Reading Record

2026

1. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly  - Jean Dominique Bauby
2. Tyrant - Conn Iggulden
3. The Lord of Psalm 23 - David Gibson
4. How to Be Human - Newday
5. 
   

2025

1. What It Means to Be Protestant - Gavin Ortlund
2. Ultra Processed People - Christopher Van Tuliken (audible)
3. Never - Ken follett
4. Ghosted - Nancy French (audible)
5. A Crisis of Confidence - Carl Truman (audible)
6. Boy at back of class (audible)
7. Letters to Malcolm - C.S. Lewis
8. Hannah's Child - Stanley Hauerwas
9. Adopted By God - Matthieu Lambert
10. Psalms for a Saturated Soul - Alan Frow
11. Zeal Without Burnout - Christopher Ash (audible)
12. The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkein
13. The Intimacy Deficit - Ed Shaw
14. Dragon Riders of Roar - Jenny McLachlan 
15. Do Christian and Muslims Worship the Same God? - Andy Bannister
16. The Heart of Jesus - Dane Ortlund
17. Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett
18. Shades of Grey - Ruta Sepetys
19. Single Ever After - Danielle Treweek (audible)
20. Disentangled - Jo Johnson
21. 10 Rules for Raising Kids in a High-Tech World - Jean Twenge
22. Becoming Mamma - Yvrose Telfort-Ismael
23. Defying Jihad - Esther Ahmed
24. How to See The World - Nicholas Mirzoef
25. The Explorer - Katherine Rundell
26. The Psychology of Money - Morgan Housel
27. Colossians and Philemon - Douglas Moo
28. Revelation - Ian Paul
29. Mr Mercedes - Stephen King
30. Mansion of the Heart - Thomas Ashbrook
31. Supercommuicators - Charles Duhigg
32. How to Know a Person - David Brooks
33. How to Read a Tree - Tristan Gooley (DF)
34. The Critical Journey - Janet Hagberg
35. The Salt Path - Raynor Winn (DF)

2024

1. Empire - Conn Iggulden
2. Testosterone - Carole Hooven (audible)
3. Sure I'll Join Your Cult - Maria Bamford (audible)
4. A Brief Theology of Periods - Rachel Jones
5. Any Human Heart - William Boyd
6. Dominion and Dynasty - Stephen Dempster
7. 4000 Weeks - Oliver Burkemann (audible)
8. Three or More, Grove Booklets - Andrew Bunt
9. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
10. 3-2-1 - Glen Scrivener
11. Bad Therapy - Abigail Shrier (Audible)
12. The Truth About Lies - Mack Stiles
13. Visible Grace - Caleb Butcher 
14. The Message of Hosea - Derek Kidner
15. The Making of Biblical Womanhood - Beth Allison Barr
16. Politics On the Edge - Rory Stewart
17. Like or Follow - Mike
18. Munich Wolf - Rory Clements
19. Song of Songs - Charlie Cleverley
20. Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
21. The Anxious Generation - Jonathan Heidt
22. Feminism Against Progress - Mary Harrington
23. 'Tis Mercy All - Natalie Williams
24. The Jesus Prayer - Timothy Ware
25. On the Aquisition of the Spirit - St Serphaim of Sarov
26. The Orthodox Church - Timothy Ware
27. Ready Player One - Ernest Cline
28. You Are Mine - Sister Anastasia 
29. A Brief History of Thought - Luc Ferry
30. Sense & Sensibility - Jane Austin
31. One - 
32. Return to Roar - Jenny McLachlan
33. Thank God It's Monday - Mark Greene
34. Christianity's Dangerous Idea - Alister McGrath
35. Dethroning Race - Ryan Saville
36. Everything Sad Is Untrue - Daniel Nayeri (audible)
37. Living In Wonder - Rod Dreher
38. Practising the Way - John Mark Comer
39. Metamorphosis  - Matt Hatch
40. Billy No Mates - Max Dickens (audible)
41. The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
42. The Parasitic Mind - Gad Saad (audible)
43. The Battle For Roar - Jenny McLachlan
44. Jesus of Nazareth - Joseph Ratzinger (audible)
45. The Thing that Would Make Everything Ok Forever - Ashley Lande
46. Nero - Conn Iggulden
47. Fully Alive - Elizabeth Oldfield
48. If You Want to Change the World (start by making your bed) - William McRaven

