HERE’S AN IDEA
Practical tips for your life and ministry
RECOMMENDED RESOURCES TO STAY CENTERED Q: Can a book really change your life? A: Absolutely! There’s something special about a book you can’t put down—or better yet, a book you’ll never forget. The power of the written word is astonishing. Books can sway the thoughts, trends and direction of an entire culture. Henry David Thoreau wrote, “How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book!” The greatest subject ever written about is the person and life of Jesus. Here are three resources to help you stay centered on Christ. Dru Ashwell is Vice President of Alumni Relations and editor of The Ambassador.
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Mere Christianity - C.S. Lewis (1952)
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The Jesus I Never Knew - Philip Yancey (1995)
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Who Is This Man? - John Ortberg (2012)
I first read this life-changing classic in Dr. Lynn Gardner’s Apologetics class my senior year at Ozark. Lewis’s writings have sold millions and unquestionably impacted tens of thousands. One example is Chuck Colson, who was imprisoned for his part in the Watergate scandal. Colson has written that reading Mere Christianity was an important step in his conversion. Well over a half-century since Lewis wrote these words, this is still a book to reach for when a friend wonders what Christianity is all about. That is its enduring influence.
In his unassuming manner, Yancey challenges some false notions of Jesus that have put down deep roots in our churches and leads readers along a path of rediscovery. —“Hey, look at the Jesus I found!” According to Yancey, “No one who meets Jesus ever stays the same.” I will never be the same after reading this book, which was given to me on Christmas Day in 1997. Three days later, I had finished the 275 pages, many of them filled with yellow highlighter and underlined passages. I refer back to its contents often, and it’s one I hope our OCC alumni will enjoy.
Inspiringly written, Ortberg overwhelms the reader with the dominating role that Jesus has played in creating our history and culture, listing many of the fascinating ways He has changed the world forever. He brings Christ’s humanity to light in a way that makes us better able to ponder His divinity. Ortberg’s simple, flowing style, along with his many stories, keep me buying his books the day they’re released. I’m confident you’ll agree that this one doesn’t disappoint.
“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon, or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” -C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
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