First, I want to apologize for my lack of posting over the past months and I am trying to make it more of a priority to post.
Second, I just received a copy of When Helping Hurts by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert and I am really excited to read this book since I plan on doing much ministry outside of the United States. I also just purchased The Masculine Mandate by Richard Phillips, which I am hoping is a resource I can use to help myself and other young men in their journey to manhood, as it seems to be a serious problem in the Church today. When I am done reading these two books I hope to have reviews of them up soon after, but can’t promise a time table.
Kevin DeYoung lists When Helping Hurts as one of his top 10 books of 2009 and writes:
This is an important book. You should read it. A wrong response to a book like this is: “Well, everything I’ve ever tried to do to help the poor is apparently wrong. So why bother.” Another wrong response would be: “See, the poor just need to do it themselves. We shouldn’t be wasting our time on this kind of thing.” No, the poor need our help. But passion and generosity may not, by themselves, be very helpful. Often, they are downright hurtful. We need wisdom, patience, and humility. The poor need our help, and we need their help too. We are all broken. We all have sins we can’t see. We all need reconciliation.
As for The Masculine Mandate, Tim Challies writes:
He (Phillips) looks at a man’s sacred calling to work, to bear the image of God and to be a “Shepherd-Lord,” one who tends and cares for all the responsibilities God has placed him over. He looks both to calling and to character, showing how a man must live if he wishes to carry out his mandate in each area of life.Well-written and presenting tough truths within such a simple grid of work and keep, this book is a very useful call for men to live out their mandate before God. I feel challenged and equipped for having read it and am glad to recommend it to any man. Read it, apply it, live it.