Category: Books

Favorite Hymn

I was just surfing around tonight and ran across this blog. The blogger, Rebecca, is asking for people to list their favorite hymn so that she can use the list for upcoming postings. I happen to have a pile of songs I love and would be hard pressed to choose just one or two. But, here are a few that quickly come to mind and some thoughts about them. If you have a favorite, you can add them here, or go over to Rebecca’s blog posting and post them in her comments.

When I Survey the Wondrous Cross This was a song I learned as a young teen. Since I attended a Christian school, we would learn new songs all the time. I very clearly remember my principal, David Hartsfield, teaching us this song. When he would teach us a song, he would teach us all the parts so that we could sing in harmony as a school. The downside? It was not unusual for him to tell us we had to sing before we could order at McDonalds when we were on school trips.

Like a River Glorious I first heard this song, that I know of, when I was in college. I believe it had to be a favorite song of the song leader. We sang it quite often, or at least it seemed to be often. I have often come back to that song as a beloved hymn.

On Jordan’s Stormy Banks I Stand Another song that I was introduced to in college. I once heard a theatrical group sing that song along with acting out some of the verses. The uniqueness was that they had 20 or more different verses.

Great is Thy Faithfulness How can that not be on a list of favorites?

How Great Thou Art Probably has to top my list. That is, if I could rank these things. My favorite verse, and the one that is often skipped over is: My sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought, my sin, not in part, but the whole. Is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more, Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Oh, my soul.

Those are just 5 that jumped out at me at the moment. With a song book in hand, I can easily point out dozens of songs that have some significance to me.

What are your favorites?

Review: David Livingstone Africa’s Trailblazer

For the recent episode of Missionary Talks where I give a biography of David Livingstone, I pulled most of my reading and research from the book David Livingstone: Africa’s Trailblazer by Janet and Geoff Benge. This book is published by YWAM (Youth With a Mission) Publishing and is just one in a series called Christian Heroes: Then & Now.

I assume this book is written for a teenage level. It certainly is readable and understandable for younger readers. I read it to my son a couple of years ago when he was 7 and he enjoyed it.

The book seems to be well written. I did not have any glaring questions after having read the book. However, after doing more research into the life of Dr. Livingstone I found out that there were some interesting facts not even mentioned in the book. One such fact was that he was injured and mostly blinded in one eye. Seems to be a simple enough thing to have included in a book, but it was not even alluded to within its covers.

What I really enjoyed about the book was the inclusion of a simple map of Livingstone’s travels. It shows the southern part of Africa where Dr. Livingstone traveled along with the place names where major events took place in his life. The only thing better they could have done with it is to show which African nations are currently in those areas. Doing so would have been neat to see, but I realize that it would have taken away from the simplicity of the map. And, the fact that the African countries as we know them today just did not exist back then. It was just Africa.

Of course the book is written from a decidedly Christian perspective. Livingstone is held up as a model of Christian missions. Less emphasis was placed on his work as a government explorer. And, not surprisingly, little emphasis is placed on his failures as a man. Though the authors touch on some of his project failures, they say little about the interpersonal conflicts that he had.

The book is very emotional and a good read. It was published in 1999 and has 216 pages.

[click on the image to buy the book at Amazon.com]

Haggling for a bookshelf

We have some friends that are coming to stay with us in a week. BookshelfWe needed to tidy up the room they are going to be staying in. Since we are avid book hoarders, we have too many books to put on the shelves we have. In our son’s room, we had a bookshelf that was full and then piled. Piles of books on top, on the sides and in front of it.

We definitely needed a new bookshelf.

We went downtown to an area where we had bought some wooden furniture before. The prices are not spectacular, but better than other stores. We wondered around through a few of the carpenter shops without seeing any bookshelves. One thing is very apparent here…people don’t really read much and there is not much of a need for every house to have 5 bookshelves like ours. Therefore, there are not many to be had in the stores.

