What’s Best Next

Author: Matthew Perman

Published: 2013

Amazon link

Favourite Quotation: Where does the Bible talk about productivity? When it talks about good works. This changes everything. It means:

• The things you do every day are good works – whether that is going to meetings,  delivering mail, designing bridges creating financial reports, developing marketing plans, or making chicken sandwiches.
• The purpose of what you do is to serve.
• The purpose of productivity tactics is to amplify your effectiveness in those good works.
• You don’t have to quit your job to have a meaningful life.

Having just finished this book I am finding it quite difficult to review. Ask me again in six months whether or not I am now more productive than I was before reading What’s Best Next or discovering Gospel-Driven Productivity.

As you will see from my previous reviews this book doesn’t sit in the usual genres I tend to read however after my supervisor began encouraging me to improve my time management I started to look for a book which would tackle the issue of productivity from a Christian perspective and stumbled across this book by Matt Perman.

He explains that in order to be productive we don’t need just to get more done but to be productive in the ultimate sense we need to center our productivity around God. This doesn’t necessarily mean taking up full-time ministry or traveling to Africa to build schools but rather to allow the gospel to determine our priorities. This means that the good of others will become the main motive for everything we do and this is both spiritually and economically the best way to be productive. It is therefore our duty as Christians to apply biblical wisdom and our best common sense to living in the most productive and therefore others-centric and God honouring way we can. To do this Perman advocates the DARE model: Define, Architect, Reduce and Execute.

Three key points I have taken away from this book are firstly the reminder that biblical good works are not just the proverbial helping the old lady across the street or serving in church but simply doing your job well is a good work which God has prepared in advance for us to do. Secondly, I found this book a huge challenge not to become more productive so that I am more successful at work or to have more time for myself, but rather to improve my productivity so I would have more time to do good to others. Finally, I found the Define section particularly thought-provoking. Taking the examples of William Wilberforce and Jonathan Edwards, Perman advocate developing a whole life mission statement and life goal by which is regularly reviewed and filters down to determine what’s best next for all the smaller life decisions.

This book is packed full of good advice and the later chapters deal with how to plan your week, handle email etc. This did often result in it feeling like it was trying to pack too much in and Perman does give large amounts of space to reviewing the various merits and issues with other approaches which, having not read the relevant books, largely passed me by. Also, Perman dismisses dealing with approaches to stay focused or get motivated towards the task in hand saying ‘I think that if you are doing a lot of work you have to force yourself to get done, you are probably in the wrong job.’ Although this may often be wise, advice on these issues would have been helpful as  numerous reasons seem possible where someone can find themselves struggling to be motivated in their job yet not be able to or wish to change career. On the whole I would definitely recommend it, not least for the reminder of our Christian call to action to do all the good we can to our neighbours. Perman has suggested he will follow it up with a book on finding our vocation and I will certainly keep an eye out for it.

Vocation: Discerning Your Calling

Author: Timothy Keller Published: 2007 Check out the article for free here. As a departure from my usual practise I thought I would review this article written by Tim Keller on finding our vocation. I was directed to it through the book I am currently reading and will review soon: What’s Best Next by Matt Perman. Keller begins by outlining three points:

1. That all forms of work are participation in God’s work therefore it is as God exalting to be a banker or a farmer as it is to be a minister.
2. That all forms of work are ways of serving others: we are ministering to others not only by evangelism, preaching etc. but simply by doing our jobs well.
3. That all forms of work are based on God’s gifting; all our abilities and talents both in Christians and non-Christians are good gifts from God. It is God who give people the knowledge and insight they need to do their jobs.

The implication of this for us is that we must ask both what has God called and equipped us for as our work/career along with how has God equipped us to serve in and through the church? To evaluate these questions Keller recommends you look at three areas;

1. Affinity: We need to begin by looking outside ourself. What needs in the work or community do you see which resonate with us. It is important we make this decision not just based on our own desires.
2. Ability: We need to take a realistic look at our abilities and limitations and base our decisions on those.
3. Opportunity: This includes both the taking into consideration the options we have at present and making best use of our Christian brothers and sisters, workmates or friends. They may be much more able to see our abilities and limitations than we are and may be aware of options where we could serve that we have never considered.

These three questions seem a helpful way of directing our thoughts on our vocations and, although Keller directs them most clearly to ministry within the church, they are equally valid for secular work as well. Moreover, they can be used not just in the whole life decisions but the smaller ones too…’Should I help out in the church creche?’ etc. I am very thankful for coming across this article. As I face the decision about what to do after my PhD I find it very easy to get bogged down considering only my abilities and get depressed. Keller reminds us that these decisions should be taken with a view towards serving others and making best use of the wisdom of our friends.

