"See Yourself, Your Church, Your World Differently".
Have you ever started a book and loved what you were reading, then about half way through felt like you'd fallen into a slump?
Did you stick with it to the end and find that the book redeemed itself somewhat?
That is how I felt about Subversive Kingdom.
The book is broken down into three sections:
A Subversive Way of Thinking
A Subversive Way of Life
and
A Subversive Plan of Action
The first part of the book had me turning pages as fast as I could.
Stetzer literally had me thinking about things that I hadn't considered before.
Let me share my favorite part of the entire book with you:
Weeds
So Jesus' first parable dealt with how the kingdom of God begins. The second reveals how it develops. Get ready. It's not pretty. It might discourage you, but it's important that it informs you. These are important issues here about how we understand the kingdom. Jesus said the kingdom of God is like a farmer who sows wheat (sows the "seed") in his field (Matt. 13:24-30). But while he's sleeping, his enemy sneaks in and scatters weeds in the same field plot. For a little while, no one can tell what's happened. But when everything starts coming up, the workers look around and see unwanted growth in the seedbeds. The field is a mix of wheat and weeds. The first thing they do is go to the farmer. Has he seen what's happened? Who could have done this? What does he want us to do about it now? Go out and pull those weeds up? The farmer, seemingly unrattled by the problem, tells his men just to let the weeds grow right alongside the good crops, fearing that in trying to extract the unwanted growth they might yank up some of the healthy young wheat by mistake. But at harvest time, he says, when everything's ready for cutting, they'll separate everything on the threshing floor, storing the wheat away in the barn and bundling up the weeds for burning. That'll take care of that. But that's for later. For now, Jesus was saying, even though the kingdom of God is definitely establishing a presence in enemy territory, ours are not the only footprints on the farm. By no means have the opposing forces surrendered. And believe it or not the Messiah didn't come to eradicate their presence from the earth right away. Well, you can imagine this parable certainly didn't sit well with those who expected God's coming kingdom to be a sledgehammer of total domination in Israel. Truth be told, it's not exactly what we like to hear either....
Let's fast forward to my FAVORITE part
Wheat grows with weeds. That's just the way it is. But there's one other secret we can learn from this parable of Jesus that ought to give us at least a little relief. For even though our lives must be shared with people who don't like what we stand for and would prefer they had the whole place to themselves, we are not responsible for weeding.
Wow.
Ed Stetzer really hits the nail on the head here.
He is telling us that we are not responsible for weeding.
Let me get back to the book, though.
As I stated I read through the first part eagerly only to hit a road block in the middle of the book.
I think the book is written for a leadership position.
If you lead a small group or are a pastor this is a book for you.
If you feel your group, congregation has become comfortable, sedentary, or lackadacious this is the book for you.
If, however, you are just looking for a simple way to motivate your family on how to better share God's word, this book is not for you.
Stetzer's goal it seems was to show us that we have a misunderstanding of the kingdom of God, it is not a distant place, but rather it is the lives we are living each and every day. He wants to push people to live outside of their comfort zone and be more radical in sharing and living their faith.
Unfortunately, I got the sense from that unless your family is willing to give up your current lifestyle, move to a rough neighborhood, and devote 100% of your activities into spreading God's word that then and only then will you be doing God's will.
I will say that Stetzer does a wonderful job relating Bible stories to how we should approach evangelism. He is brilliant in his ability to educate. I just don't think he had what it took to get me motivated as a suburban Mom.
Overall I will give the book a B- rating, it didn't fail miserably, and it did make me think outside the box, it just didn't appeal to the every day person.
I hope you have a Blessed Saturday!
If you lead a small group or are a pastor this is a book for you.
If you feel your group, congregation has become comfortable, sedentary, or lackadacious this is the book for you.
If, however, you are just looking for a simple way to motivate your family on how to better share God's word, this book is not for you.
Stetzer's goal it seems was to show us that we have a misunderstanding of the kingdom of God, it is not a distant place, but rather it is the lives we are living each and every day. He wants to push people to live outside of their comfort zone and be more radical in sharing and living their faith.
Unfortunately, I got the sense from that unless your family is willing to give up your current lifestyle, move to a rough neighborhood, and devote 100% of your activities into spreading God's word that then and only then will you be doing God's will.
I will say that Stetzer does a wonderful job relating Bible stories to how we should approach evangelism. He is brilliant in his ability to educate. I just don't think he had what it took to get me motivated as a suburban Mom.
Overall I will give the book a B- rating, it didn't fail miserably, and it did make me think outside the box, it just didn't appeal to the every day person.
I hope you have a Blessed Saturday!
I received this book free. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."
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