The Weekly Wrap: December 14-20

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The Weekly Wrap: December 14-20

A Reading Holiday?

Our consumer economy wants us to spend the day after Christmas shopping after-Christmas sales. But I came across a good counter-suggestion yesterday. Jamie E. Davis is the genius behind “Because All The Books,” one of my favorite sites for bookish memes. Yesterday, she posted one that said, “I think the day after Christmas should be officially declared a reading holiday.” While I love the idea, I think there is little chance of that happening. However, the U.S. President just spoke of making the days before and after Christmas federal holidays. While he is not a great fan of reading, it doesn’t mean we can’t make the day after our reading holiday.

There are good reasons to do this. Many of us readers are introverts. All the holiday visits, fun as they are, mean extroverting. The last thing we need is all the crowds at the sales! We’re ready to curl up and read!

Then, there are the new books we received as gifts, or the ones we bought while gift-buying. They are calling!

But, you may say, “I didn’t get any books, just some gift cards burning a hole in my pocket!” The last thing I want is singed clothing, so if you can’t wait, go ahead (and often you can do this online on a reading break). But if it means a trip to a bookstore, I always find it more relaxing when there aren’t too many people around, especially in my favorite sections.

Above all, I like the idea that Christmas just begins on Christmas Day. Remember the twelve days of Christmas, which end January 6. Why not give yourself the gift of a reading holiday?

Five Articles Worth Reading

“The Pamphlet That Has Roused Americans to Action for 250 Years” explores why Thomas Paine’s Common Sense has continued to be read.

Henry James often wrote of the magic of Venice. Departing from her usual writing, Anne Applebaum retraced his steps and discovered that the city, facing inundation, still has that magic. “Henry James’s Venice Is Still Here” is a delightful photo essay of her journeys.

Literary Hub is one of my sources for thoughtful writing on all kinds of books. If you’ve not discovered this online resource, “The Most Popular Lit Hub Stories of 2025” is a great place to start. And if you do follow Literary Hub, it is a great recap of this year in books.

A new short story by J.R.R. Tolkien has just been published, The Bovadium Fragments. It’s a satire rooted in Tolkien’s deep seated aversion to motor vehicles. Christian Kriticos reviews it in “Isengard in Oxford.”

Finally, The Public Domain Review posted Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Christmas Sermon, piblished in pamphlet form in 1900, six years after his death. No matter your religious persuasion, I think you will like his ideas.

Quote of the Week

john Greenleaf Whittier was born December 17, 1809. He remarked:

“When faith is lost, when honor dies, the man is dead.”

This quote reminds me of the question Jesus asks, “ What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?”

Miscellaneous Musings

I’ve been reading Louis Markos’ Passing the Torch. It is an argument for an educational curriculum for youth built around the classics and other great books as well as the trivium and quadrivium. I’m conscious of how these elements were not part of my childhood education and of my unsystematic efforts to make up for this deficit as an adult. He also helps me understand the growing movement of classical education in both Christian and secular contexts. I hope he will offer some critique as well as affirmation before he finishes.

Manitou Canyon is the 15th book in William Kent Krueger’s Cork O’Connor series. In some ways, it strikes me as a parable of the consequences of when we cede the implementation of technology to those who will most profit from it.

I posted about this earlier this year but Publishers Weekly reminded me in “Last Call for Mass Market Paperbacks” that the death of the mass market paperback is upon us. I wonder if some of those classics will become collectors items?

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: Gordon Fee and Cherith Fee Nordling, The Kingdom of God is Among You

Tuesday: Michael Grunwald, We Are Eating the Earth

Wednesday: Gerald L. Bray, Athens and Jerusalem

Thursday: Audrey Davidheiser, Grieving Wholeheartedly

Friday: Alan Noble, You Are Not Your Own

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap  for December 14-20.

My best wishes to you all for your holiday celebrations, including that reading holiday!

Find past editions of The Weekly Wrap under The Weekly Wrap heading on this page

Review: Beyond Stewardship

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Cover image of "Beyond Stewardship" edited by David paul Warners and Matthew Kuperus Heun

Beyond Stewardship

Beyond Stewardship: New Approaches to Creation Care, edited by David Paul Warners and Matthew Kuperus Heun. Calvin Press (ISBN: 9781937555382) 2019.

Summary: Essays exploring alternative ways to define the relationship with the non-human creation beyond stewardship.

Words matter. For the Christian environmental movement, “stewardship” has been the term Christian environmentalists use to describe the human relationship with the non-human creation. More recently, questions have been raised by a newer generation of Christian environmentalists as to whether this is the best way to understand this relationship. It doesn’t reflect the full scope of biblical teaching. Stewardship implies separation from both creation and God. Also, it implies an instrumental relationship of creation existing for human use. Then the association of this term with finances implies resources owned by another, and this is too limiting of God’s relationship to creation. Finally, stewardship tends to be individualistic when the scope of challenges require acting in concert.

The editors of this essay collection lay out this argument in their introduction. The essays that follow explore how then we might think about our relation to the non-human creation. Given this enlarged understanding, what wise actions are then implied? The book is organized in three parts.