The Grace and Duty of Being Spiritually Minded

Author: John Owen

Published: 1681 (Abridged version: Spiritual-Mindedness, R. J. K. Law, Banner of Truth Trust, 2009)

Favourite Quotation: ‘True worship enables the soul to approach God by faith, to embrace him in love and to abide in him by reverential fear and delight. Unless these graces are stirred up and strengthened, our worship has been merely outward and we are still a great distance from God.’

This is the first Owen book I am going to tackle in this blog and it is also the book which inspired me to begin blogging in the first place. Owen’s books are notoriously dense; his style of writing was inaccessible for the people of his day and more than three hundred years passing has not made him any less of a chore to read. So why did I begin reading Owen’s books? Twelve months ago I knew nothing of John Owen, except the odd snippet garnered in conversation with more learned friends, however I increasingly discovered the books I was reading referenced Owen as a must read: A Practical View of Christianity and J. C. Ryle’s Holiness amongst others. Having listened to the John Piper’s biography  of Owen I thought I would give Owen a chance and purchased ‘The Holy Spirit.‘ (In hindsight, this would not be the work of John Owen I would recommend to someone reading Owen for the first time as it is a primarily theological work, though ‘practical’ throughout in the best Purtian sense of the term.) The Holy Spirit helped me with some of the questions I was pondering at the time and I was hooked and have since been consuming as many books by Owen as I can. One wonderful thing about Owen is that his works are are repeatedly readable. As I read I get the impression I am taking in only a small snippet of the truth and wisdom Owen is disclosing and finish the book feeling like I could start straight over again and gain another small insight into the topic Owen is expounding. The other side of that coin is that I feel completely inadequate to review any of his works having retained such a small portion of their wisdom. As this is my first Owen review I will waive the 45 minute rule and write until I am content.

Returning to my thoughts on Spiritual Mindedness I confess that from the inspiration to begin blogging to actually writing this post some time has past and so has the freshness of Owen’s arguments but I will do my best to present a fair summary and the enduring reflections Owen left me with. As with many of Owen’s pastoral books, the whole book is an extended exposition of a single verse, in this case Romans 8:6. Owen explains that true spiritual mindedness arises from a renewed principle of ‘life and light’ which causes the Christian to talk about and meditate on spiritual things since they now love and delight in them. Owen spends the majority of the book describing the need for mediation and what should be the objects of a Christian’s meditation. Although mediation today might have the ring of Eastern religions, what Owen describes is deep thought such that the object of our thoughts doesn’t just remain head knowledge but affects our hearts and actions too. This is typified by his description of meditating on heaven: ‘Vague ideas of heaven will not encourage us to persevere through all dangers and difficulties. Vague ideas will not excite in us a spiritual, refreshing hope. But when we meditate on future glories as we ought, then then grace of hope will thrive and will be of inestimable benefit in making us spiritually minded.’

The main challenges this Spiritual Mindedness left me where when do I make time for mediating on God? Do I daily mediate on Christ and rejoice in his grace? Am I yearning and thinking frequently about heaven and preparing my mind for being there? This book is a real challenge to make up from worldliness and lazy Christianity, contenting ourselves with a few minutes of daily prayer and Bible reading (on a good day) and continuing on in the day without a second thought of God. Owen points out that remembering God in times of difficulty is no evidence of spiritual mindedness; loving thoughts about God should be arising in our hearts frequently and spontaneously.

This book also challenged me in my attitude to worship, specifically church worship from the quotation I listed as my favourite. I stand convicted of often going to church because it’s what I do and not making any effort to stir up my heart towards love, fear and delight of God by faith. Nor do I often come with the certain expectation that God will bless me. Owen reminded me of the blessings of worship and to come confidently, expecting to receive ‘supplies of strengthening and sanctifying grace.’

In summary, the blurb on my edition states ‘If you feel overwhelmed by worldliness then this is definitely the book for you!’ I couldn’t recommend this book more.

Please see this blog  for an interesting article on selecting your favourite books, then reading the books they reference

A Practical View of Christianity

Full Title: A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity

Author: William Wilberforce

Published: 1797

Link to free  Kindle edition

I can’t actually remember why I began to read this book. I had been listening to John Piper’s biographical sermon  on William Wilberforce but specifically why I chose to make the effort to read this book eludes me. However, this book is a gem hidden behind the veneer of a title it takes several minutes to take in! There are few Kindle books I have read in which I have highlighted more passages.

So what’s this book about: William Wilberforce, the famous parliamentarian and abolitionist, is writing to the church of his day which is in a poor state. A deism has crept in, and the gospel is no longer preached. People everywhere are living under the assumption that a good life is all that God requires of them and with no clear Christian teaching, the younger generations are increasingly seeing the church as irrelevant. It is into this situation that Wilberforce writes, exhorting the people to return to Christ. Despite the passage of 200 years the similarities with the church in the UK today are clear.

