Radical

Reading Radical:Taking Back Your Faith From the American Dream by David Platt.? It is really good.? But as Russell Moore, Dean, Southern Baptist Seminary writes in his endorsement…I have wanted to set it down several times–ouch!!

Sometimes people will commend a book by saying, ?You won?t want to put it down.? I can?t say that about this book. You?ll want to put it down, many times. If you?re like me, as you read David Platt?s Radical, you?ll find yourself uncomfortably targeted by the Holy Spirit. You?ll see just how acclimated you are to the American dream. But you?ll find here another Way, one you know to be true, because you?ve heard it before in the words of the Lord Jesus, perhaps most forcefully in the simple call ?Follow me.? Read this book. Put it away for a time, if you need to, while your conscience is invaded by the Spirit driving you to repentance. And then pick it up again. After you?re done reading, I think you?ll know better how to pick up your cross and follow Christ for the advancement of the kingdom and the destruction of false dreams. ?Russell D. Moore, dean, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

David Platt sets up the book to explain the vast difference between what the modern church in America holds dear and what the Jesus of the Bible taught and held dear.? There is a huge difference.? Here is a great example of his wonderful writing style (emphasis mine):

Whenever the crowd got big, he?d say something such as, ?Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.?[John 6:53] Not exactly the sharpest church-growth tactic. I can almost picture the looks on the disciples? faces. ?No, not the drink-my-blood speech! We?ll never get on the list of the fastest-growing movements if you keep asking them to eat you.? By the end of that speech, all the crowds had left, and only twelve men remained.[John 6:66-67] Jesus apparently wasn?t interested in marketing himself to the masses. His invitations to potential followers were clearly more costly than the crowds were ready to accept, and he seemed to be okay with that. He focused instead on the few who believed him when he said radical things. And through their radical obedience to him, he turned the course of history in a new direction.

Soon I realized I was on a collision course with an American church culture where success is defined by bigger crowds, bigger budgets, and bigger buildings. I was now confronted with a startling reality: Jesus actually spurned the things that my church culture said were most important. So what was I to do? I found myself faced with two big questions.

The first was simple. Was I going to believe Jesus? Was I going to embrace Jesus even though he said radical things that drove the crowds away? The second question was more challenging. Was I going to obey Jesus? My biggest fear, even now, is that I will hear Jesus? words and walk away, content to settle for less than radical obedience to him. In other words, my biggest fear is that I will do exactly what most people did when they encountered Jesus in the first century.

That’s why I’ve written this book.

Check out the book’s promotional website here.? You can go and download the first chapter there as well as view promotional videos.? Also, each chapter has several of Platt’s sermons that you can listen to along with the reading of the chapter.? There is also information on the “Radical Experiment” that his church, The Church at Brook Hills is carrying out to practically apply these teachings.