The Legacy Of Sovereign Joy (book review)

January 11, 2022 — Craig T. Owens

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible. 

God uses humans—flawed, imperfect humans—to accomplish His sovereign plan. As we yield to His sovereignty we can discover an unparalleled joy. In The Legacy Of Sovereign Joy, John Piper shows us this principle in the lives of three notable men of church history: Augustine of Hippo, Martin Luther, and John Calvin. 

Although separated by 1000 years, these men are inseparably linked to the beginning of the Reformation. Both Luther and Calvin relied heavily on the writings of Augustine as they called Christians away from the unbiblical teachings and traditions, and back to the pure, freeing truths of the Bible. 

These men are also linked in another way that should be quite encouraging to us. Augustine struggled with his sexual passions, Luther struggled to control his razor-sharp tongue, and Calvin used some rather worldly means to fight for biblical truths. All of them were flawed men, and yet God sovereignly used them. And through all of their struggles, the Holy Spirit brought all three of them into a place where they savored the sovereign joy that only God can give. This should give us great encouragement that God can use us too. 

By themselves, John Piper’s biographies of these men are worth your time to read, but the way Pastor John intertwines their stories to show us how sovereign joy can be our mainstay as well is absolutely brilliant. 

This was the first book Pastor John published in his series “The Swans Are Not Silent.” If you’re interested, I have previously shared reviews on The Hidden Smile Of God and Seeing Beauty And Saying Beautifully. 

Students of church history and those longing to know the joy of the Lord more deeply will enjoy reading The Legacy Of Sovereign Joy. 

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Book Reviews From 2021

December 29, 2021 — Craig T. Owens

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible.

I love reading, and I love sharing my love of good books with others! Here is a list of the books I read and reviewed in 2021. Click on a title to be taken to that review.

24

AC/DC

Churchill’s Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare

Faithlife Illustrated Study Bible

George Whitefield

Hal Moore On Leadership

His Last Bow

Holy Sexuality And The Gospel

How Christianity Changed The World

How I Got This Way

How To Bring Men To Christ

Jesus On Trial

John Adams

Miracles Out Of Somewhere

My Lucky Life

Out Of The Silent Planet

Perelandra

Pilgrim’s Progress

Prayer

Prophet With A Pen

QB

Reading The Bible With The Founding Fathers

Secrets Of Dynamic Communication

Seeing Beauty And Saying Beautifully

Shepherd Leadership

Star Struck

Talking To GOATs

That Hideous Strength

The Art Of Writing And The Gift Of Writers

The Hidden Smile Of God

The Hiding Place

Thompson Chain-Reference Bible

To The Work!

Voice Of A Prophet

Washington’s Immortals

Word-For-Word Bible Comic: Jonah

Here are my book reviews for 2011.

Here are my book reviews for 2012.

Here are my book reviews for 2013.

Here are my book reviews for 2014.

Here are my book reviews for 2015.

Here are my book reviews for 2016.

Here are my book reviews for 2017.

Here are my book reviews for 2018.

       Here are my book reviews for 2019.

Here are my book reviews for 2020.

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AC/DC (book review)

December 14, 2021 — Craig T. Owens

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible. 

A few weeks ago a storm had knocked power out to our house, and yet I still automatically flipped on a light switch every time I walked into a room. We have become so accustomed today to the consistent flow of electricity everywhere, but that wasn’t always the case. Tom McNichol recounts the history of the epic battle that brought electricity to our homes and offices in his book AC/DC.

I think most people would call Thomas Edison the pioneer of the flow of electricity to homes that lit up the lightbulbs he created. This is true in a certain respect, and yet it is only a fraction of the story. Edison did perfect a lightbulb for the express purpose of enticing people to bring electricity into their homes or businesses, and he did create a power station to generate that electrical flow. 

But power can flow through either direct current (DC) or alternating current (AC), and Edison steadfastly—some might even say stubbornly—stuck to his conviction that DC power was the way to go. In the meantime, other inventors, especially George Westinghouse and Nikola Tesla, were perfecting and promoting the superior advantages of AC power. The battle between these forces was vicious, unrelenting, and at times gruesome! 