I would strongly recommend this book to anyone for its acute diagnosis of the troubles in the church in Wilberforce’s day and the clear parallels between his solutions and what we need to be preaching to a 21st Century audience. This book as stood the test of time as, although it is deeply rooted in the context of the late 18th Century, the broad scope of Wilberforce’s writing ensures it remains relevant to all readers. Some sections do deal with specifics in a way which I found hard to relate to, but it was worth all the effort necessary to plough through as Wilberforce’s writing is full of brilliant analogies and intimate descriptions of the real Christian’s relationship with God.

This has become my go to book when I am bored or just want to read a few encouraging paragraphs. I have spend many commutes just reading through and rejoicing in the many highlighted sections of this book. I have left my favourite quotation until the end of this post as it is lengthy but if you don’t mind reading in a dated style of English please read this book. It has been the source of much comfort and a timely reminder of the duty to grow in ‘all holiness’ for me.

Favourite quotation: (Context: Wilberforce is describing the true nature of holiness)

But while the servants of Christ continue in this life, glorious as is the issue of their labours, they receive but too many humiliating memorials of their remaining imperfections, and daily find reason to confess, that they cannot do the things that they would.. Their determination, however, is still unshaken, and it is the fixed desire of their hearts to improve in all holiness – and this, let it be observed, on many accounts. Various passions concur to push them forward; they are urged on by the dread of failure, in this arduous but necessary work; they trust not, where their all is at stake, to lively emotions, or to internal impressions however warm; the example of Christ is their pattern, the word of God is their rule; there they read that “without holiness no man shall see the Lord.” It is the description of real Christians, that “they are gradually changed into the image of their Divine Master;” and they dare not allow themselves to believe their title is sure, except so far as they can discern in themselves the growing traces of this blessed resemblance.

It is not merely however the fear of misery, and the desire of happiness, by which they are actuated in their endeavours to excel in all holiness; they love is for its own sake: nor is it solely by the sense of self-interest… that they are influenced in their determination to obey the will, and to cultivate the favour of God. This determination has its foundations indeed in a deep and humiliating sense of his exalted Majesty and infinite power, and of their own extreme inferiority and littleness, attended with a settled conviction of its being their duty as his creatures, to submit in all things to the will of their great Creator. But these awful impressions are relieved and ennobled by an admiring sense of the infinite perfections and infinite amiableness of the Divine Character; animated by a confiding through humble hope of his fatherly kindness and protection; and quickened by the grateful recollection of immense and continually increasing obligations. This is the Christian love of God! A love compounded of admiration, of preference, of hope, of trust, of joy; chastised by reverential awe, and wakeful with continual gratitude.’

Pilgrim’s Progress

Author: John Bunyan

Published: 1678

Favourite Quotation:

Prudence: And what makes you so desirous to go to Mount Zion?

Christian: Why, there I hope to see Him alive that did hang dead on the cross; and there I hope to be rid of all these things that to this day are in me an annoyance to me. There, they say, there is no death; and there I shall dwell with such company as I like best. For, to tell you the truth, I love Him because I was by Him eased of my burden; and I am weary of my inward sickness. I would fain be where I shall die no more, and with the company shall continually cry, “Holy, holy, holy!”

Link to download Pilgrim’s Progress free.

So much has been said and written about this book. After the Bible it remains the most sold book in history and for further details either on the book or on Bunyan’s life I recommend John Piper’s biographical sermon here. The book is an allegory of the Christian life where the chief character Christian leaves the City of Destruction to embark on the Christian life, meeting friends such as Hopeful and Faithful along the way and battling all manner of troubles from Giant Despair to Apollyon in the Valley of the Shadow of Death and the lure of Vanity Fair.

Besides its place in history why did I read it? I had fond memories of a series of children’s talks based around Christian’s story in church as a kid but I had yet to delve into it as an adult. A few months has passed now since I finished it and the chief thing which I remain challenged by is Christians love of Christ, who is his desire for reaching the Eternal City. It continually prompted the question in my mind “Why are you wanting to go to heaven?” And although so often I look forward to it as paradise, where tears and sorrow will be no more and where we will be able to live truly fulfilling and fruitful lives this book challenges me to remember that heaven is heaven because it is where Christ is. My chief goal and desire for as I press on towards it shouldn’t be the lesser joys of peace or comfort or security but to be with my Saviour who loved me so much he gave His live for me. He is the Good Shepherd who knows each sheep by name and I cannot wait to rejoice in that perfect communion with Him we shall experience in the Eternal City.

J. I. Packer has said that every Christian should read Pilgrim’s Progress once a year and in that spirit I will make every effort to return to Bunyan’s tale frequently as I feel I have only scratched the surface of the depth of his insight in this book.