A month or two ago, I was talking with a good friend of mine.  During that conversation, he recommended a book to me — a book that, he said, had a profound impact on him and his walk with Christ.

So, on his recommendation, I bought the book and began reading it.  However, life threw a couple of curve balls at me and the book took a seat on the proverbial bench and I started to go back and pick it up this week.  Before I could, though, Tim Challies points to a review of William Young’s The Shack over at Out of Ur, a blog by Christianity Today.  In that review, they had this to say:

Young does two things I wouldn’t advise fiction writers to do: 1) depict the Trinity in bodily form and 2) put words in the Trinity’s mouth. My fear would be that such attempts would result in hokey prose—and, to be honest, that happens from time to time in The Shack.

In reading this post, I was pointed to Challies’ 17-page review of The Shack — which can be downloaded as a PDF file here.

After reading the post at Out of Ur, and Challies’ review, I’m faced with having to choose between reading the book for myself and drawing my own conclusions based upon the Word and the Truth — or trusting people like Tim Challies and Mark Driscoll to warn me of the possible dangers in the book and not invest time in a book that may not give a return, spiritually speaking.

I think CT makes a good point at the end of their article by saying:

Regardless of how you feel about it, it seems The Shack is destined for fame, if only for a short while. I’m sure [others] will want to know what you think of it.

I pray I make the right decision.  I’ve already passed on a recommendation for The Shack based on what little I had read and the word of those who had read the book (and liked it).  I need to apologize to those I’ve spoken to regarding this book — I had no idea it was so divisive and I had not read it completely.  I think in the future, I need to hold off on giving my opinion on books until I have read the book, or a majority of it at least.

So who is the Messiah that the Old Testament prophets spoke of (e.g. Daniel)?

According to John Hagee, it wasn’t Jesus.

Also, Hagee claims that the Jews did not reject Jesus.

I wonder how Hagee would explain Romans 11, John 1:41, and, specifically John 4:25-26?

(HT: Soul DeSaenz)