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BOOK REVIEWS and NEWS

Book Reviews

The Sing Hymnal – Keith Getty, Kristyn Getty, John Martin, Dan Kreider and Douglas Sean O’Donnell. Crossway. 912 pages. 2025
****

Aren’t hymnals a thing of the past? In our church, although we still have hymnals under the chairs, for several years now, the lyrics to the hymns we sing are projected on a screen. I wonder if that is the norm for churches these days. After all, how many people can actually read music? (I can’t).
Keith and Kristyn Getty would disagree that hymnals are a thing of the past. They recently released The Sing! Hymnal at their 2025 Sing! Getty Music Worship Conference.  Here are a few of the highlights of the project, published by Crossway:

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BOOK REVIEWS ~ More of this review…
BOOK NEWS ~ Links to Interesting Articles
BOOK CLUB ~ Tim Keller on the Christian Life: The Transforming Power of the Gospel by Matt Smethurst
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BOOK REVIEWS and NEWS

The Man on the Middle Cross: Are You Going to Heaven? by Alistair Begg. 10Publishing. 32 pages. 2025
****

In this short book, Alistair Begg shares three powerful stories. Each one records a conversation that alters the course of a life. These encounters are all found in the Bible.
The first story comes from John 4: 3-30; 39–42. This is the story of the Samaritan woman’s encounter with Jesus at the well. Carefully, Jesus points to the woman’s need for personal forgiveness and for salvation. A true encounter with God and real transformation always begin here.
Begg writes that the standard picture in our culture is that God is playing hide-and-seek and doesn’t want to be found. But the account we have in the Bible is the reverse of that. We are the ones who have gone into hiding. Jesus comes looking for each one of us – not to condemn us but to offer us living water, the fulfillment that each of us longs for.
Note: Please be sure to watch this 4 minute video.

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BOOK REVIEWS ~ More of this review and a review of Truths We Confess: A Systematic Exposition of the Westminster Confession of Faith (Revised Edition) by R.C. Sproul
BOOK NEWS ~ Links to Interesting Articles
BOOK CLUB ~ Truths We Confess by  R.C. Sproul
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BOOK REVIEWS and NEWS


How Should I Approach Suffering? by R.C. Sproul. Ligonier Ministries. 87 pages. 2025
*** ½

The Crucial Questions booklets by R.C. Sproul provide a quick introduction to definitive Christian truths. These booklets are adapted from previous writings and teachings by Sproul. All of the Crucial Questions booklets are free in the Kindle edition, and available for a small amount in the print edition. You can see all of the ebooks in the series here.
Sproul tells us that suffering is one of the most significant challenges to any believer’s faith. He tells us that the promise of God is that He will never put more on us than we can bear. What is difficult to bear without Christ is made far more bearable with Christ.
Scripture admonishes us not to think that it is a strange or unusual thing that we should suffer. Our suffering has a purpose. For the Christian, suffering is never an exercise in futility.

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BOOK REVIEWS ~ More of this review…
BOOK NEWS ~ Links to Interesting Articles
BOOK CLUB ~ Truths We Confess by  R.C. Sproul
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BOOK REVIEWS and NEWS

BOOK REVIEW:
Together We Roared: Alongside Tiger for His Epic Twelve-Year, Thirteen-Majors Run by Steve Williams and Evin Priest
***

Evin Priest and Steve Williams began to relive Williams’ time caddying for Tiger Woods on a podcast during the pandemic called Chasing Majors. They had so much fun revisiting their success, major championship by major championship, that they decided a book was the only medium that could deliver the richness and depth it deserved. This book, written in the third person, takes readers inside the room, and on the green, with Woods and Williams with “fly-on-the-wall” detail.
Williams served as Woods’ caddy for twelve and a half seasons. During that time Woods won thirteen major championships. The book takes you through each season in general, and each major championship they worked together in detail, from 1999 until their split in 2011. This includes some of Woods’ most famous shots including his “shot in the dark” and his chip-in on hole 16 in the Masters.

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BOOK REVIEWS ~ More of this review…
BOOK NEWS ~ Links to Interesting Articles
BOOK CLUB ~ Truths We Confess by R.C. Sproul
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BOOK REVIEWS and NEWS

Spurgeon: A Life by Alex DiPrima. Reformation Heritage Books. 312 pages. 2024
****

I’ve read a number of biographies of the great English preacher Charles Spurgeon. I would count this new book among the best of them.
The author tells us that Spurgeon accepted a call to pastor one of the most historic churches in the middle of London, what at that time was the largest city in the world, at age nineteen. He had never gone to college and had received no formal seminary training. He would minister in London for thirty-eight years as the pastor of the largest Protestant church in in the world until his death in 1892.
The author shares some amazing facts about Spurgeon, such as:

  • Spurgeon was estimated to have preached to over ten million people.
  • He helped to start nearly two hundred new churches in Britain alone.
  • By his death in 1892, over 20 percent of all Baptist ministers serving in England and Wales had been trained by Spurgeon.