2023

1. Alexander the Great - Dominic Sandbrook
2. Powerful Leaders? - Marcus Honeysett
3. The Fury of the Vikings - Dominic Sandbrook
4. False Alarm - Bjorn Llornberg (audible)
5. Dune - Frank Herbert (audible)
6. Prince Caspian - C.S. Lewis
7. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
8. Gender Quality - Stef Liston
9. Two Views on Women in Ministry - Keener, Blonberg, etc.
10. The Gates of Rome - Conn Igguldenn
11. It Takes a Church to Raise a Parent - Rachel Turner
12. Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools - Tyler Stanton (audible)
13. God Has a name - John Mark Comer (audible)
14. Guernica - Dave Boling
15. The Air We Breathe - Glen Scrivener
16. The Secret Place of Thunder - John Starke
17. The Meaning of Singleness - Danielle Treweek
18. Lion - Conn Iggulden
19. The First World War - Dominic Sandbrook
20. 1776: Remaking the World - Andrew Wilson
21. The Toxic War on Masculinity - Nancey Pearcey
22. The Game of Thrones - Audible
23. Animal Farm - George Orwell
24. When Breath Becomes Air - Paul Kalinisi
25. A Praying Church - Paul Miller
26. Never Split the Difference - Paul Voss (audible)
27. Women In the Church - Tom Schreiner & Andreas Kostenberger
28. The Body Keeps the Score - Bessel Van Der Kolk (audible)
29. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
30. Adventures in Accountant - Andrew Meggs
31. Nine O'Clock in the Morning - Dennis Bennett
32. This Side of the Door - John Hosier

2022

1. Abortion - Dr Lizzie Ling
2. God's Sketchbook - Jake Goodison
3. Gods of War - Meic Pearse
4. Return to Roar - Jenny McLaughlin
5. Born to Run - Chris McDoughall (audible)
6. Stolen Focus - Johann Hari
7. Gay Girl, Good God - Jackie Hill Perry (audible)
8. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King - J. R. R. Tolkein
9. The Intentional Father - Jon Tyson (audible)
10. The Christbook Matthew 1-12 - Dale Bruner
11. Why Does God Allow War? - Martyn Lloyd Jones
12. The Gates of Athens - Conn Iggulden
13. Is Atheism Dead? - Eric Metaxes (audible)
14. The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self - Carl Trueman
15. Beautiful Resistance - Jon Tyson (audible)
16. Adam's Return - Richard Rohr
17. The Power of Moments - Chip Heath & Dan Heath (audible)
18. Fully Human - Steve Biddulph
19. 1 Corinthians For You - Andrew Wilson
20. Multiplanting - Colin Baron
21. A Non-Anxious Presence - Mark Sayers
22. Scars Across Humanity - Elaine Storkey
23. I Am Pilgrim - Terry Hayes
24. How To Hear God's Voice - Pete Greig (audible)
25. Hamnet - Maggie O'Farrell
26. Live No Lies - John Mark Comer (audible) x 2
27. The Bethlehem Story - Andy McCullogh
28. The Story of Christianity - David Bentley Hart
29. Making Faith Magnetic - Dan Strange
30. The Lion, The With & the Wardrobe - C. S. Lewis
31. The Cross & the Lynching Tree - James Cole

2021

1. Gentle & Lowly - Dane Ortland
2. Darien - Conn Iggulden (audible)
3. Marie Durand - Simonetta Carr
4. The Gates of Athens - Conn Iggulden
5. Letter From Birmingham Jail - Martin Luther King, Jr.
6. When Father's Ruled - Steven Ozment
7. American Dirt - Jeanine Cummins
8. The Promised Land - Barak Obama (audible)
9. Easy Peasy Puppy Squeezy - Steve Mann
10. Culture Care - Makoto Fujimura
11. George Muller - Roland Miller
12. Grace-Filled Marriage - Claire & Steve Musters
13. Greenlights - Matthew McCougnay (audible)
14. Identity - Francis Fukyama
15. The Battle for Christian Britain - Callum Brown
16. Walking with God through Pain and Suffering - Timothy Keller
17. Dominion - Tom Holland
18. Unspoken - GuvnaB
19. The Eye of the Needle - Ken Follett
20. In Order to Live - Yeonmi Park
21. Shiang - Conn Iggulden (audible)
22. The Sword Saint - Conn Iggulden (audible)
23. The Atomic Power of Habits - James Clear (audible)
24. People Not Pronouns - Andrew Bunt
25. Boys, God & the Church - Nick Harding
26. 12 More Rules For Life - Jordan Peterson
27. How the West Really Lost God - Mary Eberstadt
28. That Hideous Strength - Melvin Tinker
29. The Boy Crisis - Warren Farrell
30. The Myth of Male Power - Warren Farrell (audible)
31. The Land of Roar - Jenny McLaughlin
32. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers - J. R. R. Tolkien 
33. Jesus Revolution - Greg Laurie & Ellen Vaughn
34. There is Always Enough - Roland & Heidi Baker
35. Dietrich Bonhoeffer - Eric Metaxes (audible)