Part One: RETHINKING: Expanding Awareness

Matthew Kuperus Heun, in “Smashing Prototypes,” likens what we’ve done to creation to what it would be like as a professor to take a chainsaw or sledgehammer to his students’ engineering prototypes. We need to recognize our complicity in the damage done creation, lament, and determine to act differently. Following this, Kathi Groenendyk cautions that not only do our words matter but so does our audience. She observes that while stewardship is helpful with some audiences, like farmers and ranchers, other terms like creation-care or earthkeeping will relate better to others. Therefore, know thy audience!

Part Two: REIMAGINING: How Things Could Be

Kyle Meyaard-Schaap opens this section proposing that the idea of kinship overcomes the gap between humans and the rest of creation Jesus, in the incarnation became kin with us. kinship changes how we view things like species loss. Then Clarence W. Joldersma proposes seeing ourselves as earthlings. We are earthy beings, sharing much in common, charging us with a vast responsibility while also giving an independent moral standing to the non-human creation. Not only do we have much in common with the rest of creation, we exist in a symbiotic relationship with it according to Aminah al-Attas Bradford. Consider the microbes in our gut that aid in crucial ways in digesting food, or even mitochondria as an independent organism in every human cell.

Steven Bouma Prediger reiterates the critique of stewardship from the Introduction as both limited in scope and confusing. He makes the case for the term “earthkeeping.” He argues for it as a better reflection of the biblical charge to tend and keep in Genesis 2. Finally in this section, James R. Skillen, argues that stewardship paradigms often overlook human finiteness and fallenness, engaging in hubristic activity. Rather, he advocates the humble posture of those seeking God’s kingdom.

Part Three: REORIENTING: Hopeful Ways Forward

Debra Reinstra argues that creation care begins with knowing the names of species or inorganic things. Then we proceed to understanding their basic ecologies and enter into delight, care, and suffering with those whose names we’ve learned. Matthew C. Halteman and Megan Halteman Zwart apply the idea of kinship to human-animal relationships, especially farm animals, and how this challenged a particular student’s thinking about using animals for food. However, this new perspective also implies a new worldview of whole systems. Neglect of this combined with human arrogance contribute to environmental disasters like the Dustbowl.

Racial injustice manifests in caring for creation as well. When certain groups are disenfranchised from environmental decisions, racism flourishes and the environment does not, especially in urban spaces. Dietrich Bouma reinforces this idea, arguing against barriers that prevent some people from having their voices heard. Then Mark D. Bjelland adds urban spaces, cities, and their watersheds to what counts as creation care. He calls for placemaking and placekeeping. Finally, David Paul Warners commends the idea of recognizing that we walk through a world of gifts. He calls us to respond with reciprocity, restraint, relationship-building, and remembrance.

Conclusion

This book harks back to a similar essay collection, Earthkeeping, from the 1970’s. This book concludes with an afterword from three of the original contributors: Loren Wilkinson, Eugene Dykema, and Calvin DeWitt. It’s a wonderful generational handoff and blessing of these younger scholars’ efforts. This is followed with a rendering of several pages of No More Room, a children’s book written by three students in one of David Paul Warners’ classes. A discussion guide for each of the chapters in this book is also included in “Additional Resources.”

Robin Wall Kimmerer is an ecologist from the Native American Indigenous Peoples and has mined that worldview for its wisdom. She has captivated the imagination of many with her sense of our kinship with other creatures and plants and the sense of our interdependent mutual relationship with it. The fact that she has captured the attention of many Christians reveals the shortcomings of our own theology of creation and our relationship with it. The ideas here reflect a similarly rich way of seeing without the latent animism in Kimmerer’s writing. One hopes that the contemporary disregard for environmental matters in the American church will be a temporary lapse into environmental unconsciousness. One hopes for revival that will wake us to be on the forefront of caring for God’s creation. For now, this work offers rich resources for those who will teach and disciple when people have “ears to hear.”

Review: Equal Rites

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Cover image of "Equal Rites" by Terry Pratchett

Equal Rites

Equal Rites (Discworld Number 3), Terry Pratchett. Harper (ISBN: 9780063385542) 2024 (first published in 1987).

Summary: A dying wizard gives Eskarina his staff by mistake and she wants to become a wizard despite no girl ever having been a wizard.

The wizard Drum Billet is dying. Wizards can only pass their staff, and powers, to the eighth son of an eighth son.. He hears of one about to be born in the village of Bad Ass and goes there. Upon the child’s birth, Drum Billet gives bestows his staff. Only afterward does he discover the child is a girl. He cannot withdraw the staff. But no girl has ever become a wizard. Admission to the Unseen University, where wizards receive training is not permitted for girls.

The staff is hidden away. Yet when it is evident that Eskarina has some kind of power, Granny Weatherwax, the local witch mentors her, trying to divert her thoughts of wizardry into the perfectly good role of village witch. While she’s a good student, it is evident that Granny can’t help her control the power upon her. It dawns on Granny that it is time to challenge the division of witches and wizard by sex Specifically, Eskarina’s power requires the training of wizards.