Interestingly, it took the unique talents and prodigious minds of all three of these inventors to bring us the electrical systems we now rely upon so heavily to power our homes, businesses, cars, computers, and smart phones. From AC wired power to DC battery-stored power, we are daily grateful for these inventors’ creativity. 

I will add a slight footnote to this review that I found the bookend chapters of this book—that is the first and last chapters—to detract from the overall fascinating history. The opening chapter talks about man’s fear and fascination of lightning, and the last chapter talks about a modern-day technology battle that I found incongruous with the history of the AC/DC battle. But despite those somewhat awkward chapters, I found the balance of the book to be quite entertaining and educational. 

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Prophet With A Pen (book review)

December 7, 2021 — Craig T. Owens

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible. 

This book is personal for me—it’s a part of my family tree and my spiritual legacy. Prophet With A Pen is the biography of Stanley Frodsham, lovingly told by his only daughter Faith Campbell. 

Stanley Frodsham’s pen was truly anointed. From his history of the modern-day Pentecostal movement, to his biography of renown evangelist Smith Wigglesworth, to his editing of the worldwide Pentecostal Evangel magazine, all the way down to his personal correspondence. Frodsham’s pen may have done more for the Pentecostal movement than anyone else’s did. 

As a case in point, consider the powerful preaching of Smith Wigglesworth. His sermons were not prepared and written out ahead of time, but they were Holy Spirit-breathed at the moment Wigglesworth was preaching them. Most of those sermons that have been preserved for us in writing were due to the careful shorthand notes of Stanley Frodsham. 

In Prophet With A Pen, Frodsham’s daughter tells us his life story through her personal recollections, her extensive library of her father’s letters, and the remembrances of lifelong friends of the Frodshams. It’s an intimate portrait of a man who never sought the limelight, but simply wanted everyone to personally experience the power of Pentecost. 

I mentioned that this book is personal for me. Faith Campbell was my great-aunt, and her husband (who was quite an evangelist himself) shared many of these stories with me personally as I was growing up. Reading this collection of remembrances of Stanley Frodsham has reinforced my commitment to honor the heritage that I’ve been given, and to pass on a vibrant spiritual legacy to those who will come after me. 

Anyone who enjoys church history will thoroughly enjoy this behind-the-scenes look at the men and women who were so crucial to the early Pentecostal movement. 

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Hal Moore On Leadership (book review) 

November 30, 2021 — Craig T. Owens

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible. 

Sometimes you might hear it said of someone’s leadership mettle or leadership philosophies that they are “battle-tested.” In the case of Hal Moore On Leadership, this is literally true! 

Perhaps you’ve seen the movie “We Were Soldiers Once…And Young,” which recounts the first full-scale military battle in Vietnam between Moore’s 450-man force and the 2000 soldiers of the North Vietnamese Army. Despite being completely surrounded and severely out-gunned, Moore’s First Cavalry decisively defeated the NVA. 

General Moore’s leadership principles won the day for his men in that battle. But even then, his principles had already been battle-tested under fire in the Korean War, and put to the test in the various assignments that Hal Moore faced in his highly-decorated military career. Moore was continually tasked by superior officers to re-tool underperforming units, or step in where tensions were high, or help reorganize when the Army was experiencing some growing pains. 

Moore not only excelled at every assignment, but he kept meticulous notes that are now available to any leader in this excellent book. 

Hal Moore On Leadership is partially a biography, but mostly his story is told as the backdrop for the leadership principles that were proven to be correct time and time again. 

Students of both leadership and military history will find this book enjoyable and practical. 

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The Hidden Smile Of God (book review)

November 16, 2021 — Craig T. Owens

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible. 

It’s one thing for someone to dispense sound advice, but it’s an entirely different thing for that advice to come from hard-won life experiences. The Hidden Smile Of God is the second book in John Piper’s excellent series of biographies called “The Swans are Not Silent.” 

