James Austin

Today I completed the book Blessed Are the Misfits by Brant Hansen. The book was a refreshing and honest look at who people are and how they’re unique, beautiful, and sometimes peculiar. The book addresses …

Today I finished the book Beloved by Francis Chan and Mercy Gordon, and it reminds me of what really matters. It returns to what is already true, allowing it to settle with time. Reading it …

Having completed the book Union with Christ: The Blessings of Being in Him by Sinclair B. Ferguson (hardcover ISBN 978-1848717237) cover to cover, what stayed with me wasn’t just how the book explains union with …

Today I completed the book The Discipline of Grace, and it was a helpful, clear grounding in what it means to live by discipline through grace. Various disciplines were covered, spanning thoughts, words, and actions, …

Discipleship, as I’ve known it, is not an event or a study. It is not a group you attend or a curriculum you complete. It is a way of life that is intentionally formed in …

Having today completed The Holiness of God by R. C. Sproul (ISBN: 978-0842314985), it becomes clear that the book unfolds according to Sproul’s Reformational approach to Scripture. Rather than presenting holiness through abstract definition, he …

Shepherds for Sale by Megan Basham documents how influential areas within American evangelical leadership have permitted political interests, major philanthropic funding, and concerns about institutional reputation to shape the public expression of theology. Drawing on …

There are seasons in the Christian life when warmth fades, and clarity dims, and it becomes necessary to ask a searching question: Is this a purifying dryness permitted by God, or the early stages of …

Today I finished the book How to Be Filled with the Holy Spirit by Moody Publishers. The book is a compilation of sermons from A.W. Tozer about the Holy Spirit and His indwelling presence. The …

Having completed The Pursuit of Holiness by Jerry Bridges, the book presents biblically grounded principles showing that Christians pursue holiness only because they are already united to Christ and strengthened by the indwelling Holy Spirit …

Today I finished reading The Knowledge of the Holy by A.W. Tozer, and what remains with me most is a renewed sense of wonder about who God is and why that matters beyond mere theology …

God’s Pursuit of Man is the third book I’ve read by A. W. Tozer, and it stands in clear continuity with the others in both concern and direction. This book is about God’s initiative toward …

Today I fully completed A.W. Tozer’s The Pursuit of God, a first reading of his work and one that left a piqued impression upon both mind and spirit. Tozer’s pages develop with the gravity of …

Any discussion of divine judgment must begin by recognizing that Scripture does not speak of it in a single, uniform way. For those who do not belong to God—those whom the Gospel describes as already …

Over a series of sessions, I attended a course of lectures on the Prayer Rule from an Orthodox perspective. I didn’t go looking for something new or exotic. I came already convinced that prayer isn’t …

The seeming tension between apophatic theology and the cultivation of phronema (φρόνημα)—the Orthodox mind or spiritual consciousness—resolves when we understand that apophaticism is not an epistemological nihilism nor an avoidance of dogma, but a method …

The Didache, or The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, is one of the earliest extant documents outside the New Testament canon that offers a structured outline of Christian moral teaching, liturgical practice, and ecclesial order …

Across the major traditions of Christian theology, the doctrine of humanity’s ultimate destiny is described in terms of participation in the divine life—though expressed through different concepts and emphases. Introduction Eastern Orthodoxy speaks of Theosis, …