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BOOK REVIEWS ~ More of this review…
BOOK NEWS ~ Links to Interesting Articles
BOOK CLUB ~ Truths We Confess by  R.C. Sproul
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BOOK REVIEWS and NEWS

Big Dumb Eyes: Stories from a Simpler Mind by Nate Bargatze. Grand Central Publishing. 232 pages. 2025
***

If you enjoy the comedy of Nate Bargatze, you’ll enjoy this book, his first. I listened to the audiobook edition, which was read by Bargatze, and I would recommend that version to you as he reads it with his deadpan, self-deprecating delivery.
This light-hearted book has Bargatze telling stories about McDonald’s, shopping, his family, his barber, who is also his trainer, dogs, his car named “Old Blue”, his best friend Pee Pee, his wife Laura and daughter Harper, his unfailing love of Vanderbilt University football (who will never win the national championship), and his father, who was a magician and still opens Nate’s shows. He tells us about growing up in a small town in Tennessee, where you could never say the “F-word” in his home (no, not that “F-word”), his poor performance in college, living in a rat-infested apartment in Chicago as he learned standup comedy, and playing basketball in the NBA (no, not that NBA). The book includes blank pages, and random food thoughts. Throughout the book, Bargatze makes reference to his and his family’s Christian faith.

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BOOK REVIEWS ~ More of this review and a review of Roots & Rhythm: A Life in Music by Charlie Peacock
BOOK NEWS ~ Links to Interesting Articles
BOOK CLUB ~ Truths We Confess by  R.C. Sproul
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BOOK REVIEWS and NEWS

BOOK REVIEW:
2084 and the AI Revolution, Updated and Expanded Edition: How Artificial Intelligence Informs Our Future by John Lennox. Zondervan. 375 pages. 2024
****

The world of AI (artificial intelligence) is changing so quickly, that John Lennox has already seen the need to update and expand his 2020 book 2084: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity. I was first introduced to the teaching of Lennox, Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University (emeritus), a few years ago at the Sing! Getty Music Worship Conference (Lennox is Kristyn Getty’s uncle). Since then, I’ve read five of his books.

In this book, he brings a Christian worldview to the present and future of AI.

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BOOK REVIEWS ~ More of this review…
BOOK NEWS ~ Links to Interesting Articles
BOOK CLUB ~ Truths We Confess by  R.C. Sproul
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BOOK REVIEWS and NEWS

BOOK REVIEW:
Sunday Matters: 52 Devotionals to Prepare Your Heart for Church by Paul David Tripp. Crossway. 289 pages. 2023
*** ½

I’ve read several of Paul Tripp’s books, most of them being his books of devotional readings (daily, Lent, Advent, etc.). This new book features a reading for each week of the year (reading 51 is for Easter week and 52 is for Christmas). The brief devotionals are intended to help prepare your heart for the beauty of what Sunday worship has to offer you. After each reading, there are suggested scripture passages to read, reflection questions and a family discussion section.
I enjoyed these readings, and commend this book – and all of Paul Tripp’s books – to you.
Here are 20 of my favorite quotes from the book:

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BOOK REVIEWS ~ More of this review…
BOOK NEWS ~ Links to Interesting Articles
BOOK CLUB ~ Truths We Confess by  R.C. Sproul
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BOOK REVIEWS and NEWS

R. C. SPROULBOOK REVIEWS

This week we look at two new book releases from R.C. Sproul:

Holy Week: The Week That Changed the World by R.C. Sproul. Ligonier Ministries. 88 pages. 2025
***

R.C. Sproul went to be with the Lord in December, 2017. Fortunately, he left a tremendous amount of teaching material for Ligonier Ministries to release in book form in the years after his death. Ligonier edited and adapted Dr. Sproul’s original material to create this volume, with the assistance of Sproul’s wife Vesta.
This short book looks at one week, from the time in the upper room when Jesus established the new covenant with his disciples through the time Jesus appeared to Thomas after His resurrection.

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BOOK REVIEWS ~ More of this review and a review of The Great Rescue: Understanding the Saving Work of Christ by R.C. Sproul
BOOK NEWS ~ Links to Interesting Articles
BOOK CLUB ~ Truths We Confess by  R.C. Sproul
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BOOK REVIEWS and NEWS

Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson. Penguin Press. 348 pages. 2025. Audiobook read by Jake Tapper
***
This book was written by Jake Tapper, of CNN and Alex Thompson of Axios. The two interviewed 200 people, including members of Congress, White House staffers and campaign insiders, primarily after the 2024 presidential election.
The book claims that Biden’s inner circle helped to conceal his declining physical and cognitive health as he and his aides insisted he was fit to serve a second term. The Democratic Party failed to question that decision until after Biden’s disastrous June 27, 2024 debate with Donald Trump, and by then, it was too late.
The authors write that their only agenda is to present the disturbing reality of what happened in the White House and the Democratic presidential campaign in 2023-2024. They tell the story pretty much chronologically.

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BOOK REVIEWS ~ More of this review and a review of The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell
BOOK NEWS ~ Links to Interesting Articles
BOOK CLUB ~ Truths We Confess by  R.C. Sproul
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