So, they set out on a journey to Ankh-Morpork to enroll in the Unseen University. On the way, she meets Simon, an apprentice wizard, also seeking entrance to the Unseen University. He gains entrance and quickly proves his talent for translating the universe into numbers. Those in charge reject Esk. Called on to demonstrate her power, she cannot. But the resourceful Granny finds a “backdoor.” She enters as a servant, using her powers to complete tasks, giving her time to study in the library. Soon she and Simon connect, leading to an adventure to rescue Simon’s mind from the Dungeon Dimensions that will bring wizards and witches together.

Pratchett shows how ridiculous gender-based barriers are in the facetious rationalizations the wizards give for banning girls. In Eskarina, we witness the struggle between calling and convention. And in Granny Weatherwax, Pratchett gives us a delightful character–crotchety and resourceful. I look forward to seeing how Pratchett will develop them in future numbers.

Review: The Harlequin Tea Set and Other Stories

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The Harlequin Tea Set and Other Stories

The Harlequin Tea Set and Other Stories, Agatha Christie. William Morrow (ISBN: 9780062094391) 2012 (first published in 1997).

Summary: Nine early short stories, including a Poirot and the title story, an encounter with Harley Quin.

In addition to her longer novels, Agatha Christie published a number of short stories, often in various periodicals. In recent years publishers have compiled these into various collections. This one was first published in 1997. It consists of a number of her very early works. I’ll give you a brief plot synopsis of each and conclude with my thoughts on the collection.

The Harlequin Tea Set. In this title story, Mr. Satterthwaite’s car breaks down in a small village. While waiting for the repairs, he decides to stop in at the Harlequin Cafe. It puts him in mind of an old friend, Mr. Harley Quin. Whenever he turns up, Mr. Quin’s words would trigger decisions and actions that would prove helpful to others. But e hadn’t seen him in some time. Then who should turn up?

The Edge. Claire Halliwell is a single woman in a small town who devotes herself to her dog and to parish life. At one time, she had fallen in love with Gerald Lee, who married Vivien instead. And then Claire catches Vivien in an affair and faces the choice of what to do with that knowledge.

The Actress. Jake Levitt, a seedy journalist, stops by the theare to see a performance of the famous actress, Olga Stormer. He recognizes her as Nancy Taylor and threatens to tell her story. Only he doesn’t recognize who he is dealing with…

While the Light Lasts. George and Deidre Crozier are driving to a plantation in Rhodesia. This was were her husband Tim had died, and the journey recalls many touching memories…and then an encounter with someone she knew.

The House of Dreams. John Segrave dreams of a House. The next day he meets Allegra Kerr. He believes she is that House. But she will not encourage his affections and will not marry. What is the ark thing he saw looking out from the House in another dream? And what did it mean?

The Lonely God. Frank Oliver has returned to London, alone. One day, he visits the British Museum and spies “a lonely god” on a shelf with which he identifies. He returns often, and then encounters a woman, also drawn to this god.

Manx Gold. Fenella and Juan are cousins betrothed to marry. Their beloved and eccentric Uncle Myles dies. He had found a treasure rumored to be hidden on the island. He sets up a competition for his four living relations but gives Juan and Fenella an extra day before the others arrive to search. There are four chests, and the clues to the location of each are not released until the previous one is found.

Within a Wall. Alan Everard is a rising artist. He is married to a socialite, Isobel Loring and they have a daughter, Winnie. As a crowning work, he sets out to paint a portrait of his wife. Technically, it is brilliant, but there is no life in it. By contrast, a discarded sketch, found by a Miss Lempiere, portrays Winnie’s godmother, Jane Haworth, and is full of life.

The Mystery of the Spanish Chest. This is the one Poirot in the collection. Poirot notes a newspaper story on the Spanish Chest Mystery. The mystery is how, during a party with six people at the home of Major Rich, the body of Mr. Clayton ended up stuffed in the chest, discover the next day when a servant spotted a pool of blood beneath it. He asks his secretary to collect all the details of the case. Shortly after, his friend, Lady Chatterton invites him to her house and introduces Poirot to Mrs. Clayton, the widow. It turns out, Major Rich was her lover and she wants Poirot to prove he wasn’t the murderer, even though it was in his house and his chest.

Of all of these, “The Harlequin Tea Set” and “The Mystery of the Spanish Chest” were my favorites. The others reveal Christie’s early efforts as a writer. All are diverting stories, to be sure. Several involve lovers triangles. However, I suspect they will be of greatest interest to Christie fans, like me. Others might just say, “Meh!”

Review: The Black Wolf

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The Black Wolf

The Black Wolf (Chief Inspector Gamache, 20), Louise Penny. Minotaur Books (ISBN: 9781250328175) 2025.

Summary: Having arrested the “Black Wolf” trying to poison Montreal, Gamache realizes this was but a prelude to a greater threat.

If you read The Grey Wolf, you knew this book was coming. And if you did not, stop right here. That book gives the background for this, and this review gives details that will spoil the end of the Grey Wolf.

