Evil and the Justice of God by N.T. Wright

Excellent author N.T. Wright tackles the issue of evil - bad stuff in Evil and the Justice of God.

He breaks the book down into sections for each chapter. And each chapter builds upon each other until you reach the climax at the end.

Chapter 1 - Evil is Still a Four-Letter Word
Chapter 2 - What Can God do About Evil?
Chapter 3 - Evil and the Crucified God
Chapter 4 - Imagine There's No Evil
Chapter 5 - Deliver Us From Evil

That last chapter in particular is worth the book. Like most of his books, Wright can frustrate you with slowness or "dullsville" of his writing but it all pans out by the time you reach chapter 5. His thoughts on forgiveness and how that works out in our lives and via God are like huge chunks of beef! (think biblical milk and meat and you're with me)

Basically, the church needs to live in a manner that reflects the plan of God. It's all worth it and we need to do a better job at it.

Great read from N.T. Wright

Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus by Ann Spangler & Lois Tverberg

Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus jumps on the bandwagon of looking at Jesus in his 1st Century context.

Ann Spangler and Lois Tverberg share their insights of how learning about Jewish rabbis during the time of Jesus' life will enrich our Christian faith.

By using idioms of the era and the actual words in the original language, they bring light to some of the Bible's more obscure and misunderstood passages.

If nothing else, they add layers and flavors to well-known Bible verses. Such as, do you know why it was such a big deal that David cut off the tassel on King Saul's garment? That event spoke volumes to the Israelites.

And the mysterious Kingdom of God; who gets in and how? Jesus spoke on that topic and yet most American's continue to miss his point.

Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus is a great beginning course in opening the eyes to life in ancient Israel.

Christianity in Crisis by Hank Hanegraaff

In a recently updated Christianity in Crisis, Hank Hanegraaff continues his assault on "Faith teachers". You may recognize a couple of names: Joel Osteen and Joyce Meyer. He adds their name to the club of preachers including: Benny Hinn and Oral Roberts. (we'll call them slightly crazy preachers)

In this updated book, Hanegraaff reveals the errors in the message these faith preachers share and how it is so far different than what the Bible teaches, that they are practically cultists!

He speaks out against their teaching of the power of words and how you can speak yourself to wealth, health and influence.

The Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) gets hammered hard by Hanegraaff's attacks of heresy.

I don't follow the teachings of Osteen, Meyer or the other Faith teachers. I do know them as televangelists and so-called prosperity teachers. I agree on most of the things Hanegraaff has to say in this book. But I do wonder about the power of words...

When all is said and done, it is clear that you do not want to be on the receiving end of a Hank Hanegraaff scolding.

Deadlock by Robert Liparulo

Deadlock continues the story of bow hunter John Hutchinson. The first novel being Deadfall.

Following the incident in Canada, Hutchinson has gone back to writing for his local newspaper. And he's obsessed with bringing down Brendan Page, father of the killer in Deadfall and owner of the best Blackwater-esque agency.

Page uses virtual reality to train his soldiers to view blood as blue and people, whether adult, children, male or female as a generic person who is the enemy. Basically, he's using video gamers ability to play first person shooter games well and bringing it into the real world.

After a face-to-face meeting with Hutchinson, Page decides to send him a message to leave him alone. This message gets scrambled and Hutchinson's son is kidnapped and people die. This sends Hutchinson into a race to find his son and exact revenge on Page.

This book reads fast because of the short chapters. The characters are fleshed out so it's more than a summer easy action read. However I was disappointed in the number of times the characters used a cuss word. I thought this was a book published by a Christian company.

Outside of that one minor flaw, Deadlock is almost as good as Deadfall.

Waitress

Waitress tells the story of Jenna Hunterson (Keri Russell) who works at a pie diner. She can make the most amazing pies. Her dream is to make enough money to open up her own Pie Diner.

She lives with an abusive husband, Earl (Jeremy Sisto), who gets her pregnant after a night of drunkenness. How's that for using big words to imply deeds?

Jenna decides to keep the baby but she is not happy about it. she discovers that she's fallen in love with her new doctor(Nathan Fillion). And they proceed to make every opportunity to be together and "practice" making babies.

Once she's in the hospital, to get birth, the diner's owner, Old Joe (Andy Griffith) stops by to give her a gift. It's enough money to buy his diner for herself.

Once the baby is born, Jenna tells her husband, Earl, she wants a divorce and tells the doctor, to leave enough alone and love his current wife. Oh yeah, forgot that little detail did we?

The DVD box promotes this movie as if it will be a romantic comedy about this waitress trying to get into a pie-making contest. When the truth is, they mention this contest 2 times in the entire movie.

The moral we get from this movie are: it's okay to cheat on your husband as long as he's abusive because you should do whatever makes you happy.

If you haven't seen this film, continue to avoid it. It's pathetic.

Offworld by Robin Parrish

Robin Parrish has created another masterpiece with Offworld.

As the product description says, what do you do when you return from Mars and discover everyone is missing?

Is it The Rapture? Alien abductions? Is it all a dream?

Parrish's love of TV's LOST comes out in this novel. Not because the show is referenced by name but because there's a big question (Where is everyone?) that must be resolved and there are the characters who each have their own history which are revealed chapter-by-chapter.

Robin Parrish takes you on the hair-turning ride from the first sentence. You can't put the book down because you just have to find the answers - where in (or out of) the world did society vanish to, and what seems to be following the four surviving astronauts?

Questions abound until about halfway through. And even when you get the answers, you desperately turn the pages to find out how everything will resolve...maybe it won't.

Great book. 5 out of 5 stars!

Gatekeepers by Robert Liparulo

Gatekeepers is the 3rd book in the Dreamhouse Kings series.

There is one person who is trying to get the King family out of the house. He has the power to convince the mayor and police to help him evict them.

After taking the father into custody, they leave the 3 children alone in the house....with the crazy rooms that suck them into another time and place.

Then there this old man and his assistant working their way toward the house. There's some connection between the house and the old man.

And we can't forget that the King family is still looking for their mother, who was kidnapped by this huge monster of a man into one of the rooms.

Robert Liparulo has created a knock-out Young Adult series. These books are so fast paced, you could read them in, maybe, 2 days.

I can't say enough good things about them - yet I'm not going to write them all here. You'll just have to get them from the library or something.

Dreamhouse Kings - excellent series!!!

Flywheel

Flywheel is the first major film released by the creators of Facing the Giants and Fireproof.

This church down in Georgia has a pair of brothers who enjoy making positive faith-based films.

In Flywheel, Jay Austin is a used car salesman who will do anything to make a profit on selling cars. And because of that, his life is turning to trash.

Once he turns his life over to Jesus, and changes his business habits, things start looking brighter.


You can tell this film was made a while ago. And the technology used wasn't up to par with the rest of major motion pictures. The acting is a little stale and the message is a little skewed...

As with Facing the Giants, we're taught that if we just give our life to Jesus, we'll get everything we've ever wanted. Everything will be amazing from then on out.

This is so far from the truth. Giving your heart and life to Jesus will not make you rich.