Giving “You Were Born for This” by Bruce Wilkinson a Grade
(Click here to download the first chapter of Bruce Wilkinson’s book, You Were Born for This.)
Dear Bruce,
Hi again. