Book Review: The Life You Crave

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Though still young, we can confidently say that a 28 year old person has slightly more life experience than an 18 year old. It is now in my latter twenties that I see a snare I fell prey to as a younger man: The Perfect Scenario Mentality. This book, which I am about to recommend, was not written for those of us who have made all the right life-choices and live in the perfect scenario. Rather, it's for those who have run into snags and hiccups and have even made voluntary, bone-headed decisions in the past. I would classify this book as an encouragement book for us, a book that shakes us from our discouragements and shepherds us in God's love through the story of a Bible character who had nothing going for him: Daniel.

Chained into captivity at the age most of us were found stressing out over high school homework, Daniel was stripped of his identity, heritage, religion, and ethnicity by Babylonian forces in 605 BC. He was given a new name (Belteshazzar) in an attempt by his new lords to sever his connection with Israel completely, and some speculate that he may have even been made into a eunuch. Couldn't get any more ideal, right? But Daniel remained faithful to the Lord despite.

What then can we learn through the book of Daniel? Newman excels at tying and retying every point back to this prophetic book, as well as other scriptures. Though circumstances may change from good to bad or bad to good in your life, there is one thing that does not change. And while I'll leave most of this book for you to discover on your own, I will elaborate on the first chapter which is titled Your Greatest Fan.

Newman astutely starts by emphasizing that our greatest fan is none other than the one who created us. God loves us intensely, but it's interesting how the scriptures we see often can be forgotten or lose their power because of overexposure. Consider this passage which is plastered on a googol hallmark cards: For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope (Jeremiah 29:11 ESV). Yet we may still walk around thinking that God doesn't have a plan for us but has left us to rot and die because we may have blundered in the past. The pendulum has swung the opposite way, where rather than abusing Jeremiah 29:11, we can neglect it, forgetting that God is for us and not against us.

This is erroneous thinking. It's like God loved us so much to gruesomely die for our sins, but he only casually spilled His blood to redeem from Hell a people He doesn't care enough about to plan a future for them. When we disbelieve  passages such as 2 Corinthians 1:20, we lessen His love; when we lessen his love, we cheapen His blood.

This is why I think it was strategic for Newman to start off with God being our biggest fan. Before we can hear of God's great purposes for us, we need to digest His mighty love and the fact that He is passionately cheering us on in His purposes. His love runs deep with sacrifice, and is constant, not ebbing and flowing with circumstances. Recently I wrote about how sincere love toward God is one that doesn't change with the situation. Spiritual stability comes with knowing that God's love for us doesn't change with the situation either.

His love for us is based on how heavy of a sacrifice His own blood was. All the wealth of the global oil industry a thousand fold is trash compared to the blood of Jesus. Thus I am for you, the Lord says. In light of how heavy an offering a single drop of Calvary was, we can never look at our circumstances and say, "Well, God can't redeem me out of this one." Though we may live in an imperfect scenario at the moment, the Lord is able to use any circumstance to the glory of Jesus the Messiah, whether it be at the right hand of a king or in the den of a lion.

Interview: A Muslim Sheikh working in America

A sheikh is a teacher or leader in a Mosque or a Muslim community. Another title a teacher of Islam can be known as is an Imam. Setting foot in the Mosque, I met the sheikh whom shall remain nameless. He was a bearded man of average height, dressed in sandals, a thobe and a kofia. I took off my shoes and he his sandals before we walked through the main area in order to enter his office. I made sure to keep the conversation from getting the awkward hidden agenda feeling behind it by simply telling him the truth: that I went to Bible College, am a pastor in training, and would like to hear what Islam is and is not from someone who is qualified in Islamic thought, rather than from CNN or Fox News. 

As you may know, I have been reading a lot of books about Islam and ministering to Muslims, but to quote Indiana Jones, "You gotta get out of the library!"  meaning, you must balance good study habits with actual experience. Here then is the conversation we had over the span of an hour in his office. The use of quotations will simply be to simulate the experience of the conversation and should not be taken as authentic quotes from the sheikh. Still, the essence of his responses have been kept the same and not tampered with. The conversation was pleasant and cordial, and we made sure to schedule a follow up meeting afterward.

I began the conversation by showing him that I have a Qur'an already and also a list of questions I came prepared with.
"But we can talk about anything you already have prepared," I said.
"Well," he began, "Let's let you ask the questions so that I don't spend the entire time talking about something not important."
"No problem... I didn't write this question down, but it just dawned on me to ask you about 9/11. How long has this Muslim Community Center been here?"
"Since 1995. It was about 6 years old when 9/11 happened."
"What was it like for the Muslim community when that happened? Was there a lot of fear or concern in your congregation?"
"Muslims were watching 9/11 on tv when it was happening and were afraid. They were wondering what Americans would do because the terrorists were said to be Muslims, but there were a lot of swift actions by the government and the local community that checked any aggression against us."
The sheikh then explained that these three things happened the day after the terrorist attack:

~The federal government quickly established a proper understanding of their true enemy. I was amazed to learn from this Muslim leader that President Bush, in the following week, went to a Mosque in Washington D.C., respectfully took off his shoes, and gave a brief speech to the congregation, telling them that Muslims are not the enemy; terrorists are the enemy, and that's who they are fighting against. (Michigan Daily)
~The local governments positioned a squad car outside of Muslim gathering centers, such as Mosques and schools for Muslim children, in order to protect the Muslims from any angry Americans.
~The local churches visited the Mosques to drop off flowers and offer their condolences, assuring them that the local Christians know they're not the enemy. The Christian women also offered to accompany the Muslim women who wear the burka whenever they needed to go out. Again, the motivation was to protect the Muslims from the threat: big bad angry Americans.

"After the terrorist attacks," the sheikh began, "the American Muslims needed to start being more independent. Usually, if a Muslim in America wanted to pursue further education in Islam, they would go to Egypt or another Muslim country where there are plenty of schools and training centers for deep study of the Qur'an; they would also fly Muslim scholars and educators into America in order to train Muslims here. When 9/11 occurred, it became extremely difficult to fly scholars into this country as well as for students to fly out of the country for Islamic studies. This is why America is seeing more elaborate mosques and more Muslim schools popping up. The American Muslims needed to be more independent from Muslim countries and develop their own centers for training."

This made a ton of sense, and I could immediately see how the appearing of more mosques can be interpreted wrongly, just like the stationing of squad cars outside of mosques after 9/11 could be interpreted wrongly.


I then began to ask him the questions I had prepared. "Are there a lot of different translations of the Qur'an, and do you have one you recommend?"
"Yes, there are a lot of different translations. The one I recommend is the Abdullah Yosuf Ali translation." He then emailed me some further resources on understanding Islam and Qur'anic translations. Later on, he gave me a copy of this translation.
I then asked him, "If one were to start studying the Qur'an, where would one begin?"
"In devotional practices, you would start at the beginning and proceed to the end" (just like we start in Genesis). "The first surah is regarded as most important in the Qur'an." He also stated that there are several different ways one can read the Qur'an: by topic, chronologically, devotional, as well as some others. There were times when the sheikh would recite the Qur'an from memory in beautiful, melodious Arabic.

There were a couple of other questions I had, but the majority of our discussion was on the Muslim's view of the Qur'an as well as 9/11. I asked him at one point about his thoughts on Isis, to which he expressed a disapproval toward them to the point of saying they weren't even Muslims.

He then showed me around the property, which required me to put on my shoes and then take them off again, causing me to vow to myself slip-ons for next time! 

In summation, a genuine studier needs to inquire if all the reading that they're doing is accurate or not. Just because something is in a book doesn't make it true; simultaneously, just because something is in a book doesn't make it false. As stated before, I've been doing a lot of reading on Islam, and this meeting with the sheikh helped confirm some and refute some of the things I've read. It is true that one sheikh doesn't define all of Islam, but the point is that if you want to be a good student, you have to get out of the library at times. If you want to be a minister of the Gospel, you have to get out of your comfort zone and learn how to minister to real live people.

God's Epistemological Kindness

E·pis·te·mol·o·gy (adj: epistemological) is the theory of knowledge, especially in regards to its methods, validity, and scope. How is it that we know what we know, and how do we know that what we know is justified belief from mere opinion? Are we bound to simply believe what our culture, upbringing, and past tells us to believe, or do we have the freedom to truly see and learn and know the real? Do we have the ability to pull back the curtain and see things as they are, like in the Wizard of Oz, or are we blinded from the truth and enslaved to subjectivity?

As believers in the Bible, what is our response to these questions? Do we have the ability to know reality or not? When I was in Bible college, this subject of epistemology was something the Lord continuously brought up, though I didn't know how to define it at the time. It started with me reading Proverbs 2:6, which says, "for the LORD gives wisdom; from His mouth comes knowledge and understanding" (NIV). It occurred to me then that the Lord is pleased with sharing the truth with us and giving us knowledge of the real, not giving us impressions of what we think is real when it actually isn't. The next thing I knew, I saw this theme emerge everywhere in the scriptures (I've compiled a list of clickable references below), and was blown away at the Lord's willingness to bring clarity, knowledge, understanding, intelligence, and insight to those who ask Him for it. That's the question we need to ask the skeptic before we even open the Bible to them: Does God love humanity enough to show us what He is actually like, or does he prefer to remain distant and to keep us guessing in the dark? Scripture not only shows us that God is willing to give us wisdom, but also that wisdom, knowledge, and understanding are attainable to us in the first place, and most importantly that God is knowable! This is great news!

That's what the Epistemological Kindness of God is all about: God is ready, willing, and able to share the truth with those who come to Him. He loves to impart wisdom to those who love the truth, and He isn't afraid of our deep questions. We have the ability to know things as they truly are. God loves us, delights in our education, and wants to be close to us. Knowledge and closeness go hand-in-hand.