Gamache and his team have barely stopped an attempt to poison Montreal’s water supply as part of a power grab. The supposed mastermind, Marcus Lauzon, the Deputy Prime Minister, is now in solitary confinement. But Gamache, recovering at home, having lost his hearing due to a gun discharge meant to kill him, is beginning to doubt that the threat has been removed. They just may have been diverted off the trail of something bigger.

Not knowing who to trust, he has brought his closest associates, Beauvoir and LaCoste to Three Pines. Quietly, they have been studying the notebooks and a map left by slain biologist, Charles Langlois. But most of his notations are cryptic, and a laptop that may offer the key is still missing.

Another clue is equally puzzling. The Grey Wolf had given them this warning:

In a dry and parched land, where there is no water.

What that means, they have no clue. Canada has an abundance of water.

Slowly they piece together clues that convince them something bigger is going on. Woven into it are forest fires, atmospheric conditions, secret war plans and a treasonous international collaboration.

But back to Gamache’s doubts as to the identity of the Black Wolf. Is it Jeanne Caron, the popular current Prime Minister, a mob boss, or someone else? Or could it even be Lauzon? Penny tantalizes us with this throughout the book.

Like The Madness of Crowds, the book has surprised many readers with its prescience as to current events. In light of this, Penny includes an author note at the beginning of the book that she submitted the book to her publisher in September 2024, predating events that followed the U.S. presidential election in 2024. Most striking are her references to Canada as a “fifty-first state.”

It’s also striking that two meetings occur at the Haskell Free Library and Opera House, which straddles the US/Canada border. A black taped line runs through the middle of the building denoting the border. It has been a unique place where Canadians and Americans mix without checkpoints. Until this year. Now Canadians can’t enter the grand entrance on the US side without going through border control. An emergency exit on the Canada side serves as a temporary entrance.

Beyond details like this Penny explores our brave new social media world and its capacity for misinformation and deep fakes where interviews and videos can be doctored to say the opposite of what they were meant to reveal. In addition, Penny explores the international implications of climate-related events including fires, smoke pollution, and water shortages.

Like many of Penny’s books, this one has a hair-raising finish, one that stretched plausibility for me at points. However, one of the most interesting plot elements is that there is a point at which Gamache intentionally misleads Beauvoir. One senses that something shifts in their relationship. Plot material for a future book?

However, her larger scenario didn’t stretch plausibility. It was bleak and scarily realistic for me. It was only relieved by the beautifully ordinary life of Three Pines with an eccentric poet and her goose Rosa, and all the people who gather at the Bistro for exquisitely good food. Perhaps that is a parable of how we must live in our time. That is, we enjoy the good, true, and beautiful of the given day, thankful for and praying for the Gamaches that stand between us and annihilation.

Review: Eating with Jesus

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Cover image of "Eating with Jesus by Robert D. Cornwall

Eating with Jesus

Eating with Jesus, Robert D. Cornwall. Cascade Books (ISBN: 9798385213450) 2025.

Summary: An argument against restrictions or “fences” around the Lord’s table, welcoming all who will to come and encounter Christ.

When your church has communion or celebrates the Eucharist or Lord’s table, may all who wish to come, participate? Or is participation qualified in some way? Once, while visiting a church in a different denomination than my own, i needed to be interviewed by an elder and complete a form before being permitted to take communion. Another time, I was a guest in a service celebrating the Jubilee year of my former spiritual director. It was deeply meaningful, but when it came time to partake in the Eucharist, I knew that church permitted the Eucharist only to those received into the church, and so I refrained out of respect. But I felt left out.

Robert D. Cornwall asks whether it is consistent with the table Jesus kept to erect such “fences” to coming to the Lord’s table. He argues that it is not. Part One of the book lays out his argument. Part Two then offers reflections on a number of relevant passages. The appendices offer resources including liturgies and prayers for an open table.

First of all, Cornwall lays out biblical and theological foundations exploring the significance of Communion including its Passover roots, New Covenant significance, and as a meal of thanksgiving, unity, and encounter with Jesus. Then he turns to the history of restrictions to participation. He argues that 1 Corinthians 11:27-28 reflected the discriminatory practices in Corinth in which more “entitled” persons ate, leaving others to go hungry. They devalued both the bread and cup and the body of fellow believers. It’s not so much a restriction as a warning about their behavior toward fellow believers.

Thus, he contends that the New Testament offers no restrictions and opens the table to be shared by Jew and Gentile. Rather, restrictions came in subsequent centuries, requiring baptism after a lengthy catechesis. While in the modern period, ecumenism has led to mutual recognition of baptisms in many denominations, restrictions remain barring the table to unbaptized, or unconfirmed children, and to the unbaptized, including those who have yet to profess faith.

While upholding the importance of baptism as one’s visible profession of faith and initiation into the church, Cornwall does not believe this should bar those who would come. He argues that Jesus placed no such restrictions. Even sinners were welcome to his table, often with transforming effects. He argues that if this is the Lord’s table and not the church’s, Jesus is the host. He does not need us to “gatekeep.” Cornwall also includes a chapter on the COVID pandemic, when online participation ruled out such gatekeeping.

