RISK TAKERS
The Life God Intends For You
By Malcolm Duncan
Monarch Books. 223 pages. £8.99
ISBN 978 0 852 710 067
This book challenges Christians and churches to take risks for the gospel. It is practical and describes ‘a living orthodoxy’, and I heartily commend it to you.
The author’s teenage son wanted to serve as a missionary. This parental situation leads us to see that dynamic fellowship with Jesus requires us to take risks: to say yes to Jesus; follow where he leads; do the right thing not the easy thing; to live unselfishly; and let the future shape us. It is missional. I believe it describes the true evangelical.
He looks at some of the things Epaphras risked, including health and popularity, reminding us how past Christian risk-takers met the needs of their neighbours leading to hospitals, missions, trade unions, abolition of slavery, etc. What began as a local God-given concern to meet the needs of a group of fellow human beings (our neighbours) has led to valuable institutions.
How will we serve?
It is an antidote to those who are merely academic and chained to a tradition. How will our lives serve our Saviour and our neighbours? It reminds Christians of their baptism when Jesus became the Lord of their life. It challenges much modern Christianity that is inactive in witnessing and showing our Lord Jesus to our neighbours. He says as a Calvinist: ‘We leave it to God to do all the work and we enjoy the benefits’. He says ‘The best of Reformed theology prefers to see itself as reforming and recognises the constant need to be changed and shaped by God’s truth and grace’.
Chapter 9 describes the fullness of God’s grace being like the Niagara Falls. We are to live in its fullness and bounty.
Evangelical churches and individuals often unconsciously contain the gospel. Biblical precepts become our prescriptions. We are bound by the past and need to remember that ‘Tradition is the living faith of the dead and the dead faith of the living’.
This book will help every Christian, of any age and at every stage, it will take you ‘further in and higher up’ and prevent you from being stale. It would be useful as a series of Bible studies. It will take our glorious Saviour out of the pulpit and enthrone him back in the centre of the life of his people (Revelation 3.20).
We are the church. The future starts now.
