The Resolute

The longer I continue as a Christian the more Christian books and literature I seem to acquire, and on the odd occasion I even read them. It seems for every conceivable topic there is a plethora of books available to enlighten me.

However there is one particular kind of book that I find quite worrying. It is what I will refer to as the Christian ‘guide book’. At this point some distinctions and definitions are important. A ‘guide book’ as I am defining it is not a theological or doctrinal book; these are books which aim to look at the bible’s teaching on a particular topic such as the Spirit, or Election, or the Cross in order from a rather academic perspective. These books I believe are very helpful.

Nor is a ‘guide book’ a commentary. Rather a ‘guide book’ is a book aimed at instructing Christians on how to live either generally or with regard to a particular issue. These books may heavily base their conclusions on the bible’s teaching or if there is little in the bible on their topic (such as the issue of dating as Gus has already mentioned) then they refer to “Christian wisdom” or some other such ‘authority’.

At the outset I will admit that some of these books can be very helpful, however, as a genre I think most of them are not. The reason: they are quite simply rubbish. Whilst commentaries and theological books look at the bible’s teaching and effectively are someone’s considered opinion on what the bible is saying argued from the bible; guide books more often than not seek to tell Christians exactly how to live in a way that does not reflect circumstances, the freedom afforded to us as Christians and more often than not the bible’s teaching.

2 Timothy 3:16 ff are very famous words, and if the bible is indeed “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. “ Then why would we spend our time looking at someone else’s wisdom when we have the bible’s wisdom, and the Holy Spirit to help us understand and implement it????

My other problem is that so often ‘guide books’ take us away from grace. ‘Guide books’ give us rules for living as a Christian, which is just what Jesus death shows me won’t save me. I need to rely on Jesus death and resurrection for salvation, not on John Smith’s Guide to Christian living.

My problem with these books is not so much that they exist but that we set too much store by them. How about we do Christianity by the book? The only book that matters, the Bible.

We’re running a series of Bible Studies in January on the topics: Marriage, Singleness, Dating/Courtship/”Who to get from single to married?” and Divorce and Remarriage.

To help prepare for next weeks ‘dating’ study I borrowed as many books on ‘Christian dating’ as I could find.

There are so many, and so many ways I could categorise them.

There are those that completely suck and those that aren’t quite as bad.

There are those that advocate not dating (but some how you’ll just end up down the aisle and married) and then at the other end of the spectrum there’s the ’100 tips to get someone to say ‘yes’ to marriage’.

Here’s what I’ve read (or at least skimmed through) so far:

• I Kissed Dating Goodbye:¹ I get where he’s going but it seems to be a bit ‘don’t do anything so you don’t do anything wrong’, so it doesn’t really answer how you go from friends to married.
• Every Young Man’s Battle:² Some of what he says is good, some of it I’m less sure about. And I guess the authors don’t really set out to answer the dating questions.
• Religion Saves: Question 3:³ This is a good book. I like 95% of what he says in the chapter on dating. But it’s a bit short, doesn’t answer everything and I don’t always agree with everything in the book so I’m not sure it’s what I’d want to recommend without qualification.
• Boundaries in Dating:⁴ It’s more about the authors giving their 101 thoughts on everything. I might be a bit cynical of this one, but the chapter on setting boundaries really just says ‘don’t have sex outside marriage’ but doesn’t bother defining anything and barely mentions any of the Bible’s great content on the subject. Also the chapter following is on ‘setting consequences’ and seems to assume you will stuff up and almost seems to play it down for my liking.
• For Young Men Only: ((Jeff Feldhahn and Eric Rice)) This gets the award for the worst book on the topic. It’s more about figuring women out rather than acting in a godly way.

So anyone got any books they can recommend?

I really want a book like Pure Sex⁵ but written on the dating subject: a bit of history, God’s plans for the world, the general principles and how to live it out.

1. Joshua Harris [↩]
2. Stephen Arterburn and Fred Stoeker [↩]
3. Mark Driscoll, was originally a sermon series answering common questions [↩]
4. Dr Henry Cloud and Dr John Townsend [↩]
5. Philip Jensen [↩]