Tim ChesterRezensionen
Autor von Total Church: A Radical Reshaping around Gospel and Community
Rezensionen
And yet the message of the final book of the Bible is both clear and simple. Despite everything that is going wrong with our world, God remains in control. And when we see history, our present, and our future from heaven's perspective, it will encourage us to trust God and remain faithful to the end.
This accessible, absorbing expository guide opens up this book for new and mature Christians alike. It is more applied than a typical commentary, making it a great resource for personal devotion, as well as useful for leading small group studies or sermon preparation.
With a conviction that sanctification is God's work and the journey to holiness is joyful, Chester guides readers through a "change project"-beginning with the selection of one area of life they would like to modify. Each chapter includes a question (e.g., Why would you like to change? What truths do you need to turn to?) to guide readers as they deal with a specific sin or struggle, truths from God's word, and a reflection guide to help readers through their change project.
We were doing a small group study of Exodus and I purchase this guide to help with my understanding of Exodus. We were using a prepared study guide from this book. I will say, that this book was not easy to get through. I encountered materials that I disagree with and questioned and discussed with home group members. I am not terribly familiar with Tim Chester and this is the first book I read by him.
If you are studying Exodus, this book may help with some of the deeper details of the book of Exodus. I think the author was reaching in some of his conclusions, but there is other material for the discerning reader that will help with the deeper meanings and symbolism of Exodus.
The book begins by outlining four ways in which evangelicals in general have responded to the relationship and poses a number of key questions:
Is social involvement something we do as well as evangelism? Is there another way of doing evangelism? Is it a distraction or the real job of proclaiming the gospel?
Is social involvement a legitimate activity of Christians? Does it have biblical support?
The book attempts to explore these important issues. He provides a good case for evangelical social action but has some pertinent criticism too and he wants to see social action that is truly evangelical. He sees proclamation of the gospel message as being central to Christian social action and the need for social action to be shaped by the gospel. He argues that evangelism and social action are distinct but inseparable activities.
In the first chapter he looks at three biblical reasons for involvement: the character of God, the reign of God and the grace of God. He maintains that social involvement is rooted in the character of God and that "Our understanding of poverty is fundamentally related to our understanding of God". This focus on the centrality of God is to be welcomed.
One of the reasons for the lack of involvement is that Christianity is too often considered to be a private with no public ramifications. This misconception is investigated in Chapter 2. Calvin, Kuyper, Elizabeth Fry, Wilberforce, William Booth are all cited of examples of Christians whose faith has made a public difference. The privatising effect of human reason on through the Enlightenment and human experience on faith through Romanticism are briefly - albeit oversimplified - examined.
Chester focuses on poverty as a key social issue, but he sees it including social marginalization and powerlessness. He advocates a relational approach to poverty. Tackling poverty is much more than feeding the hungry, poverty is more than a lack of income. The root of poverty is alienation from God, poverty is economic and social: it is "about marginalization, vulnerability, isolation and exclusion." This is obviously an area in which Christianity can help.
Chester makes a good case for social action that precedes, accompanies and follows evangelism. What he doesn't do is to show how social action and social reform relate. Does social reform need to follow social action?
Chester provides good reasons for the need for evangelicals to be involved in social action. He also provides some useful suggestions and ideas for involvement and includes some pertinent warnings: social action doesn't mean doing something for the poor, it is more than providing solutions. More effective ways include helping people to help themselves: "Good social involvement is helping people o find their own solutions." Participation is key.
The book includes some thought provoking poems by Stuart Henderson, a number of vignettes that help focus the issues on real situations, a useful list of further reading and a bibliography.
Joy is often something I chase from many things outside of Christ and this book helped me to remember that my joy comes from Christ and Christ alone. The chapter on God's approval was extremely helpful. Reminding me from Galatians that I am rooted and grounded in Christ.
I would recommend this book for anyone struggling to enjoy the life of being a follower of Christ. It certainly helped me to see more clearly.
*I received a review copy from Crossway*
Many people think the Bible is an important book to read, particularly if they identify as Christians. But sometimes, understanding parts of the Bible is difficult and reading it raises as well as answers questions. Tim Chester wrote this book to help anyone who resembles this description. He is motivated because he believes that the Bible is not only God's communication to the first readers of scripture, but also to us. Most crucially, the Bible, from cover to cover, speaks Jesus to us.
He then explores the nature of this book, a vital discussion for making sense of this book. He asserts that the Bible is:
*Relational: its varying styles of communication are meant to lead us into relation with God.
*Intentional: the books of scripture are written with purpose, and thus asking "why" is vital in our reading and leads us to understand the covenant character of our relationship with God.
