Sunday, June 24, 2012

Gospel Centered Discipleship by Jonathan Dodson

I'd been looking forward to this since I started reading in Dodson's blog where he mentioned that he was writing it. It's an expansion of his book on "Fight Clubs" that focus on fighting sin in the believer's life. Overall, it's a helpful book. It's strength is in defining the problems it sees in certain areas of the current church and then helping to focus on the gospel as the solution rather than moralism. He suggests that small groups of men or women (2-3 at largest) read scripture together, confess to one another, and apply the gospel truth to fight against sin. Among the useful practices he suggests in the Fight Clubs (as he calls these groups) is defining the promises of God vs. the promises of sin. For example, what is the appeal of anger--self justification, power, getting my own way? Compare that to the promise of God to trust in His way and be justified by the person and work of Jesus Christ. 
Overall, a good book on putting the gospel in the center of discipleship, with some practical framework for helping that happen without making a list of legal requirements that constitute a new law. Having heard and read much in this line from Paul Kooistra and Jack Miller, I thought Dodson's work was a good primer to this critical understanding of Christian discipleship, with some new ways of implementing it within the current cultural framework. 

I read this during our vacation in Daytona Beach in early June 2012.

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