2020

1. A Meal With Jesus - Tim Chester
2. How to Pray - Pete Greig (audible)
3. The Boy, the Horse, the Fox and the Mole - Charlie Macksay
4. The Pastor - Eugene Peterson
5. Falcon of Sparta - Conn Iggulden
6. Global Humility - Andy McCullogh
7. The Unseen Realm - Michael Heiser
8. Fly on the Wall - John Woods
9. A Better Story - Glynn Harrison
10. Job - Christopher Ash
11. The Fellowship of the Ring - J.R.R Tolkien
12. A Time to think - Nancy Kline 
13. Garden City - John Mark Comer
14. We Need to Talk About Race - Ben Lindsey
15. The Beekeeper of Aleppo - Cristy Lefteri
16. The Tattowitz of Auschwitz - Heather Morris
17. On the Incarnation - St Athanasius
18. The Boy Who Followed His Father into Auschwitz - Jeremy Dronfield
19. Guns, Germs & Steel - Jared Diamond
20. The Choice - Edith Eger
21. The Big Ego Trip - Glynn Harrison
22. Where is god in suffering - AMY Orr-Ewing 
23. I’m ok you’re ok - Thomas Harris 
24. Games people play 

2019

1. Understanding and Treating Sex Addiction - Paula Hall
2. Perfectionism - Will Van Der Hart
3. A War of Loves - David Bennett
4. Playing God, Redeeming the Gift of Power - Andy Crouch (audible)
5. iGen - Jean Twenge
6. The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky 
7. 3 Theories of Everything - Ellis Potter
8. Forgotten God - Francis Chan (audible)
9. Stumbling Along with God - Ellis Potter
10. How Do You Know That? - Ellis Potter
11. If I Perish - Esther Ahn Kim
12. Confronting Porn - Paula Hall
13. Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert - Rosaria Champagne Butterfield (audible)
14. The Hobbit - J. R. R Tolkien 
15. Beyond The Ranges - Geraldine 
16. Love Thy Body - Nancy Pearcey
17. The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry - John Mark Comer

2018

1. 12 Ways to Your Phone Is Changing You - Tony Reinke
2. None Like Him - Jen Wilkens
3. Who You Are When No One's Watching - Bill Hybels
4. Cold - Ranulph Fiennes
5. 12 Rules For Life - Jordan Peterson
6. The Empty Self - Jeffery Satinover
7. Bad Dad - David Walliams 
8. Ministering With Emotional Intelligence
9. Disappearing Church - Mark Sayers
10. Dirty Glory - Pete Greig
11. Dunstan - Conn Iggulden
12. The Hiding Place - Corrie ten Boom
13. Mere Christianity - C.S. Lewis (audible)
14. Letters to the Church - Francis Chan
15. What Good Is God - Philip Yancey
16. 'Til We Have Faces - C.S. Lewis (audible)
17. Fools & Mortals - Bernard Cornwell
18. Foolishness to the Greeks - Leslie Newbigin
19. The Abolition of Man - C.S. Lewis
20. The Problem of Pain - C.S. Lewis (audible)
21. The Coddling of the American Mind - Jonathan Haidt (audible)