*Enough: all we need to know and obey God.
*Reliable: addressing some of the questions that arise about contradictions and inaccuracies, Chester demonstrates the Bible as a trustworthy account reflecting the trustworthiness of God.
*Accessible: Chester offers six principles for making sense of scripture.
Chester concludes this brief work first with a chapter on our disposition as we approach the Bible, which he believes the most important issue in making sense of the Bible. He contends we need to "be dying to read the Bible"--dying to ourselves, our ways of doing things, willing to turn from our sins and anticipating hearing from God. He concludes by writing of his love for the Bible:
"What's the Bible? It is good, merry, and joyful tidings. Why? Because it tells how Christ has overcome sin, death, and the devil. It tells how Christ has overcome sin, death, and the devil. It tells how those in bondage to sin, wounded with death, and overcome by the devil have been set free by Christ. It tells how we're restored to life, brought to liberty and reconciled to God.
How should we respond? We cannot but be glad and laugh from the very bottom of our hearts. We praise and thank God. We're glad, sing and dance for joy. There are only two times when I dance: when I'm with small children, and alone in my study when God's word grabs my heart."
Through a conversational style, personal stories as well as clear explanations of things like "plenary inspiration," Tim Chester contagiously shares his love for the Bible, and how this book, through which God speaks, can set our hearts and feet to dancing.
The book also includes a group study guide of seven studies including a "getting started" discussion, a scripture text and discussion questions on the text and questions to go deeper and apply its meaning. This book is a good resource for the person exploring faith, a young Christian just beginning to develop habits of reading scripture, or for a group who want to enrich their understanding of the Bible.
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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.
The problem with this book is that adding additional characters to the story of Jesus will get confusing for children. There are already enough people in the biblical narrative--all of these are mentioned in this case file plus more. There is also a possibility that turning the story into a mystery puzzle or something to be solved could make children associate it with fiction in their minds akin to other mysteries like the Enid Blyton adventures.
I'm just not sure this works for this most important Bible story. However, I'm going to give it to my seven year old nephew for a second opinion!
Also the book is not focused on any one area of change - it touches on overeatting, worry, anger, lust, drinking, pride, gossip, shopping - so probably you...:) It does have a story about a man who told C H Spurgeon he had reached sinless perfection. Spurgeon didn't respond until the next day when he poured a whole pitcher of milk on the man's head a breakfast...The man soon realized he had not quite arrived at perfection...:)
This book is one more resource for the growing house/family church movement. Chester and Timmis' idea is no longer new, but it needs to be restated again and again as the transformation of the church will be slow and long. This book will be enjoyed by those who are discovering that the traditional Western understanding of church needs to be re-conceived in light of our changing context and in submission to the Bible.
Chester’s commentary is called Titus For You and I think the first salient thing I can say about his subject matter is, Titus is for you (whoever you are). Titus is one of the so-called Pastoral Epistles which means we often treat it as a technical manual addressed to pastoral leaders. Chester observes that we treat these letters like they lack the ‘breathless vibrancy of the book of Acts’ because that was fading, and something structured and sensible needed to be left in its place. Of course, Titus (and Timothy) have little to teach us about church administration and are themselves full of good news (11). Plus the book of Titus explores the ever-widening circles of relationship. Chapter one does focus on elders (i.e. leadership), Chapter two gives instructions for men and women (both young and old) slaves (Chester draws the paltry modern parallel of ‘employees), and the final chapter discuss how the church should navigate the political and social reality with an eye toward the cosmic scope of the outworking of the gospel. This letter was indeed written by Paul to a young minister he was mentoring in the city of Crete. But this is not a book restricted to clergy or professional ministers. It is for you. Chester walks readers through the book section by section, exploring the message of the book and its significance for today.
This is the second time I have reviewed a book in the ‘For You’ series (see my review,Timmy Time on the Romans Road) Like the previous volume, this commentary is a non-technical commentary designed for pastors and laity alike for personal study or for those who would teach this portion of scripture. This commentary shows how to read:
Read– It is a guide to help you appreciate the letter.
Feed–It is a daily devotional to help you grow in Christ.
Lead– It provides notes to help you explain the book of Titus.
On the whole I really appreciated Chester’s handling of Titus. The biblical text is not duplicated in the commentary so you have to read through this with an open Bible (which is fine unless you want to grab a book and go). Occasionally I disagreed with Chester (or just didn’t think he dug deep enough), but as an accessible guide which is generally helpful, this is great. I would give this book a solid four. It would not be my ‘go-to commentary’ for Titus, but it does a great job of expounding on the message of a book too often ignored. ★★★★
Thank you to Cross Focus Reviews and the Good Book Company for providing me with a copy of this book for the purpose of this review.