Each book in this series features biographies and life lessons of three notable saints. Pastor John weaves these character studies together around a common theme. In this book, the lives of John Bunyan, William Cowper, and David Brainerd are examined to see the fruitful ministry that can emerge from a life plagued by affliction. 

John Bunyan, well-known author of The Pilgrim’s Progress, spent over a decade in prison, as well as the balance of his life under severely pressing circumstances. David Brainerd was a missionary to several American Indian tribes, while struggling with failing health and crushing loneliness. And William Cowper was suicidally depressed through nearly all of his life, and yet wrote some of the most intimate and moving poems. 

In fact, it is a line in one of Cowper’s poems from which the title of this John Piper book emerges—

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, 
But trust Him for His grace; 
Behind a frowning providence 
He hides a smiling face.


Pastor John does more than merely share memorable biographies of these three men, but he extracts insights about suffering and affliction that will enable others to have a new biblical paradigm about their own suffering. Such amazing lessons for any of us struggling through dark times.


Even if you don’t personally struggle with affliction or anxiety or depression, chances are very good that someone around you does. Perhaps you could read this book and share some of these helpful insights with your friends or family members who are struggling. 


If you would like to check out my review of another book in this series—Seeing Beauty and Saying Beautifully—please click here. 


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Word-For-Word Bible Comic: Jonah (book review)

November 9, 2021 — Craig T. Owens 




Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible. 



Some of my regular readers who check out my book reviews might be saying, “A comic book? Craig read and reviewed a comic book?” That’s because I’ve stated many times that with all of the wonderful books there are to read, I had to make a choice to be very discriminating in my reading. As a result, I almost exclusively read non-fiction books. 


But Simon Amadeus Pillario has done something so wonderful with my all-time favorite Book—the Bible—by graphically illustrating the people, places, expressions, and activities of the biblical storyline. The Word-For-Word Bible Comic I read was The Book of Jonah. 


When I was a parent with young children, I would tell them the story of Jonah in a very dramatic way, by giving voices to the characters and adding my own sound effects to the events. This is how Simon Pillario has helped all of us. He’s taking the amazing stories of Scripture, and helping us read and tell these accounts in memorable ways. I can envision these comic books engaging people into reading the Bible like nothing else has before. 


Part of the title of this series of comic books is “word-for-word.” That is precisely what this comic book does. It contains every word of the story from the Bible, but Simon does it in such a clever way, that some of the descriptive text that is captured in a drawing is so seamlessly integrated into the page design that it never becomes distracting. Then at the back of the comic book you will find some additional historical information that went into the creative process of illustrating these books. 


There are several books of the Bible already completed in word-for-word comic books, which you can check out here. Parents and youth pastors will especially want to check these out as a compelling way to draw young people into reading the Bible for themselves. 


I am a Zondervan book reviewer. 


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24 (book review)

November 2, 2021 — Craig T. Owens 




Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible. 



Whether you are a Major League baseball fan or not, there is so much to love about 24: Life Stories and Lessons from the Say Hey Kid by John Shey. 


Willie Mays is arguably the best all-around player in baseball history. There’s only a few that surpass him in individual statistics like home runs, stolen bases, and fielding prowess, but combining all of his stats puts the Say Hey Kid into a rarefied category! 


Willie overcame such huge obstacles and racism, took time away from baseball to serve his country during the Korean War and still racked up mind-boggling statistics, and exhibited a loyalty to both teammates and opposing players that make hardly anyone a comparable peer. He played the game competitively, seldom took a day off, always had time for the fans (especially the kids), and has remained an integral part of his beloved San Francisco Giants for more years in retirement than he even did as a player. 


He accomplished all of this with class and professionalism. 


John Shey compiled twenty-four life lessons from Willie Mays’ life, to match his iconic jersey number. Each chapter tells the story of his life before, during, and after baseball while elaborating on that particular leadership lesson. This book is extremely well written. 


Both baseball fans and students of leadership will find many rich lessons in 24, all presented in a very enjoyable format. 