2017

1. Who Is This Man - John Ortberg
2. True Grit - Bear Grylls
3. Future Men - Douglas Wilson (unfinished)
4. Shame & Honour - Roland Muller
5. Prisoners of Geography - Tim Marshall
6. Nomad - Alan Partridge (audible)
7. Getting Things Done - (audible)
8. Start With Why - Simon Senik (audible) 
9. Humble Roots - Hannah Anderson
10. The Power of Habit - (audible)
11. Twelve Brain Rules - John Medina (audible)
12. The Day the Revolution Began - Tom Wright
13. Kingdom, Hope and the End of the World - Ian Paul
14. Things of the Earth - Joe Rigney
15. Ravenspur - Conn Iggulden 
16. Making Sense of God - Tim Keller
17. Reaching Muslims - Nick Chatrath
18. The Quest for Perfection - Rhonda Knight
19. The Unquenchable Flame - Mike Reeves
20. The Bruised Reed - Richard Sibbes
21. The Shantung Compound - Langdon Gilkey
22. Small Town Jesus - Donnie Griggs
23. Daring Greatly - Brene Brown
24. Endurance - Alfred Lansing

2016

1. Living a Life of Fire - Reinhard Bonke 
2. Center Church - Tim Keller
3. A Short Life of Cotton Mather
4. Trinity - Conn Igguldenn 
5. Encounters With Jesus - Tim Keller
6. How Not To Be Secular - James Smith
7. Seven Habits of Highly Effective People - Stephen Covey
8. Two Years, eight months and twenty eight nights - Salmon Rushdie Not finished
9. Gospel Powered Parenting - William Farley Not finished
10. The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment - Jeremiah Burroughs NtF 
11. The Magicians' Nephew - C.S. Lewis 
12. The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis 
13. That Hideous Strength - C.S. Lewis 
14. You Are What You Love - James Smith
15. Gospel-Centered Family - Tim Chester 
16. Chav Christianity - Darren 
17. The Churchill Factor - Boris Johnson
18. Emotional Intelligence - Not finished
19. The Righteous Mind - Jonathan Heidt (Audible)
20. Everyday Supernatural - Mike P 
21. Unapologetic - Francis Spufford (Audible)
22. The Happiness Hypothesis - Jonathan Heidt (Audible)
23. How To Win Friends And Influence People - Dale Carnegie
24. Fit To Burst - Rachel Jankovic
25. Paths to Glory - Jeffery Archer

2015

• Prayer - Tim Keller
• Loving the Little Years - Rachel Jankovic
• The Wisdom House - Rob Parsons
• Father Hunger - Doug Wilson
• Home For Good - Krish Kandiah Not finished
• The Triumph of Christianity - Rodney Stark

2014

Simon Holley - Sustainable Power completed

Comments: Excellent book. A great encouragement to action in praying for the sick and pursuing acts of courage.
Take homes off the top of my head: 

• persevere with praying for the sick. Stories told of a man who committed to praying every week for a 1.5yrs for a woman who was sick, she recovered and he learnt a lot about the nature of persevering prayer.
• praying for the sick. Ask people to 'test it' if they can, ask how much pain they're in 'out of 10?'
• stories really build faith and expectancy

Alec Motyer - Preaching part through

Bill Johnson - The Supernatural Ways of Royalty started

Conn Iggulden - Quantum of Tweed (fiction) completed

Paul Copan - Is God a Moral Monster part through

Alister McGrath - Doubting Completed

Comments: Loved it. The book I've been wanting to read for a long time!
Take homes off the top of my head:

• Faith deals in worldviews and ideas which by their very nature we can never be 100% certain about. The person committed to any kind of -ism has to learn to live with doubt. 
• Doubt is a normal part of the life of faith.

Paul Miller - A Praying life completed

Comments: A great book. Any book that gives me an increased desire to pray is a well-received book and gift to my Christian life. I'm going to write a review alongside some of the quotes to add further comments to what I thought of the book. Initial take homes:

• Seeing the 'fingerprints' of God over all of my life. Learning to spot how God is at work in the world.
• The book was good at emphasising: 'God is a person' and the fact that we are to develop a relationship with him, a person.
• 'If we approach prayer thinking all the while about prayer then we'll struggle, rather like driving and focusing on the windscreen makes driving difficult.'

Conn Iggulden - Blackwater (fiction) Completed

Michael Reeves - Enjoy Your Prayer Life Completed

Great book. Short book with plenty to re-read and quote. One of the things that initially made an impression on me was:

Prayerlessness is functional atheism. 

That's powerful, right there!