1 Samuel For You is the third commentary in the ‘For You’ series from the Good Book Company. It is the second commentary I’ve read from Tim Chester, pastor at the Crowded House in Sheffield, UK. So far this is my favorite of the lot. This may be because of my peculiar love of Samuel, but I think Chester delivers the goods here! This is a commentary which is sensitive to the historical and literary context, places Samuel in a canonical/theological frame and presents the narrative in an accessible and winsome way. This is what you want from a popular level commentary. I was pleased that in a number of places Chester picks up on the Hebrew wordplay (i.e. sa’al ‘ask’ in Hanna’s prayer in 1:20 is similar to the name Saul whom God will give to those who ask for a king; Eli collapsing under his own weight as the Glory (weight) departs from Israel in chapter 4; The wine–nebel–runs out of Nabal when he hears of the disaster his wife prevented in 25:37; etc.) These examples reveal some of the literary sophistication in Samuel. Chester does not delve exhaustively into every example of Hebrew wordplay, but often popular level commentaries do not explore it at all. So well done here!
Chester understands the genre of Samuel as ‘preached history.’ This is a historical treatment but it is also exhortative. Chester’s comments come in two parts for each passage. The first part looks closely at the text. The second part builds a bridge between the passage and the wider canonical context. Thus he draws the link between the historical David, and the ‘Son of David.’ The former was a christ–‘an annointed one.’ One of David’s descendants is the Christ–Jesus our Messiah. Chester does a good job of drawing connections in the text. If you do not spend much time in the Old Testament this commentary will help you enter into the Hebrew Bible a little deeper. This is not an exhaustive commentary (not every verse or passage is covered), but it does represent a cogent and helpful approach to this book of the Bible. I highly recommend this for personal or group study. I give it five stars.
Notice of Material Connection: I received this book from the Good Book Company via Cross Focused Reviews in exchange for my honest review.
In three chapters Chester and Woodrow explore the meaning of the ascension and how Jesus is our ascended priest, our ascended king, and our ascended man. Jesus is our mediator and high priest interceding with us before the Father. Jesus is the ascended heavenly King, which reminds the church and the world, that the culmination of history and the fullness of God’s kingdom rule is a coming reality ( because this world is incomplete and unfinished). Jesus is the ascended man, which means that in Him, humanity has entered into the life of God. Through His ascension we also may ascend into life with the Triune God.
These meditations are theologically rich and are helpful in seeing the blessings implicit in Christ’s ascension. My favorite part of the book was Chester and Woodrow’s discussion of the Lord’s Supper. The ascension implies Jesus’ absence, but in Communion, the church experiences his “Real Presence.” Not in the Catholic sense, of Transubstantiation, or in the Lutheran sense of Christ’s ubiquity. No, Chester and Woodrow draw on Calvin’s sacramental theology and argue that Christ’s presence is made available to us in Communion through the Spirit’s work. ”The communion meal expresses our union with Christ and so reinforces it to our experience (69)”
I happen to think that Calvin’s reflections on the Table are the high point of his theology and loved the way Chester and Woodrow articulated it in this context.They close this book with a conclusion which describes our ascension through Christ and an ‘Ascension Hymn’ written by Chester.
I recommend this book alongside another popular treatment of the Ascension, Tim and Aaron Perry’s He Ascended into Heaven: Learning to Live the Ascension-Shaped Life (Paraclete Press, 2010) and more academic books like Douglas Farrow’s Ascension and Ecclesia or his Ascension Theology (the latter of which I have not read). Farrow is referenced in both this and the Perrys’ book and is meaty. However the gift of Chester and Woodrow’s book is that they make deep theological reflections available to non-theologians (if there is such a thing). I enjoyed this book a lot and give it 4.5 stars!
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book from Christian Focus Publications in exchange for my honest review.
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O alvo deste livro é nos ajudar a ver que a doutrina da Trindade é “boas novas”, pois ensina-nos que Deus não está distante e desinteressado em envolver-se em um relacionamento vital e amoroso com sua criação. Entender melhor a doutrina da Trindade, ajuda-nos a perceber como podemos conhecer a Deus, o signi cado de sua encarnação em Cristo e a sua morte na cruz e a entender a nossa própria humanidade e a vida em comunidade. Em capítulos breves e linguagem acessível, o autor Tim Chester oferece-nos uma compreensão profunda e bíblica da natureza do Deus trino, um panorama histórico sobre o desenvolvimento da doutrina da Trindade e implicações muito práticas e devocionais para nossa vida cristã.
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