Positively, he then considers more deeply the meaning of the table as a place of encounter with the risen Lord. This includes the significance this may have in welcoming non-believers to the table. While I haven’t observed the latter, I’ve seen non-believers converted during prayer gatherings and work trips with Christians. They experienced the reality of people encountering Jesus in a compelling way. This made sense to me.

Part Two turns to reflections on several biblical passages. Perhaps most unusual is Genesis 18, reflecting how Abraham’s hospitality to strangers is a model for us. In Matthew 9:9-13, he considers Jesus eating with sinners. Among the texts included, he turns again to 1 Corinthians 11:27-34 on the matter of eating worthily. The eschatological elements of the meal are explored in Matthew 26:26-30. The final reflection, on the Messianic banquet, offers a reading of Revelation 19:6-10.

In his concluding thoughts, Cornwall recasts the Lord’s table, not in ecclesiological, but rather missiological terms. Rather than the table being a closed place, Cornwall raises the missional potential of making the table a place of welcome.

I appreciated this argument. Reflecting on how I’ve been excluded, even as a believer from some tables, I am deeply sympathetic to what this might mean to seekers. After all, who would come to this table, understanding what it means, if not desirous of an encounter with Christ? In fact, might not such a desire reflect the work of the Holy Spirit, drawing one to faith? Why would we want to quench the Spirit? Also, I’ve found that it is a fool’s errand to try to defend Jesus, who welcomed sinners, and hostile religious leaders, and even Judas to his table. He’d rather we come, and bring both friends and strangers.

_______________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

The Weekly Wrap: December 7-13

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The Weekly Wrap: December 7-13

Discovering Jane Austen

This year is the 250th anniversary of the birth of Jane Austen. All my life I’ve avoided reading her. I’ll confess that it is probably at least a latent sexism that has kept me away. These were not the books my male friends read, if they read books.

What’s changed for me is the recognition that at one time there were only male voices in literary circles. Austen’s accomplishment is to center women’s voices in the relations of women and men. Only later in life have I begun to understand how necessary both sets of voices are in the human community (call it Male Pattern Stupidity on my part!). For Austen’s time, her accomplishment over the six novels that make up her works is a signal breakthrough in literature.

I’ve begun at the beginning, with Sense and Sensibility. Two sisters represent the debate of which is more important in the matters of the heart–sense (Elinor) or sensibility (Marianne). I look forward to discovering how things work out for the Dashwood sisters.

One thing I enjoy about Austen is that she unfolds the story in short chapters. So, as a reader, i can catch my breath wherever I need to without stopping in the middle of a chapter.

You won’t see my reviews until 2026. I hope to work through all six novels next year, thanks to the inexpensive deal on my Kindle. I’ll let you know how its going. And I’d enjoy hearing your experiences of reading Austen.

Five Articles Worth Reading

One of the hallmarks of the holidays is lots of food–and lots of scraps. Increasingly, we are becoming conscious of the environmental impacts of food waste. Tamar Adler is a cross between philosopher and cookbook author. In “A Different Kind of Materialism” we learn how Adler deals with kitchen scraps as ingredients for new dishes.

It was 1700 years ago this year that the first Council of Nicaea convened. In much recent writing, you would think that Nicaea suppressed truly radical ideas about the nature of Jesus. Carnegie-Mellon scholar Ed Simon argues that the most radical ideas were those on which the council reached consensus–the others are what you might expect people to come up with. On this anniversary year of the Council, he considers “The Legacy of Nicaea.”

Then, closer in time, a boy and his bear, Christopher Robin and Winnie-the-Pooh made their debut in 1926. In “Winnie-the-Pooh at 100: PW Talks with Gyles Brandreth,” Publishers Weekly interviews A.A. Milne’s biographer, exploring Milne’s complex life.

Closer still, do you remember the books you read fifty years ago, if you’ve been around that long? Mental Floss considers “7 Books That Somehow Turned 50 in 2025” and how they’ve fared.

Lastly, these books didn’t make the bestseller or “best books” lists in 2025. Our friends at the New York Times Book Review identify sixteen “gems” they think worthy our attention in “Our Favorite Hidden Gem Books of 2025.”

Quote of the Week

American poet Emily Dickinson was born December 10, 1830. This piece of wisdom may come in handy at holiday gatherings this year:

“Saying nothing… sometimes says the most.”

Miscellaneous Musings

ICYMI, I posted my “Bob on Books Best of 2025” yesterday. I picked 18 books out of the 243 I reviewed so far this year as “best” in different categories. Pulling that together offered a kind of retrospective look at a year of reading. I realized among other things that I read a number of classic mysteries, none of which made the list.

I also realized I could have had a Best Science Fiction/Fantasy choice with R.F. Kuang’s Katabasis. I just missed it because Goodreads substituted a weird cover I didn’t recognize under my five-star ratings. It’s worth a read as campus satire and as an exploration of the Faustian bargains that may tempt academics. Here’s a link to my review.