Tom Wright - How God Became King half way

John Stott - Galatians Completed

Tom Wright - Galatians For Everyone Completed

GK Chesterton - Orthodoxy half way

Steve Bidulph - Raising Boys Completed

Ed West - The Silence of Our Friends Completed

Andy Stanley - Deep & Wide Completed

Great book! Lots of really helpful stuff about the importance and strategy of reaching unchurched people with the gospel and building churches that unchurched people love to attend.

Great insight as well on what makes people grow in God, something around which they have then built their small groups:

P - Private disciplines
P - Practical teaching
P - Personal ministry
P - Providential relationships
P - Pivotal circumstances

That'll stay with me for sure.

James Emery White - The Rise of the Nones Completed

Good book. Good stuff on cultural trends, Christian spiritual narcissism and a memorable section about the words taken out of the dictionary...

Larry Osborne - Sticky Church Started

Shepherding a Child's Heart - Ted Tripp Completed

Follow Me - David Platt Completed

Stormbird - Conn Iggulden Completed

Enders Game - Completed

The Maze Runner - James Dashner Completed

Christ Our Life - Mike Reeves Completed

Unbreakable - Andrew Wilson Completed
The Blessed Life - Robert Morris 

Deep & Wide: Andy Stanley

Deep & Wide - Andy Stanley

On the actual responsibility of leadership as opposed to our perceived responsibility. Give of yourself:

As leaders we are never responsible for filling anyone else's cup. Our responsibility is to empty ours.

On the importance of integrity and the primary importance of being a dad and husband before a church leader:

What goes on at home is the litmus test of a man or woman's walk with God, not how well he or she does once a microphone is strapped on.

On the need of the church:

The church needs leaders who are willing to do whatever is necessary to ensure that we hand it off to the next generation in better shape than we found it.

On the real nature of church as people not building:

An ekklesia was simply a gathering or an assembly of people called out of specific purpose. Ekklesia never referred to a specific place, only a specific people.

...While it's amazing that the church survived the persecution of the first century, it may be more amazing that it survived the institutionalisation and corruption of the centuries that followed. But it did survive. Jesus promised it would. As it turned out, the kirche of man could not contain the ekklesia of Jesus.

On the gospel message:

The New Testament is clear. We are not mistakers in need of correction. We are sinners in need of a Saviour.

 Grace or truth?

Jesus did not come to strike a balance between grace and truth. He brought the full measure of both.

It's easy to create an all-truth church model. It may be even easier to create an all-grace model. But Jesus didn't leave either option on the table. 

It's pointless to tell me I'm forgiven if I'm not sure why I need forgiveness in the first palce. That's the beauty of grace and truth. They compliment. They are both necessary. They are not part of a continuum. They are not opposite ends of a pole. They are the two essential ingredients. Without massive doses of both, you won't have a healthy gathering.

On pastoral approach:

We walk toward to messes. In other words, we don't feel compelled to sort everything or everyone out ahead of time. We are not going to spend countless hours creating policies for every eventuality. Instead we've chosen to wade in hip-deep and sort things out one relationship, one conversation, at a time.

Great quote on integrity:

If you want to know what people mean by what they say, watch what they do. Actions don't only speak louder than words; actions should be used to interpret words. 

Communication section:

People are far more interested in what works than what's true. I hate to burst your bubble, but virtually nobody in your church is on a truth quest. Including your spouse. They are on happiness quests.

On finding connection points with an audience and being students of people:

Culture is like the wind. You can't stop it. You shouldn't spit in it. But, if like a good sailor you will adjust your sails, you can harness the winds of culture to take your audience where they need to go.

On getting people to read their Bibles: 'I'm not above saying things like "You should read the Bible so you will have more moral authority when you tell people you don't believe it. Don't be like the kid who says he doesn't like string beans but never tasted them. Come on, what are you afraid of!"

On challenging unchurched people as well as Christians, he says:

When people are convinced you want something FOR them rather than something FROM them, they are less likely to be offended when you challenge them.

Approach to preaching:

My approach is to entice the audience to follow me into one passage of scripture with the promise that the text is either going to answer a question they've been asking, solve a mystery they've puzzled over, or resolve a tension they've been carrying. Once we are in the text, I do my best to let it pseak for itself. I go slowly, I highlight words. I leverage the drama. I roll them around in the text until it gets all over them. I bring my energy to a text and I do my best to uncover the energy in the text. Once they are thoroughly embroiled with the passage, I take on carefully crafted statement that emerges from the point of the text and do everything in my power to make it stick. 

