Doing Us Good In Spite of Ourselves

Mike Leake 1 Comment

Every now and then you are going to have to put up with an abundance of Newton quotes on this blog; I read these things and they are such balm for my soul that I have to share them.  Consider this:

[The Lord] often takes a course for accomplishing his purposes directly contrary to what our narrow views would prescribe.  He wounds, in order to heal; kills, that he may make alive; casts down when he designs to raise; brings a death upon our feelings, wishes, and prospects, when he is about to give us the desire of our hearts.  The things he does to prove us; but he himself knows, and has determined before-hand, what he will do.  The proof indeed usually turns out to our shame.  Impatience and unbelief show their heads, and prompt us to suppose this and the other thing, yea perhaps all things, are against us; to question whether He be with us and for us, or not.  But it issues likewise in the praise of his goodness, when we find, that, [in spite of] all our unkind complaints and suspicions, he is still working wonderfully for us, causing light to shine out of darkness, and doing us good in defiance of ourselves.

Repeated Multiplied Goodness

Mike Leake

I found this very encouraging.  I believe the gentleman that Newton is writing to has cancer.  Newton’s struggle is my own:

I hope you will find the Lord present at all times and in all places.  When it is so, we are at home every where; when it is otherwise, home is a prison, and abroad a wilderness.  I know what I ought to desire, and what I do desire.  I point him out to others as the all in all; I esteem him as such in my own judgment; but alas! my experience abounds with complains.  He is my sun; but clouds, and sometimes walls, intercept him from my view.  He is my strength; yet I am prone to lean upon reeds.  He is my friend; but on my part there is such coldness and ingratitude as no other friend could bear.  But still he is gracious, and shames me with repeated multiplied goodness.  O for a warmer heart, a more simple dependence, a more active zeal, a more sensible deliverance from the effects of this body of sin and death!  He helps me in my endeavors to keep the vineyards of others; but, alas! my own does not seem to flourish as some do around me.  However, though I cannot say I labor more abundantly than they all, I have reason to say, with thankfulness, By the grace of God, I am what I am.  My poor story would soon be much worse, did not he support, restrain, and watch over me every minute.  (Newton’s Works, Volume 1, 626)

Quick Review of Welcome to the Story by Stephen J. Nichols

Mike Leake

In his book Disciple: Getting Your Identity From Jesus Bill Clem shares an analogy where he compares three drama students starring in a play they perform in their garage with a drama student auditioning for a small part in a Broadway play in New York.  The difference between the two scenarios is the one student even with a walk-on part being part of something huge.  The other students are delusional “believing their vision of the way things could be is the way things actually are”.  He compares this analogy to the difference between inviting God into our little stories or being offered whatever role in God’s epic unfolding drama.  Clem says,

Our personal story is actually a distortion of reality and a desire for significance.  God’s story is reality, and significance can be ours with even a walk-on bit part, because pleasing and glorifying the Creator is the most significant experience offered to created beings.  (Clem, Disciple, 15)

It’s not only our personal stories that can be distortions of reality.  Our reading and understanding of Scripture can suffer from the same distortion.  Yes, God’s story is about us.  It is about our creation, fall, redemption, and restoration.  but that is our part in the story.  More than our story the Bible is the story of God and we play bit-part’s in it. 

Stephen J. Nichols has written Welcome to the Story with the hopes of inviting readers to “enter in, to participate in, the story of the Bible”.  Nichols traces the Bible’s plotline of Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration, then he starts teaching a street-level hermeneutics course. 

That’s really what this book is: a street-level hermeneutics course.  I have been looking for this book for quite some time.  I love Goldsworthy’s books outlining God’s story.  I found a good amount of help from Vaughn Roberts’ God’s Big Picture.  I found Dr. Wellum’s hermeneutics class immensely helpful.  Furthermore, works like Stephen Dempster’s Dominion and Dynasty and Christopher Wright’s The Mission of God helped to open my eyes to seeing the big picture of God’s story.  But up until this book by Nichols nothing seemed to translate into the pew. 

Now I finally have something that I can give curious members of my church.  Now there is something that we could use as a small group study to teach the storyline of the Bible in an engaging way.  Now there is something that I can use as an introduction to biblical theology with young men that I train for ministry. 

I share Tom Schreiner’s enthusiasm for the book when he says,

Nichols has written a delightful and inviting book on how to understand and live out the Bible.  The storyline of Scripture is sketched in, and the book is full of wise advice on how to read and live out what God requires.  I recommend the book with enthusiasm.

There is enough in here to teach a seminary level course but it’s written in such a way that the average Bible reader would be able to understand the concepts.  As I read through the book I found myself engaged, helped, and at the end I finally realized what Nichols had done.  I thought to myself after finishing the book, “He just taught a hermeneutics course, oh my goodness, how did he do that?!?!” 

This book is very helpful.  No matter what your level of Bible reading this book belongs in your library.  For only 10.81 you can treat yourself to an engaging seminary course that you won’t even notice is a seminary course.  Buy it today!

Muscular Faith Giveaway

Mike Leake

I just reviewed this book and I want to give it away to somebody.

Here are the rules.  I’m not looking to give this away to somebody that just wants to read it for the heck of it or to pad a library.  I want to give this to somebody that is either A) going to give it away to somebody that needs it or B) convinces me that they need it. 

So here is how you win this book.  Read the review and then be the first one that meets one of those criteria.  You can either leave a comment here or simply email me at

         mike AT fbjasper DOT org

First come first serve.