It’s getting tougher for bloggers like me to get review copies from some publishers. By playing the “importunate widow” and not taking no for an answer, I persuaded one publicist to send a book I really wanted to review, The Search for a Rational Faith by Daniel K. Williams. Hopefully, it will turn up in my mailbox. If not, I also made a connection with the author, a professor at one of my alma maters. The things you have to do! (And sometimes you just end up buying the book!).

Next Week’s Reviews

Monday: Robert D. Cornwall, Eating With Jesus

Tuesday Louise Penny, The Black Wolf

Wednesday: Agatha Christie, The Harlequin Tea Set and Other Stories

Thursday: Terry Pratchett, Equal Rites

Friday: David Paul Warners and Matthew Kuperus Heun, Beyond Stewardship

So, that’s The Weekly Wrap for November 30-December 6.

Find past editions of The Weekly Wrap under The Weekly Wrap heading on this page

Bob on Books Best of 2025

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Bob on Books Best of 2025

Arriving at a “best books” list is always a challenge. To date, I’ve reviewed 243 books this year and choosing among them was not easy. There are very good and worthwhile books not on this list. A few things about my choices. First, all these are books I’ve read and reviewed in 2025. Second, aside for a couple exceptional backlist books, most were published either late in 2024 or during 2025. This ruled out the mysteries I reviewed, which were all older classics. Finally, I did not name an overall best of the year–it felt too much like choosing between apples and oranges So, without further ado, here are my choices:

Fiction and Poetry

Best Fiction

Buckeye, Patrick Ryan. Random House (ISBN: 9780593595039) 2025. I loved this story centered around two couples in small town, post World War 2 northwest Ohio. Not only is this story of secrets between the couples that affect two boys finely written, Ryan captures the ethos of this part of Ohio perfectly. Review

Best Backlist Fiction

Cutting for Stone, Abraham Verghese. Vintage Books (ISBN: 9780375714368) 2010. Last year, I named Verghese’s Covenant of Water my best of the year. So, I went back to read this work and found the story of two boys born in tragedy and raised at an Ethiopian mission hospital. It was the best older fiction I’ve read. Review

Best Poetry

An Incremental Life, Luci Shaw. Paraclete Press (ISBN: 9781640609792) 2025. Poet Luci Shaw died December 1, a month short of 97. I’ve long loved her poetry that mixed scenes of nature with insights into the seasons of life and the transcendent. I reviewed her last published work earlier this year–quite amazing stuff for a poet in her 90’s and a gift by which to remember her. Review

Non-fiction

Best Biography

John Lewis: A Life, David Greenberg. Simon & Schuster (ISBN: 9781982142995) 2024. I admired John Lewis and his penchant for getting into “good trouble.” This biography helped me to understand the formative influences of faith and non-violent resistance in love the helped explain his resilience in the long fight. Review

Best History

The Gales of November, John U. Bacon. Liveright (ISBN: 9781324094647) 2025. The story of the Edmund Fitzgerald has long fascinated me for reasons I give in my review. John U. Bacon writes a compelling history of the Fitzgerald, weaving the boat’s construction and history, the personal histories of captain and crew, the conditions they faced during the storm and factors that may have contributed to the sinking. Review

Best Essays

History Matters, David McCullough (edited by Dorie McCullough Lawson and Michael Hill, foreword by Jon Meacham). Simon & Schuster (ISBN: 9781668098998) 2025. I’ve read everything McCullough wrote, So these essays, edited posthumously by his daughter, were a gift. We not only learn about why history matters but he offers vignettes from his research, insights into his writing process, and lots of book recommendations! Review

Best Book on Technology and Society

Against the Machine, Paul Kingsnorth. Thesis (ISBN: 9780593850633) 2025. In a year dominated by news of the tech industry and the rise of Artificial Intelligence, Kingsnorth’s eloquent warning of how machine culture threatens culture and humanity is worth considering before we plunge into the brave new world that beckons. Review

Best Sports Book

The Last Manager, John W. Miller. Avid Reader Press (ISBN: 9781668030929) 2025. Two things I remembered about Earl Weaver, his on-field confrontations with umpires, and that he won. John Miller’s biography traces Weaver’s particular genius and how he changed the role of managers. Review

Best Ohio Book

Runs in the Family, Sarah Spain and Deland McCullough. Simon Element (ISBN: 9781668036280) 2025. Deland McCullough grew up in challenging circumstances on the east side of Youngstown, and then was a star football player for Campbell, and at Miami University, before going on to a successful coaching career. But the most powerful part of the story was his search for his biological parents and the great (and good) surprise when he learned who his biological father was. Review

Best Book on Books

World of Wonders: A Spirituality of Reading, Jeff Crosby, foreword by Carolyn Weber. Paraclete Press (ISBN: 9781640609457) 2025. I love books about books. Crosby knows his stuff as an author and publisher and leader of a trade association. Here, he explores why we read, offers tips on different genres, and how reading may be a spiritual practice in our lives. And he recommends a lot of books along the way! Review