Tale of Two Cities: Substitution

In Center Church, Keller writes:

In Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities, two men - Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton - both love the same woman, Lucie Manette, but Lucie chooses to marry Charles. Later, during the French Revolution, Charles is thrown in prison and awaits execution on the guillotine. Sydney visits Charles in prison, drugs him, and has him carried out. When a young seamstress (also on death row) realises that Sydney is taking Charles's place, she is amazed and ask him to hold her hand for strength. She is deeply moved by his substitutionary sacrifice and it wasn't even for her! When we realise that Jesus did the very same thing for us, it changes everything - the way we regard God, ourselves, and the world.

Dorothy Sayers's Incarnation:

Dorothy Sayers (1893-1957) was a renowned English crime writer, poet, playwright, essayist, translator and Christian humanist.

She was one of the first women to attend Oxford University. Keller:

Many fans of Dorothy Sayers's detective stories and mystery novels point out that Sayers was onf ot eh first women to attend Oxford University. The main character in her stories - Lord Peter Wimsey - is an aristocratic sleuth and a single man. At one point in the novles, though, a new character appears, Harriet Vane. Harriet Vane is described as one of the first women who graduated from Oxford - and as a writer of mystery novels. Eventually she and Peter fall in love and marry. Who was she? Many believe Sayers looked into the world she had created, fell in love with her lonely hero, and wrote herself into the story to save him. Very touching! But that is not nearly as moving or amazing as the reality of the incarnation. God, as it were, looked into the world he had made and saw our lostness and had pity on his people. And so he wrote himself into human history as its main character. The second person in the Trinity, the Son of God, came into the world as a man, Jesus Christ.

David Foster Wallace Graduation Speech

Referenced in 'Center Church' David Foster Wallace gave a speech at Kenyon College shortly before his death in 2008. He was a novelist and influential Christian writer/professor. He hung himself in his garage after battling with depression for more than 20 years. 

It is unclear whether or not he was a Christian but many people believe that he was, albeit with a complex relationship with the church. Below is this great quote on idolatry from the above mentioned address:

Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship--be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles--is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.

Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful, it's that they're unconscious. They are default settings.

They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing.

and the full speech is available to read here: http://moreintelligentlife.com/story/david-foster-wallace-in-his-own-words

Some excellent excerpts from the speech involved comment on the natural self-centeredness of life:

Here is just one example of the total wrongness of something I tend to be automatically sure of: everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute centre of the universe; the realest, most vivid and important person in existence. We rarely think about this sort of natural, basic self-centredness because it's so socially repulsive. But it's pretty much the same for all of us. It is our default setting, hard-wired into our boards at birth. Think about it: there is no experience you have had that you are not the absolute centre of. The world as you experience it is there in front of YOU or behind YOU, to the left or right of YOU, on YOUR TV or YOUR monitor. And so on. Other people's thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you somehow, but your own are so immediate, urgent, real.

Please don't worry that I'm getting ready to lecture you about compassion or other-directedness or all the so-called virtues. This is not a matter of virtue. It's a matter of my choosing to do the work of somehow altering or getting free of my natural, hard-wired default setting which is to be deeply and literally self-centered and to see and interpret everything through this lens of self. People who can adjust their natural default setting this way are often described as being "well-adjusted", which I suggest to you is not an accidental term.

Reality as we come across it and find it all tells us that we are the centre of the universe, something is (obviously) not true. The point is that we really cannot expect to so easily understand everything in the universe when the one thing we can feel absolutely certain of is also the one thing we can be absolutely clear on being wrong about.

Also are two interesting parables/illustrations:

There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says "Morning, boys. How's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes "What the hell is water?"

Making the point that:

the most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about. 

And here's another little story about two people (one believer and one atheist) talking about faith and God:

There are these two guys sitting together in a bar in the remote Alaskan wilderness. One of the guys is religious, the other is an atheist, and the two are arguing about the existence of God with that special intensity that comes after about the fourth beer. And the atheist says: "Look, it's not like I don't have actual reasons for not believing in God. It's not like I haven't ever experimented with the whole God and prayer thing. Just last month I got caught away from the camp in that terrible blizzard, and I was totally lost and I couldn't see a thing, and it was 50 below, and so I tried it: I fell to my knees in the snow and cried out 'Oh, God, if there is a God, I'm lost in this blizzard, and I'm gonna die if you don't help me.'" And now, in the bar, the religious guy looks at the atheist all puzzled. "Well then you must believe now," he says, "After all, here you are, alive." The atheist just rolls his eyes. "No, man, all that was was a couple Eskimos happened to come wandering by and showed me the way back to camp." 

