Reforesting Faith: What Trees Teach Us About The Nature Of God And His Love For Us, by Matthew Sleeth, MD
[Note: This book was provided free of charge by Multnomah Waterbrook Press. All thoughts and opinions are my own.]
Sometimes a writer assumes a bit too little of an audience. While it is quite likely that many Christians do not think a lot about trees and plants in the Bible, they are matter that has long been of interest to me. Of course, that is probably because I was born from a small farming family that was fond of the woods (the better to hide stills from the prying eyes of the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms), and was raised to climb mulberry trees, and I have continued to be fond of reading and writing about trees and their role in the Bible since then [1]. The author assumes that readers will not be knowledgeable about the importance of trees in the Bible and thus goes about writing about them in great detail. If the writer does happen to be very familiar with the biblical importance of trees and their significance for believers, the book will seem a bit more of a review, but still a worthwhile one nonetheless.
This short book of about 200 pages is divided into three parts and thirteen chapters. The first part of the book finds the author laying the groundwork for his discussion (I) with a discussion about lessons that trees teach us (1), the Bible’s trail of trees, one that used to be better recognized than it is at present (2), and the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that changed everything for mankind (3). After that the author talks about seeds of faith (II) with a discussion of trees of hospitality (4), the wooden ladder to heaven dreamed about by Jacob (5), the story of the burning bush (6) that drew Moses’ attention to God’s plan for delivering Israel, the aspect of God as the gardener of Israel (7), the tree of hope (8), and the importance of finding common ground with others who are concerned about creation (9). The author then closes with several chapters on the fruit of the tree (III), including a discussion of the Messiah tree (10), Christ as the true vine (11), Christ and the cross/stake (12), and Christ as the tree of life (13), before closing with an epilogue that expresses some postmillennial optimism as well as a note on why the author wrote the book.
There are at least a few obvious takeaways that a reader should gain from this book. For one, the author is very keen on talking about the importance of trees in the Bible, a point the author makes abundantly clear throughout. The author is also not afraid about engaging in a bit of speculation based on the meanings of biblical place and personal names that relate to trees as well. The author also has a glaringly obvious political goal in mind with this particular volume. He points out that those who are enemies of trees cannot properly be friends with God, and that trees have a lot to tell us about life and long-term plans of God that can be hard to see for short-term focused human beings. The author does a good job in pointing out that preserving fruit trees is a matter of often-neglected biblical law even in times of war, although he misses some opportunity to talk about why it was that Israel lost most of its trees throughout history, only to have them being replanted by the nation of Israel and its Jewish people at present. The author encourages ecologically-minded Christians to engage in allies with ungodly environmentalists, something that can perhaps be done on a tactical basis with regards to conservation and the restoration of forests around the world but something which would be unwise with regards to the leftist political agenda of bogus climate change arguments and other related problems.
[1] See, for example:
Psalm 1: And He Shall Be Like A Tree Planted By The Rivers of Water
Book Review: Understanding The Ecology Of The Bible: An Introductory Atlas
Edge Induced Cohesion 