Friday, December 28, 2012

Radical Together, David Platt

Having read the rave reviews I had to buy and decide for myself.  Even the subtitle gets you going in the direction of the slim volume, "unleashing the people of God for the purpose of God."  While written  primarily for a North American audience the point of the book transfers well this side of the pond.  This is obviously a follow on from Platt's best seller, "Radical."  In the book Platt sets out six key ideas to spur the Christian on to live a radical life together in the church.  These are all good and helpful in themselves and well summarised in the titles and subtitles of the chapters:
1. Tyranny of the good - One of the worst enemies of Christians can be good things in the church.
2. The gospel misunderstood - The gospel that saves us from work saves us to work.
3. God is saying something - The word does the work.
4. The genius of wrong - Building the right church depends on using all the wrong people.
5. Our unmistakable task - We are living and longing for the end of the world.
6. The God who exalts God - We are selfless followers of the self centred God.
The book has a helpful study guide at the end which would assist the reader not only for personal study but in discussing with others.
While I enjoyed the book and found it challenging I had that sense that something was missing - God's covenant with God's covenant people binding us to Himself and each other - that is the key truth that makes us radical together.

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