Iron Sharpens Iron: An Anthology of Wise Quotations
Here are some of the one-liners and longer quotations that I’ve benefitted from recently and would like to pass on to you—“as iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another”.
Here are some of the one-liners and longer quotations that I’ve benefitted from recently and would like to pass on to you—“as iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another”.
The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris Heather Morris’s tale of the Slovakian Jew, Lale Sokolov is purportedly based on a true story. Lale is taken as a prisoner to the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1942. There, in order to survive, he agrees to tattoo thousands of identification numbers onto the arms of fellow prisoners. He also falls in love Gita, a fellow Slovakian prisoner, whom he meets while tattooing her number. The novel recounts their extraordinary story of survival and love. The Tattooist of Auschwitz has captured the imagination of readers all over the world. But it hasn’t captured mine....
.’I managed to read (and listen to) a number of thought-provoking books in 2018. Here’s my top 10 (from 10 to 1): Hillbilly Elegy—A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance Young author J.D. Vance tells a gripping account of his upbringing in a white working-class Hill-Billy family. He gives us a first-hand account of growing up within and among broken families, drug addiction, and disadvantaged children – the increasing norm amongst the white working class of America. Vance skilfully shows what happens when a culture swallows the false promises of the sexual revolution: ‘Not long ago,...
Evangelism in a Skeptical World: How to Make the Unbelievable News About Jesus More Believable, by Sam Chan Sam’s book is a must read for pastors and a ‘should read’ for members of churches considering what it looks like to proclaim the good news of Jesus in the world we live in. It is literally a textbook that you can dip into at different points and is full of advice that is theologically rich and culturally engaged and informed. We’re rolling it out in training programs across our church in 2019. Disruptive Witness: Speaking Truth in a Distracted Age by Alan Noble...
This year offered some rich pickings in books. Just to glance at my bedside table, I can see Sam Chan’s magnificent Evangelism in a Skeptical World, Tim Winton’s (yet-to-read) novel The Shepherd’s Hut, and Glynn Harrison’s excellent A Better Story: God, Sex and Human Flourishing. As a Christmas gift, Yuval Harari is set to both fascinate and frustrate me again in 2019 with his latest, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. I hope to plug some gaps in my grasp of the literature around secularisation in 2019, with Peter Berger’s A Rumour of Angels, Brad S. Gregory’s The Unintended Reformation and Graeme...