Best Self Help

The Magic of Knowing What You Want, Tracey Gee. Revell (ISBN: 9780800746223) 2025. Tracy Gee writes for those at pivot points in their lives and careers. She contends that key the key to direction is know what you want. She takes people through a process of clarifying that and turning it into an action plan. Review

Christian Books

Best Spiritual Formation

Insane for the Light, Ronald Rolheiser. Image (ISBN: 9780593736463) 2025. Most spiritual formation books address either young adults or those at mid-life. What was so valuable about this book is that Fr. Rolheiser addresses later life and how even our dying my be a gift. Review

Best Bible Commentary

1 Corinthians: A Theological, Pastoral & Missional Commentary, Michael J. Gorman. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (ISBN: 9780802882660) 2025. Gorman strikes a wonderful balance between scholarship and usability for pastors and other church teachers. And he focuses on Paul’s call for us to live cruciform lives. Review

Best Theology

Light Unapproachable, Ronni Kurtz. IVP Academic (ISBN: 9781514007105) 2024. Ronni Kurtz writes about divine incomprehensibility without being incomprehensible! This is a rich book about how God’s gracious accommodation to his creatures. This slim volume is clear in its development and devotionally rich. Review

Best Religious Memoir

Why I Believe in God, Gerhard Lohfink, Linda M. Maloney, translator. Liturgical Press (ISBN: 9780814689974) 2025. One might think this would be a dense, erudite work. Rather, it is an extended testimony to the growth of Lohfink’s faith over the course of his life. Reading this made me want to read more of him! Review

Best Book on Theology and the Arts

Makers by Nature, Bruce Herman. IVP Academic (ISBN: 9781514009802) 2025. This wonderful book by Christian artist and professor Bruce Herman explores, through a series of letters, calling, artistic process, style, and his own sense of the intersection of faith and art. Included are color plates of his work. Review

Best Children’s Book

Abigail and the Waterfall, Sandra L. Richter, illustrated by Michael Corsini. IVP Kids (ISBN: 9781514008928) 2025. This beautifully illustrated book describes a family hike to a waterfall, the creatures encountered, and the invitation this experience offers to care for God’s world. Review

Best Backlist Theology

Loving to Know, Esther Lightcap Meek. Cascade Books (ISBN: 9781608999286) 2011. This book is a wonderful antidote to our epistemic crisis–our uncertainty about knowing the truth. Meek avoids both sterile rationalism and relativism in laying out an epistemology in which knowing is personal and relational, even as we focus on what is to be known. I wish I’d read this while I was still in icollegiate ministry! Review

Well, there it is, my best of 2025. Perhaps it will give you ideas for gifts. And maybe there is something here for you as well. I hope so!

Review: Watching the Chosen

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Cover image of "Watching the Chosen" Robert K. Garcia, Paul Gondreau, Patrick Gray, Douglas S. Huffman, editors

Watching The Chosen, Robert K. Garcia, Paul Gondreau, Patrick Gray, Douglas S. Huffman, editors. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (ISBN: 9780802885463) 2025.

Summary: Essays exploring the imagination, storytelling, Christology and treatment of persons, especially women, in “The Chosen.”

Recently, another book I was reviewing had a chapter titled, “Can I call myself a Christian if I Don’t Watch The Chosen?” I resonated, having sometimes wondered in the last couple years whether I was the last Christian in my circles not to watch The Chosen. I’d just seen too many bad movies and videos by Christians, and I didn’t need to watch more. Then this book came. And I felt that I couldn’t review the book without having watched at least a bit of the series. Honestly, Season one, Episode one hooked me, when Jesus healed Mary Magdalene. Now I’m through most of Season Three, having watched most of what the book covers.

One of my discoveries is that many of the contributors to this volume had similar experiences to mine. That is, they approached skeptically and were won over by the imaginative storytelling, the very human and yet divine Jesus, and the way Jesus in The Chosen treats persons, especially women. The essays, seventeen in all, are divided under four topics.

Part One considers “Imagination and Interpretation.” Douglas S. Huffman leads off looking at how the series balances authenticity, plausibility, and relatability. But sometimes people have criticized the imaginative reading between the lines of scripture. David Kneip looks at Philip and Nathanael under the fig tree in John 1:43-51 and how the early church fathers offered similar renderings. Dolores G. Morris considers the show’s approach to the problem of evil and the hiddenness of God, noting the epistemic humility that runs throughout. She also responds to charges that the show adds to scripture, reminding critics that this is historical fiction based on the gospels, which viewers are urged to read. Concluding this section, Kenneth Gumbert, explores the wide appeal beyond Dallas Jenkins own evangelicalism, noting how the storytelling also appeals to the sacramental imagination.

Then Part Two digs more deeply into the storytelling and narrative art of the series. The first essay explores the storytelling through the lens of attachment theory and dual processing models of information. Then T. Adam Van Wert explores how The Chosen affirms the sufficiency of story to invite us to live within the story. Jeannine Hanger focuses on stories from John’s gospel and how these move viewers to take in more of scripture, a reaction of many. Finally, John Hilton III explores how to use The Chosen in the classroom. He offers a helpful set of questions to use with many episodes.

