The Return

Review: How to Listen So People Will Talk: Build Stronger Communication and Deeper Connections Becky Harling Bethany House 2017 New author to me, but I went ahead and picked this book.   Certainly not for the cover design or the title, though.   The publishers did her no favors with either of their choices.   But, the content is worth reading, particularly if you want to improve communication with just about anyone.    Harling covers the bases well in this easy to read book.   Listening with the intent of engagement with the other person is the point.   Each chapter has a set of short activities, exercises to practice, which start with listening to God, then move to listening to your own heart, and finally listening to others.   She identifies plenty of ways to improve and some of the most common pitfalls of real communication.    There’s nothing here that’s really new.   You know this stuff from experience or maybe a seminar you attended years ago.   What she ha

Review: The Whole Bible Story, The Illustrated Edition: Everything that Happens in the Bible in Plain English Dr. William H. Marty Baker Books 2017 Originally published in 2011, this edition adds numerous illustrations to the text.   Most of them are full color and add life to the reading.   Pictures help fix the story in my mind and suppose it helps others too.   The author has taught undergraduate level students for a number of years.   And it is my guess that this book was produced to help his students grasp the historical context more easily.  Plain English certainly describes the text.   Simple, straight forward narrative and written at a level that suits the entry level student.   It could be used rather successfully in levels down to middle school in my opinion, depending on the students. That would be the reason to use this book.  Personally, I found it an arid read.    With all the translations of the Bible available today, I would prefer t

Review: Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God: The Scandalous Truth of the Very Good News Brian Zahnd Waterbrook Press 2017 This author has done some thinking.   I'd recommend this book if for no other reason than to challenge yourself as to what and why you believe what you do.   I'm sure there will plenty of posts in some sectors that will not approve of Zahnd's conclusions.   Others will cheer the direction he has taken.   He's a very persuasive author, but comes off a bit strident at times throughout this book.   I did find most of what he had to say a welcome change of rhetoric.   In fact, I think this is a long overdue corrective to some of the teachings in the Christian religion.      Each chapter can be read alone, but I think a better over view of the author’s mind set would probably come from the order it is presented.   As the title hints, Zahnd presents his version of how God treats sinners which is different from that of Jonat