Summer Reading

I've used a lot of my down time in the past few weeks to catch up on reading that I hoped to do before my work starts in Marseille this fall.

The first book, John Piper's Let the Nations Be Glad: The Supremacy of God in Missions, is one I've had for a while but am finally starting to read. The first three chapters examine in turn the aspects of worship, prayer and suffering in missions. I was especially struck in the chapter on prayer by the way prayer truly points to God's sovereignty and glory in missions--we recognize that it is only by and through him that the work is accomplished. It also made me very thankful for the many people praying for this year of mission!


My second read (because I always end up reading multiple books at once) is Bernard Lewis's The Middle East: A Brief History of the Last 2,000 Years. A professor in college introduced me to Dr. Lewis's works on the Arab world, and I had the opportunity to read several of his other books for school. This particular work I found a yard sale right before leaving, so I was quite happy to complete my collection. It includes a lot of good backround material on the Middle East before the arrival of Islam or even Christianity, and then goes on to describe the years following Mohammed's life from a scholarly and fairly balanced perspective. I recommend this and any of Lewis's other works to those interested in the history and culture of the lesser-known parts of Arab history.