Sunday, February 27, 2011

A Conversation with God by Alton Gansky

It took me nearly a section before I was comfortable in the reading of this book. Part of this was because of the momentary hesitation at reading what God said about that particular subject, and then Jesus, and then anyone else who might have written about the subject in the Bible. It is multiple conversations on various subjects based on Biblical thought, theology and writings. But it took me some time to think about such possibilities! In the end, I became attuned to the intention of the writer and found the book to provide depth to me as a reader in every section.

The best feature of the book, so far as I was concerned, was the definition of words that theologians toss around freely. Church people accept the word but have very little idea of its meaning. These are words like "sanctification", "redemption", "the kingdom of God", "salvation" on and on and the author did a masterful job in taking the time and space to make individual explanations of each term which he used.

My next favorite feature of the book was the groupings of subjects together. At the end of the section, I would look back and see if the author could have omitted any part of the composite groupings without hurting the total picture. In the end, I thought that he asked the right questions and provided excellent sources for answers. The explanations at the beginning of each question were top-drawer and urged the reader to think! The notes at the end of the book are an invaluable resource.

My favorite section was the Kingdom of God followed closely by Christian Living. However, there were some questions which I underlined and marked to be read again. Some of these were "How do we know if we are saved?" and one that lingers in my mind, "Why is there so much suffering?" I recommend this book for the person who is contemplating the call to Christianity and for the Christian who long ago made a profession of faith! There is something in it for both.