Book Review: Experiencing Prayer With Jesus, Henry and Norman blackaby

I regret my review a little bit. Partially, it's because I do believe that systematization of facts is a valid and useful tool for understanding the Bible. I think my biggest objections are that it was very boring, and that the authors came from a position of superiority.

But I'll leave my original review here just for fun.

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Brent Ahs lent me this audio book, completely unsolicited. But I would hate to return it to him and say that I didn't listen to it, so I did over my lunch hours. I don't have a big commute, and no CD player in my car, so i don't listen to audio books when I drive.

It was read by a professional reader, but without any enthusiasm. I kept thinking that if someone read the proceedings of a city council meeting, it would have sounded more exciting.

The interpretation was incredibly modern rather than postmodern. The modern era was the time of invention and machines. It was a time of rationalism. Where x + y = z. This time period affected people's view of Scripture interpretation. If Scripture says this here, or this there, then God always has to act a certain way. As a result, we have a God that is not much more than a math equation, instead of an artist or a Being. For me, I'd really love to worship something wild and real, rather than a machine. If I do X and Y, the reaction of God is not necessarily Z.

And that is my problem with this book. It is an encylopedia of prayer, a systematic theology. If God wanted the Bible to be a list of ways to pray, he would have written it that way. Instead it is a collection of stories that do not appear in a systematic order. The Bible's purpose is not to be instructions for the machine of life. This approach caused the authors to become professors who have everything together, and it was an academic exercise more than a spiritual one. This may be a big problem with our seminaries, although I haven't attended one.

I think the best thing for our era is to drop these systematic theologies, and dictionary approaches, and really dig into the story ourselves and let the Spirit speak to us. I love our current pastor's preaching. His preaching is not academic or systematic - it really speaks to the heart. This book primarily spoke to the mind, and did not have many words for the heart.