ReCreatable: How God Heals The Brokenness Of Life, by Kevin Scott

[Note: This book was provided free of charge by Kregel Book Tours in exchange for an honest book review.]

This book is a fantastic work that I have already blogged about before [1], and that is worthy of a read for the way in which it deals with a very thorny set of problems in a very elegant way that puts the pieces together to examine how God takes what is broken and turns it into what glorifies Him. Generally speaking, there are not many books that combine the brokenness of life as we often experience it, the moral demands that are present on God’s believers, and the responsibilities of Christians to others as a part of a community and congregation. This book manages to tie all of these concerns together, along with thoughtful and insightful quotes, in a way that is worthy of reading and reflection. This book does all of that through the quote that encapsulates a form of the task of Christians in this life: to reflect His glory by living well in a pocket of His kingdom.

While this is a simple phrase to say, the implications of it are very serious. The first part of the book examines how we reflect His glory, first by our brokenness, then the way in which God works that into His glory, often by providing intersections between our experiences and opportunities for service, and then by turning what was profaned into what is holy and special to Him. The second part of the book examines how we live well through a lifestyle that is sustainable and that exhibits the virtues of faith, hope, and love, without forgetting that these virtues do not in any way neglect or diminish the reality of our lives or our world. The third section of this book, and the most challenging, looks at how we are to deal with scripture not merely as individuals but in the context of a community, involved in collective worship that also is active and involved in our local community with a mission for showing ourselves as examples of God’s way wherever we happen to be.

This is not a perfect book, by any means. For one, it tends to have a bit too dim of a view of the law, even though it makes a very strong attempt to be fair to God’s graciousness as well as the ethical demands that the Bible places on believers in a way that balances public and private morality as a unified whole. That said, this book is definitely a very worthwhile one in that it describes my own view about the public obligations of Christians in a way that uses the brokenness of life as fuel for the passion to help make this world, or at least the corner where we have any kind of influence, into a place that better models God’s ways. As far too many Christians seek to avoid their responsibilities to their congregations and to their communities, this book is a very helpful tonic to that sort of pietism. As such, this book will provide Christians with a thoughtful and generally biblical look at how and why God works with the sort of broken people He does.

[1] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2013/12/28/to-reflect-his-glory-by-living-well-in-a-pocket-of-his-kingdom/