Beyond Opinion By Ravi Zacharias and others
I got this book to do a review on. It took me some time to read it through, i always question if anyone ever proof reads these books. I find little things that are wrong, that part is interesting, however it does not detract from the material presented that much. Now for the content of the book, it is well presented in my opinion. I see the presentation as an introduction to many of the areas the Christian should have some knowledge in, these areas were presented by many different authors.
I will start on page 51 where Alison Thomas writes that "We cannot give to young people what we adults do not possess. "In order to equip them, we ourselves have to be prepared in word and deed." I feel that allot of parents don't know how or want to train up their children. Which scripture instructs us to do (Proverbs 22:6). I'Ching Thomas conveys a part of the multi-discipline of the Christian faith on page 218 where she says "the onus is on us to learn and study about competing worldviews and religions, and their cultural expressions." However in my opinion we have to many people professing to be a "Christian" yet mind "earthly things" (Philippians 3:19). This is a great shame. as Ravi quotes Irish evangelist Gypsy Smith on page 304 "There are five Gospels. "Matthew,Mark, Luke, John, and the Christian, and some people will never read the first four." People who claim to be Christians need to start living like Christ wants... however not many know how, churches today don't preach the Word of God, but minister to men's itching ears. (2 Timothy 4:3) As Matthew Henry put it "They will turn away their ears from the truth; they will grow weary of the old plain gospel of Christ, and then they will be greedy of fables, and take pleasure in them, and God will give them up to those strong delusions, because they received not the truth in the love of it.
This book is not for the unbeliever, but for the believer that wants to be "instant in season, out of season" (2 Timothy 4:2) wants to give a defence for the faith, yet does not know where to start. First start with the Word of God, get grounded in it, (Colossians 1:23) this book is just a tool that you can use to learn from the others that have come before you.
As Ravi relays a story on pages 334 & 335 that happens during World War II I have posted another version of it on this site. Many people are not taught how to take strongholds. I pray that the Lord will be with me and guide me with the groups that i minister to, that they will be trained how to take strongholds. As Ravi says "In many ways this is what we now face in the church today. "We have basically an "untrained" memberhip with the danger quite large. "To add to the challenge, we cannot simply "take strongholds" we must do so while preserving the life of the one using that stronghold."
All scripture i use and reference is from the KJV Bible. I don't recommend or use the others. It's another area where we must study. The preservation of God's Word.