A person's interpretation of events comes out of the person himself and those interpretative methods are formed by all sorts of things: education, experience, cultural influences, internal wiring.

Some interesting and provoking comments.

Isaiah 44 notes

Isaiah 44:9-20  - the True and Living God

previously… in the verses preceding this one we have (in Is. 40-41) a description of the glory of the Incomparable God which, by contrast shows the futility and powerlessness of idol gods. In the verses in this chapter immediately before v9 we have a reminder of the eternality of God: v6 ‘i am the first and last, besides me there is no god.’ & v8 ‘is there a God besides me? There is no Rock; I know not any. Interesting that here Rock is used as an acceptable alternative to God. Perhaps this then is a fair description of what ‘God’ means when we talk about him. He is a Rock we build upon, stand on, home in and trust.

9-20

9: idol makers are ‘nothing’, their idols ‘do not profit’ and idol worshippers are ‘put to shame’

10: who would do such a thing as make an idol?

11: they bring shame to people and if they were to stop and see what they do, they’d be appalled

12: Ironsmith. Metal gods. The man who makes a god is human. One who tires, gets hungry, needs rest.

13: Carpentry. Wooden gods. Using his skill he crafts something in the image of something earthly. 

14: He uses naturally grown, earthly things, non-divine things to make his god with.

15: He uses it for physical nourishment and warmth, but also for spiritual satisfaction 

16-17: Half is burned and the other half is used for all sorts of things and then afterwards - worshipped.

18: The worshipper of idols cannot see his own stupidity

19: The worshipper doesn’t understand his own stupidity. 

20: The worshipper is deluded, lost and enslaved.

Point: Idols are not gods that save, nor are they gods that live. 

Point: God is not like the other gods. God is alive, powerful, and divine. God forgives, frees, and rescues.

Motyer:

“Considering the absurdity of idols shows the glory of Yahweh”

“Idols are nothing and have no power… and yet they hold the idolaters in an iron grip.”

An idol is: “whatever captures the human mind and heart as an alternative to Jesus and the way of faith”

“They are not guiltless in their idol making, they know better.”

“Isaiah hammers away at humanness. No matter what their intent, the result of human effort cannot rise able the human… human strength cannot create the divine.”

“The idolater chooses a delusion and becomes deluded… he holds the idol in his hand, but really it holds him.”

Also to obsever:

The consequences of worshipping…

• God: transformation (44:3-5)
• Idols: Degeneration (44:18-20) 

Verses on idolatry: 

• 1 Cor. 8:4-5
• Psalm 115:8
• 1 John 5
• 1 Thessalonians 1:8-10

Isaiah 40:18, to whom then will you compare me

Isaiah 40:25, to whom then will you compare me 

Isaiah 44: Sermon ideas

Sermon ideas - Isaiah 44: 

Who’s fool are you? We are all enslaved to something/someone. We all serve somebody. Idolatry enslaves. 

in the text:

• the rock of God - i know no other!
• the iron and wood of idols - save me!

Be careful what you wish for, you might just get it. 

The choice we make with our lives isn’t worship God or don’t the choice we make is worship God or worship idols. It’s a question of ‘do i build my house here or over here?’ do I live for that or for this? Shall I follow Jesus or not? Shall I follow Jesus or shall I follow someone/thing else?

We have all struggled to believe God is who he says he is at one time or another (hands up), and so we’re not alone in this. Could close the sermon there because we have all learnt something, that we’re not alone. 

Learn about God by contrast. Idols are said to be:

• powerless to save
• manmade 
• convenient
• deceptive 
• dead

1 Thess: turn from idols to the true and living God. 

Profit:

Matthew - What does it profit a man…

Proverbs - earthly treasures do not profit

God mocks people who make gods and asks: have you made a god? Are you investing in something profitless? In Isaiah 40-49 he keeps exalting God the Father 

We have a longing for eternal life. We ignore death our whole lives and are always searching for things to keep death away. 1 John 5:12 whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.

Knowledge is not the same as truth. We have more knowledge than ever before but do we have more truth? In him is truth (i am the way the truth and the life). He is the true God and eternal life. 

