The Basic Road to the Resurrection @greglaurie @christianaudio

Greg Laurie, senior pastor of Harvest Church in Riverside, CA, and host of the Harvest Crusades, released Road to the Resurrection as an exploration of the events surrounding the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. Laurie is a dynamic speaker who has a strong focus on evangelism, and this is not missed in his Lenten tome. I actually really appreciated his acknowledgement in this book that traditional evangelism is not the only important element of the Christian faith.

But that is not the point of this book, which was only 2.5 hours in the audiobook version I reviewed. His goal was really to walk the reader/listener through some of the facts around the last days of Christ's life. If someone is looking for a very basic Bible study into the end of the Passion Week, then this is a good introduction.

I can only recall one new thought I gained from the book (a clever and realistic explanation of why John arrived at the empty tomb prior to Peter). The rest was rather basic. While Laurie attempted to engage in some critical thinking on elements of the biblical narrative, the arguments were pseudo-scholarly. For instance, in defending the fact of the resurrection, Laurie depending almost solely on the Bible. Unfortunately, most critics of the resurrection have no faith in the Bible, so his rebuttals would be worthless. This perspective is analogous to a Latter Day Saint using the Book of Mormon to convince a Southern Baptist about the nature of Jesus. It just doesn't work.

In summary, there was nothing wrong with this book, but I found it neither thought-provoking nor moving.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Limitations of Apologetics @jrdkirk

J. R. Daniel Kirk recently mused on the limitations of apologetics. This is relevant to my recent posts on doctrine and the point of this blog to examine questions.


I used to love apologetics when I first became a Christian. I was considering it as a career. However, as I came to explore the questions honestly, I found apologetics less-than-helpful. Two quotes from Kirk's article really stuck to explain this for me:

In particular, it gives people answers to questions that they often haven’t asked themselves and therefore cannot feel the weight of. The answer seems to work because they’ve never had to use it to minister to their own heart or mind.

This is a really excellent point and is some of the rationale behind this blog. We need to personally struggle with the issues rather than being given simple, pat answers, no matter how good they are. Without the wrestling, the answer is not terribly meaningful.


The other quote was:

Apologetics is bad for my soul. I’d rather have no answer to my doubts than a bad one.

This is just awesome! So many times our desire for clarity and answers leads us to bad answers rather than acknowledging that some things are a mystery. And some bad answers just make things worse. They close us off to the Truth of God and complexity of life with Christ, however simple those things can be at times.