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Star Struck (book review)

October 26, 2021 — Craig T. Owens 




Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible. 



Because of my science background, I’m always fascinated by the discoveries of scientists that bring glory to God. So I was drawn in especially by the subtitle of Dr. David Bradstreet’s book Star Struck: Seeing The Creator in the Wonders of Our Cosmos.


This book is part autobiographic in how Dr. Bradstreet got into astronomy, part historical as he walks us through the advancements in the study of the heavens, and part devotional as he attempts to tie in biblical passages with these fascinating astronomical discoveries. But for me, this attempt to be all-encompassing didn’t “scratch the itch” that I thought it would when I first saw the subtitle. I think I would have appreciated it more if this were presented as three books: memoir, history, and devotional. 


For me, the best part of Star Struck was the history of astronomy. Hearing from an astronomer how his predecessors thought, reasoned, hypothesized, and then presented their findings to an often skeptical world (and usually an even more skeptical church) was quite fascinating. I especially enjoyed some of the many tidbits about stars and planets, particularly the look at our Sun, Earth, and Moon. 


I would not, however, recommend this book as a means to understand how astronomy shines such a clear light on the majesty of the Creator seen in the pages of the Bible, as I found that attempt quite lacking. 


As a pure astronomy history book, Star Struck is a great read for anyone, from students to adults. 


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Shepherd Leadership (book review)

October 19, 2021 — Craig T. Owens 




Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or Audible. 



On average, I read and post book reviews on about 40 books per year, so I thought it was fitting to post a review of my own book Shepherd Leadership: The Metrics That Really Matter.


Actually, I want to share with you what others have said about my book:


“If one is searching for an easily understandable road map to biblical leadership, you have an excellent resource in Pastor Craig’s new offering. … Pastor Craig translates deep spiritual truths to simple, attainable processes which will certainly achieve desired results and personal growth.” —Kurt 


“Owens has created a concise guide for pastors that will model how Jesus wants them to lead and serve. I highly recommend this book for not only pastors but those attending seminary.” —Anonymous


“After 23 years of Army service, and 17 of those years in a leadership role, I can tell you that this book would have helped me be a better leader back then. It is geared to help the Ministry Leadership; however, after reading it, I believe will help everyone.” —Daniel  


“This book is such a good resource, not only for leaders in ministry but any person who wants a refreshing look at leadership relationships in general.” —Anonymous 


“This is a great addition to the leadership library and is a must for those in nonprofit, ministry leadership, or considering going into those fields. … Having been led as a layperson in a church that had leaders who lacked humility and security in serving, and seeing the damage they did to people and the Church, this book really spoke to me.” —Steven


“I am so thankful to Craig for cutting through all the delusion and confusion of what ministry and leadership has become and taking us back to the simple reality of laying down our lives for others. Crucified shepherds are neither popular nor common, but they do look and live like Jesus.” —Dick 


“Craig does a great job of reminding us of some simple truths that far too often get lost in the world of leadership. As he calls us back to model our leadership after Jesus, he does so with practical advise and a shepherd’s heart.” —Kevin 


“Having served in executive leadership positions on two large church staffs and also on a non-profit paraministry, I can tell you from experience this book is a must-read.” —Steve 


“Craig provides a much needed guide, based on biblical principles, on how the church can regain its impact on the culture through more effective leadership.” —Stuart 


“Craig Owens describes his Biblical understanding of how leaders serve through humility and confidence, utilizing their mental, physical, spiritual, and emotional health. It is through this balance that effective leaders can honor God with their servanthood.” —Denise 


“This book is filled with practical ideas that challenge me to check my priorities. In a world that screams for more, more, more, this book asks me to identify what I want more of.” —Faye 


The reviews on Amazon currently have this book rated at 4.9 stars. 


I’m so humbled that this book is connecting with so many people! I loved writing it, and I still love talking to people about it. 


My book is available in print, ebook, and audiobook. If you’d like to know more about Shepherd Leadership: The Metrics That Really Matter, or to pick up a copy for yourself, please go to ShepherdLeadershipBook.com.  








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