Part Three focuses on Christology and history. Paul Gandreau addresses the very human portrayal of Jesus in the context of historical Christological debates. Daniel M. Garland Jr. elaborates the bridegroom theology portrayed in the series’ treatments of John’s gospel. But how does the portrayal of Jesus relate to the “quests” for the historical Jesus? James F. Keating takes up this subject. Finally, in this section., Patrick Gray considers how The Chosen portrays the traditional Evangelists: Matthew, Luke, and John.

One of the most compelling aspects of The Chosen for me is how Jesus encounters various individuals. Jesse Stone considers this emotional resonance. Deborah Savage shows how this portrayal of Jesus in relationship exemplifies John Paul II’s personalism. Then Robert K. Garcia builds on this, showing the portrayal of the infinite worth of each individual. Finally, the concluding essays center on the women in The Chosen. The first shows how dialogue amplifies women’s voices. The second offers a rhetorical analysis of Jesus’ interactions with women and how these elevate the status of women.

In sum, reading these essays enhanced my appreciation for the storytelling artistry and the historical authenticity of the series. They also confirmed the high view of scripture evident in this “historical fiction.” All this suggests to me that the series creators have immersed themselves deeply in the gospel narratives. Above all, the discussion confirmed my own sense of the compelling portrayal of Jesus, the most believable I’ve seen. While one doesn’t need this book to watch The Chosen, reading it will enable you to enter more deeply into the series. It has for me.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Experiencing Scripture as a Disciple of Jesus

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Cover image of "Experiencing Scripture as a Disciple of Jesus" by Dave Ripper

Experiencing Scripture as a Disciple of Jesus

Experiencing Scripture as a Disciple of Jesus, Dave Ripper. InterVarsity Press | Formatio (ISBN: 9781514013106) 2025.

Summary: How the approach of Dallas Willard to reading scripture may transform us as disciples.

The late Dallas Willard was not only a distinguished academic philosopher. He also was known for his teaching on spiritual formation. At the heart of that teaching was the idea of experiencing transformation from the inside out, becoming more like Christ. Willard understood this in light of the biblical idea of discipleship. He observed that “disciple” occurs 269 times in the New Testament whereas “Christian” occurs only three times. For Willard, that transformation as disciples came, at least in part, through his reading of scripture. His own Bible was marked up on every page with underlines, circles, and notes.

As Dave Ripper read the works of Dallas Willard and then had the chance to meet him, Willard’s engagement with scripture fascinated him. Whereas for many, reading scripture was about information, Willard encountered Christ as he read scripture. So, Ripper wanted to read the Bible like Dallas Willard. Both during Willard’s life and through his writing, he came to understand how Willard immersed himself in the text But Willard never wrote a book about this. This is that book.

Ripper begins with Willard on John 17:3. Jesus says to his disciples, “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (NIV). Willard stressed that this is relational, intimate, personal knowledge and by this we experience that eternal life of God in us now. Willard urged expectancy that as we read, we will experientially know God. He goes on to elaborate Willard’s view of scripture as establishing the boundaries of what he will say to us. While we may hear God in prayer, it will always be within these boundaries. But Willard expected God to speak, as Ripper describes in writing about Willard as a mystic. He believed God would both speak through this text and speak personally.

But how do we read like Willard? Similar to Mortimer Adler, Willard was a believer in marking up the text. He believed in the over-arching story of scripture of God forming a People for himself, a theme he traced in fifteen movements. Willard also believed it was more important to get scripture through us than to get through a lot of scripture. He stressed meditating on shorter texts and doing so through memorization of those texts.

Ripper explores Willard’s adaptation of both lectio divina and Ignatian approaches. Ripper then distills Willard’s ideas into a seven-step process defined by the acronym IMMERSE. These steps are;

  1. Immersion. Our posture of reverence and expectancy that God will speak.
  2. Meditation. Spending extended time mulling over what we’ve read before God.
  3. Memorization. Start with key passages and memorize as much as you can.
  4. Encounter. Using our imagination, we become a participant in the text, addressing and being addressed by God.
  5. Response. How are we being invited to act upon what we’ve heard? What does it mean for us to trust and obey?
  6. Supplication. Asking God for what we need for what we’ve heard to become so for us.
  7. Experience. Knowing God to be truly present with us amid our circumstances.

Through this process we move from communication to communion to union with God.

Then Ripper devotes two chapters to elaborating how Willard experienced the Old Testament and then the New. Finally, Ripper discusses how to teach scripture like Dallas Willard, offering ten short aphorisms. For example, the first is “speak from the overflow of a satisfied soul.” I liked the fourth as well: “Give ’em heaven!” If all of us who teach heeded these ten, the church would be immeasurably enriched. And it would not be at the expense of our souls.

This book is hardly a substitute for either the scriptures themselves, nor the writings of Dallas Willard. But the ideas here may well whet your appetite for a richer engagement with scripture and the Lord who waits to speak to us. It was twenty years ago that I heard Willard speak and read his books–and not all of them. Ripper’s study of Willard is a spur to me that led me to move a couple of the unread books to my TBR pile.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.