believe Christ to be. So I mean, you would do the same thing as a follower of Christ. If somebody were to ask you, you would confess certain things and these guys just lay it out very well.

So it really just hits on all topics that the scriptures hit on. So there's civil authority, what the holy scriptures are, the trinity, the fall of man, anthropology, sin and punishment. God's covenant adopts and justification, sanctification, good works, repentance and salvation, all these things.

Civil magistrate, marriage, the church, communion, the communion of the saints, the sacraments, all that. And they just confess them. So I think it's a really good book.

You guys should pick it up. It's only like 50 pages and it's on Amazon and it's really not that much money. So I think this is well worth just learning about the historic faith that's been passed down to us all the way from the apostles and then Christ himself teaching.

So that's the first book. Really good. You guys should definitely pick it up.

The second book I read this last month was a book by Zachary Garris called Masculine Christianity. So this book basically seeks to restore and reform where the church has gone with gender roles. So Bryce and I were just talking about this the other day.

We just see a ton of really bad evil ideas coming out of the 19th century. One of those that this book deals with is feminism. So that's when first wave feminism really started.

I think this first women's convention happened in like 1860 something somewhere in the latter half of the 19th century. And that's when we have first wave feminism. So the first part of the book just deals with where did feminism come from and what are its roots and what does it believe about the Bible? How does it erode society? What does it do to society? All that.

And then he quotes a bunch of these women that were feminists in both first and second wave and all that going back to its conception. So that was good. But then what does he do for the rest of the book? Well, he gets into the roles between men and women as displayed in the Bible and what is the true way.

So he talks about in America we had feminism, like I just said, arising in the 1860s and then continuing to get more and more popular. But in the 1980s, 1970s, the church had this huge backlash against feminism called complementarianism. Now complementarianism, while it has a lot of things that are really correct, actually doesn't paint the full picture of what the scriptures are getting at.

And a lot of the mainstream proponents of complementarianism actually reject some of the plain teachings of scripture about the roles of men and women. So some of the big things that I learned from this book, because that's basically what he does after that, he talks about complementarianism's compromise and what are the true biblical understanding of biblical patriarchy. Why is Christianity patriarchal? What is the whole point of that? Why is patriarchy bad? What's the point? So he goes through, like I'm just going to read some of the chapter headings, chapter six, "Hierarchy and authority in the creation order," chapter five, "Gender rules in the creation order," chapter seven, "masculine authority starts in the home.

Pastors and elders must be men," chapter eight, "women should keep silent in the church," chapter nine, chapter ten, "masculine authority in the church, masculine authority beyond the home and church." So the big main points and take away from this book that hopefully gives you guys an understanding of what the book's about was that the whole point of human existence is not about you as an individual. The feminist movement, postmodernism, all of that puts all these coming out of the 19th century and after the Enlightenment, all these put the self at the center. It's all about what I think to be true.

It's all about what I think to be right. And historically, in the Christian faith, people have always thought of themselves first and foremost, not as an individual, but as a family unit. The basic unit of society is not the self, it is the family.

And feminism wants to basically get rid of all women's roles in the family, all of man's roles in the family, that it would actually create a functioning unit and thriving...let's see, it's like its own little government is basically what he's saying throughout the book. Having these roles are played out perfectly in the home as its own little government. So that was a big point that I got from the book and the second big point is all of the texts that talk about women must be silent, pastors and elders must be men, women should...I do not permit a woman to have authority over a man in 1 Timothy 2. And even the text that Bryce and I dealt with in the Shalom for All Mothers, How They'll Be Safe Through Childbearing, actually all of this is just rooted in the role, not from what God thinks is best, but from what God actually instilled in humanity from creation, from the creative order.

So every time that this is brought up in the Scriptures in 1 Timothy 2 and 3, 1 Corinthians 14, all of that, Paul always brings up Adam and Eve. He brings up the creative order well before the fall. How were they to act before the fall ever happened? And that is the big takeaway from the book.

When you look at these texts, it's not about what God thinks is best, it's not about what the church thinks is best, it's about how God made men and women and how do they walk out the way they were made. So that was really good in this book. I think if you're a man, this is going to help you hone in your masculinity and remind you what the point of your masculinity is, that it's not to lead as a tyrannical boss, it's not to lead in the sense that you are oppressing other people.

As a man, you are called to lead in your home. And what is the point of that? Well, it's to love your wife, to love your kids and to guard and protect them from all evil that might befall them. Whether that be physical evil through somebody robbing the family, you're not going to send your wife to go check the crash of the window at night, you're going to go and check it out.

And whether that be physical danger or spiritual danger, men are watchmen. In Ezekiel 33, it talks about being a watchman on the wall looking for the evil that would come. Now, this is a physical metaphor for a spiritual reality, that there are principalities and forces of evil.