Supplemental Reading:
Worshiping God with the Mind
What is Epistemology? (gotquestions.org)

Scripture References:
Exodus 31:3, 36:1
Job 28:23, 38:36
Psalm 19:7, 51:6, 119:32
Proverbs 2:6
Jeremiah 33:3
Daniel 2:28, 9:22
Luke 24:45
John 17:26
1 Corinthians 2:10-16
Ephesians 1:8, 1:17
2 Timothy 2:7
James 1:5
1 John 5:20

Book Review: Introducing Cultural Anthropology by Howell & Paris

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This being the first anthropology book I’ve ever read, I came into it without any expectations except to be stretched. Now, an anthropology book isn’t my first pick, but it being a part of the curriculum for online schooling compelled me to read it. In the end, I’m glad I did pick this up; the insight (and not just the grade) is vital for one who will be working cross-culturally. Some of the key lessons that I’ve learned from this book include the following:

First off, it appears that culture is not so static as much as it is an ever-evolving conversation. As a missionary, one of the things that I’ve noticed is the common perception that Native America would have remained the same had the pilgrims not landed, or Africa would have remained the same hadn’t missionaries “ruined” the African culture (more on that in a later blog).  This has apparently never been true. Whether a people-group is isolated or rubbing shoulders with another people-group, their culture is ever changing. We must not be ethnocentric in thinking that we Westerners make or break the world. The peoples of the world are involved in the fluid conversation of culture, and that culture can change apart from American or European influence.

Secondly, the West is not the sole influencer in globalization, nor is globalization a modern Western creation. Rather, America is being globalized as well, not simply globalizing. Case in point: We look at McDonald’s getting a footing in China and the word Westernization comes to mind. But what do we call Californian Suburbanites doing Saturday morning Yoga? Indianization? America is not solely influencing other cultures, but being influenced as well, and it turns out that globalization is far more complicated than just some cruel capitalist wearing a suit and sitting behind a desk, seeking the next culture to stamp out.

Due to this book, I’ve also noticed the… egotistical attitude of America in general. I was on a ranch in a particularly large southern state when I met a cowboy (literally, he had spurs, a hat, and a lasso) who told me how superior America is to other or “second-rate” countries. Had I read the book before I met him, I could have pointed out his ethnocentric attitude. Being ethnocentric means that you glorify your culture over that of other nations. It’s the view that if everyone just did things my way, the world would be a better place. One’s own culture becomes the standard. This is what was perhaps the most interesting lesson I’ve learned from this book: the potential to be ethnocentric. It was evident in the thinking of early anthropologists, and it’s evident in American culture now. While the rest of the world is swimming in speedos, American men are wearing swim-trunks. The ethnocentric American looks at the rest of the world swimming and says, “They’ll eventually come around,” while the anthropologically savvy person realizes that we’re just the weird kid in the corner of the pool swimming in little pants.

The end goal is not to come to hate American culture, but to put it in its appropriate place. I love being an American, but I do not hold America up to a glorified light. I love the fact that I grew up in Philadelphia visiting Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, watching baseball, and eating Philly cheese-steaks. I love America and its passion for freedom, but I understand that American culture is not the answer to the world. Jesus is the answer.

There is so much more I could say about this book, but I’ll wrap it up and recommend it for this reason: to stave off any ethnocentricity in yourself.

Worshiping God with the Mind

I love to read and to write, and I love schoolwork, but this wasn’t always the case. I scarcely picked
up a book in high school, which I passed with minimal enthusiasm and effort. Yet over the years, God had been working in my heart, not with furious bolts of lightning and forceful rain, but with a gentle, consistent drizzle. People commend me for enjoying reading and writing, but I am certainly not a self-made man. The Lord changed my heart into something new starting in 2006 and subtly transformed me into a studier.

Bertrand Russell once said “There are two motives for reading a book; one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.” Those are two reasons one can read a book, but I feel that Russell’s analysis is incomplete and (being atheistic) doesn’t take into account the Lord’s ability to touch the human heart and fill it with purpose outside of self. Do people read books because they enjoy them? Yes. Do people read books so that they can boast about it? Yes. Yet a person can also open up the driest books on the planet out of a desire to worship Him with the mind rather than to worship the mind. From Old Testament genealogies to grammar to the history of Canada, nothing is too boring (no offense, eh?) because the believer reads a great breadth of information while passionately saying, “Lord, I understand that I don’t know as much as I ought to know. Give me knowledge and understanding that I may worship You.” This is the Christ-centered motivation for study. It’s the heart that wishes to fulfill 1 Peter 3:15 by being able to give a reasonable defense and not settling with a shrug or a pat answer.

I pray that the Church would flourish academically out of the scriptural knowledge of God’s epistemological kindness. Shalom on you as you read!

Passages to Consider:
Prov. 2:6
Jer. 33:3
2 Tim. 2:15