Perhaps the idea has more to do with God as ‘rock’ and so it’s important that we know that God is a true and living Rock since no other rock in this world/life is. God is a rock upon which we build our lives. He is a true rock: stable, reliable, trustworthy and he is a living rock: solid, able to rescue, powerful, mighty.

Problem:

• idolatry is building our lives upon any rock other than God. It’s the saying to anything other than God ‘you can protect me, provide for me, sustain me, rescue me, strengthen me...'
• Idolatry destroys and distorts our humanity
• Idolatry deceives and blinds us
• We’re all idolaters 

What does it mean for my life when I say that God is my ‘rock’ and other things aren’t?

• My ultimate hope for the things I long for is found in him. that means that when I lose the things of this life, I do not despair in desperation. 
• Stories of what happens when we put our hope in the things of this world. He became a curse for me. when he hung on the cross he was cursed and received our curse and the curse of idolatry.

Ask why questions of the text and of us:

God is the true and living God. Why do we need to know this? 

• I am often deceived by so many other things that promise to give me satisfaction and truth. 
• I turn to things that aren’t living to do what only the living God

But it can’t just be existential/emotional fulfilment that this point impacts upon:

God is truth. He is the source of truth, he does not lie, he is always honest. In a world of leaders we can’t trust, God is truth. He cannot lie. 

God is living. He is not dead. He cannot die, he is the source of all life and will never not be living. Idols and false images of God may die but God the true God is the living one. Bursting with energy and vitality, God is life in all its youthfulness and strength.

Idols exits in stark contrast to God.

We spoke about idolatry recently and I said that all of us are idol worshippers. Why do we do it? Story of the Bible is the story of idolatries implications and yet they returned to it over and over again. Why? Why do we return to things that don’t work out for us

Idolatry: Why idolatry? Why did these guys make the wood?

Because… every one else was doing it, because life is tactile and they wanted worship to be as well, because of the size and success of the nations who did it, because to not do it is harder than doing it.

1. Information. What do they need to know? try and get it into one key sentence.

God is the true and living rock that we can build our lives upon

That worshipping idols enslaves and deceives but worshipping God brings freedom and truth

Our God is the true and living God. We all want truth and life but look in the wrong places for it

Worshipping false gods blinds you to see the foolishness of what you’re doing.

Manmade things cannot replace Godmade longings

What satisfies our senses cannot satisfy our hearts

Idolatry enslaves and blinds,  

We become what we behold.

2. Motivation. Why do they need to know it? answer this otherwise what you're saying is perceived to be irrelevant.

We will try to build our lives upon things that ultimately destroy us, or let us down.

3. Application. What do they need to do? be highly specific if you can.

Ask: Am I looking to earthly things to fill a heavenly void? 

Ask: Where are my feet planted

4. Inspiration. Why do they need to do it? imagine your family/school/workplace... think concentric circles of application (self, family, friends, workplace, community, country, world).

5. Reiteration. What can I do to help them remember? homework helps…

Idolatry and the Bible:

• the problem and warnings of idolatry, the first commandment and the warning in the NT (1 John).
• public health warning: if you see this idol you should not bow down to it.
• Reading of Is. 44. and commenting as go to show the foolishness and danger of idolatry. 
• searched the internet to find out what the insect was in my garden.
• Given the stupidity of idolatry and its dangers, why did they do it?
• Idols appearance of power, popular belief
• Personal longing for deliverance, popular belief 
• Blind to it and enslaved by it

Stories/illustrations:

• Idols are unstable : Keller stories of destruction to people who built their hopes around idols
• Idols have all the appearance of life but are dead: 
• Like a sports car with no engine
• Imagine getting a stuffed bear to act as your security
• animatronic dinosaurs scare kids because they don’t know that there’s no real life in it. 
• Ayres rock vs rio beaches. Rock. Solid but lonely and alone. Beach. Shifting but busy and fashionable.
• Communism: Creators of communism worshipped the ideology to the point that they were willing to kill those who would not worship/adhere to this new ideology. Even when it was clearly failing, they wouldn’t let it go 
• The true God: like saying ‘the true football team’ every other team doesn’t really play football?
• John Wimber: who’s fool are you?
• Football. Our god is better than you god is how the other nations thought whereas the Israelites behaved like ‘our god is the only god’. Compare to football teams.