We did, however, find one that we convinced ourselves was about right in size and price. The sticker said $120. Since it was obvious that it had been sitting there a while, we decided to try and haggle the price down a little. I should have started lower, but I offered the lady $100. I wanted that price to include the $8 delivery fee.

She countered with $110 and I pay the delivery fee. I then offered her $110 including the fee.

She thought for a few seconds and she said, “$100 plus delivery fee.” It did not take me long to think that through and I told her I would take it.

It was delivered yesterday afternoon and I saved $20.

Review: Marconi Father of Radio

This is an old book (published in 1965) written by David Gunston. The target audience must be school aged children. It is not a very detailed biography, rather a good overview of his life. Which, I actually enjoy. I love biographies, but sometimes if I am just casually interested in the subject, a children’s book is what I enjoy reading. You get the main facts without all the gory details.

I did not find the book very well written. There were a few typos in the book too. But, the copy I have is a first edition/first printing, so they may have been cleaned up in later printings.

There is a very good time line in the back of the book. Something that I always like seeing in a biography. It is helpful for getting a general overview of how old the person was when major events happened.

Marconi is the man who pioneered radio. Though he did not discover that there were such things as radio waves, he put them into use. Most of his work was pulling together the work of other men and making the jump from theory to practical application. In fact, there were a few of his discoveries that he put into use before science could even prove why it worked. The book stated that there was one of his hunches that he capitalized on and that it took science 30 years to explain why.

He considered himself more of an experimenter than a scientist. He just kept trying different things to see what would work.

The first trans-Atlantic radio communication was in December of 1901. Just 5 years previous he was conducting his first experiments with what we now know as radio and was limited to 2 miles of communication range. Though he did not perfect it into anything near what it is today, he pioneered and discovered the principles that make RADAR possible.

One of the concluding statements in the book that I found interesting was this. “If every form of radio were to be suddenly taken away from us our bustling modern would would instantly grind to an ignominious halt.” That was written more than 40 years ago. How much more true is it today? Telephones and radio would be affected, but also much of our Internet technology would not be possible. Without the work of Marconi, I am sure another person would have made the same discoveries. But what if they didn’t?

Certainly an important person in history.

As a Ham Radio operator, I was interested in the book from a technical standpoint, not so much as a biography. The book was somewhat humorous to me in this light. Many old terms were used in describing the work of Marconi. The author did have a very long section in his concluding pages about the work of Ham Radio operators in his time. I would not, however, recommend the book if you are wanting to learn about ham radio for the first time. Many of the terms used would serve you no purpose.

(Click on the picture of the book to purchase from Amazon.)

Symbolism in the Bible

Have you ever read some of the passages in the Bible where it talks about Heaven and you knew that the words used were not sufficient for the full description? Where it seems like the writer is just using the best words that he can find to make what heaven is like somewhat understandable?

Two weeks ago at church I preached about Heaven. I taught through the descriptions in Revelation 21 as to the beauty and splendor of that wonderful place. I know the author, John, used wording that was understandable. But we have often heard people say that words cannot fully explain what Heaven will be like. The symbolism that John used in those verses surely pale in comparison to the actual beauty of Heaven.

This last Sunday I preached about Hell. In preparation for my message I skimmed through an excellent resource that I have kept since my college days. It is a doctrines book written by William Evans, Great Doctrines of the Bible. In this passage he is talking about the literalness of the use of the word “fire” to describe Hell (page 262).

It is an accepted law of language that a figure of speech is less intense than the reality. If “fire” is merely a figurative expression, it must stand for some great reality, and if the reality is more intense than the figure, what an awful thing the punishment symbolized by fire must be.

I thought that was an appropriate paragraph to describe the awfulness of Hell. Conversely, everything John writes about Heaven can be seen in the same light. That all the wonderful thoughts and imagery that the words used to describe Heaven conjure up in our minds, it is but a small descriptor of the reality of God’s home.