January 4, 2010

Book Review: The Gospel Driven Life by Michael Horton

An anonymous benefactor sent this book to me from my Amazon wishlist. Whoever it was should know that they made a tremendous investment in the studies and thought-processes of this missionary. Content from The Gospel Driven Life has found its way into messages, Sunday School lessons and counseling sessions since the day I started reading it.

The subtitle--Being Good News People in a Bad News World--is an apt summary of the content of the book. Author Michael Horton is concerned that "the Good News [has] become just good advice". His main purpose in this work (which he says naturally follows his previous Christless Christianity) is to show how the Good News is central to every aspect of the believer's life--not simply at the moment of salvation. For this reason it is important that we "get it right" when it comes to describing what the Gospel actually is.

For me one of the most valuable parts of the book is where Horton expounds on the Biblical progression of Drama (God's vast redemptive plan throughout history) to Doctrine (belief in the objective facts that make up the Gospel) to Doxology (the natural worship that flows from an understanding of those facts) to Discipleship (grateful service as a natural outworking of said worship).

Not a particularly easy read, the The Gospel Driven Life is worth the effort. It should be noted that Horton is quite reformed, which means that Baptists such as myself have to discount the parts of the book where he refers to the ordinances as sacraments (and defends calling them such), the section where he claims that the sons and daughters of believers are "children of the covenant", and, of course, the obligatory disparagin of "premillenialism" (to which he offers no real alternative).

Where his subject is the Gospel and it's fruit in our lives, the book truly soars. If you want to renew a stagnated Christian walk by focusing on Christ and His Gospel, my I humbly suggest The Gospel-Driven Life as a good place to start.

Talk back to the missionary: How does the Gospel affect your daily life? Give us your thoughts in the comment section.

Posted by Andrew on January 4, 2010 4:42 PM.

Comments

Posted by: JANET SITH at January 4, 2010 6:58 PM

Posted by: Andrew at January 5, 2010 9:39 AM