We don't battle against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, rulers and authorities that are seeking, you know, Satan is seeking to devour us. Men are supposed to be the ones that step up. Obviously, women do this too.

It's not that there's not, we can always make big general sweeping statements, but the whole point of this book is that what is the unique role that men are made for? Well, if we're just generalizing, men are usually ones that care, love the truth, care for the truth and are a bulwark for the truth against the evil society. Women are usually the ones that are caring, loving and have a sense of refuge being homemakers for their family, creating that safe environment at their home for everybody to feel cared for and loved and nurtured. So, obviously, men can do that too.

Men can be caring and loving and nurtured, but it's more characteristic of a woman. That's the whole point. What is the role? Jesus himself even says that he's like a, I think in Luke 12 or 13, he says that he's like a mother hen and it's like, okay, whoa, was he getting rid of his masculinity? No, you can make these generalizations.

They work most of the time, but it's a matter of wisdom of how the role plays out. There's times when a father ought to be more nurturing and caring in a certain moment, but for the most part, he's going to be protective and domineering in that sense, and that's just the way God made men and women. So, that's a really good book for both men and women.

I don't think just a guy should read that. So, this next book, I'm not going to actually talk a lot about because I already started a podcast doing a book review and then I realized maybe I should just do something a little shorter like this, what I'm doing now, highlighting all the books I read this month rather than trying to do one big long episode. I don't think that was as helpful as it could have been.

So, Religion and Science by Bertrand Russell. I'm about to come out with a part two for this here soon, finishing up. I did finish the book, but I need to come out with the part two interacting with all the thoughts and stuff.

So, I'm almost done with that. This was a good book as well, and I think it's a good introduction to the supposed tension between religion and science from an atheistic agnostic perspective. And then the last book I got through for this month is The Bruised Read by Richard Sibbs.

So, Richard Sibbs was a Puritan born in Suffolk, England in 1577 and was a minister at the Gospel unto his death in 1635. So, he's an English Puritan. This is what Charles Spurgeon quotes to have said is he says, "Sibbs never wastes the student's time.

He scatters pearls and diamonds with both hands." So, Richard Sibbs is just a very well-known Puritan, just really good writer, really good thoughts. This book is extremely pastoral and loving. You will feel encouraged in your faith when reading it.

You will feel just how gentle and lowly our Savior is that although he is the king of the universe that will destroy all opposition to him, he's also one that the bruised read, "He shall not break and a smoking fox he shall not quench," which is Isaiah 42.13. "A bruised read shall he not break and the smoking fox shall he not quench. He shall bring forth judgment unto truth." So, we have all everything that Jesus is right here in this verse. He doesn't break us.

He's gentle and lowly. He blows on our smoking flax that we might burn a flame for him. He fans to flame that little spark of grace he gives us.

So, he's gentle. He's lowly. He is caring.

He's intimately involved with us. And also, he brings forth judgment unto truth, which gets back to that he's the terrible king and his government will have no end. So, this book just goes through in a super pastoral way how gentle Jesus is with us that he never ever will put out our light.

If God has done something in you, he will not undo that. God never does something arbitrarily. And if he puts a spark of grace in you, he will see to it that you are fanned into flame and Jesus Christ himself does this.

So, just a great book. It's very post-mill. So, by the end of it, you'll see Christ's triumph as, again, like I said, he said, judge.

He's not bringing truth into judgment. He labors to through this conflict of against the world that Jesus will eventually his government will reign and there will be none other. Like he says before, "Pilot, my kingdom is not of this world.

It is an otherworldly kingdom that is reigning through his people as he conquers us and fans us into flame rather than fully breaking us that we might not be used for his kingdom." So, just a really good pastoral read. So, those are the four books I got through this month and I'm going through more right now, but I just think you guys would... If I had to pick a highlight of ones that I think you guys should definitely read, it would be the Bruce Reed. Out of the ones I read, the Bruce Reed was amazing.

And if I had to... The second that I think just men... I really do recommend Masculine Christianity by Zachary Garris. That book will help you see straight through what our culture is laboring to indoctrinate us with feminism and that men and women are just completely equal in every way, shape, and form, which is just such a lie from the pit of hell. God made us uniquely different and we will never flourish.

Both of the sexes flourish when the other sex does exactly what it's supposed to do. Men are at a detriment when women do not fulfill their roles and women are at a detriment when men do not fulfill their roles. They are made to complement each other in that sense and that's where the term complementarianism actually gets right, but biblical patriarchy is probably the more accurate term.

So, those are the books I read. Check them out. I'll put them in the show notes of the... Just a link of where you can get it or just at least what the book looks like.

So, thanks for listening guys. I'll do one of these each month and hopefully they are helpful to you guys and give you some things that you should read. Thanks for listening.

For the King listeners, Jesus is the King. It's the only day of Gloria.

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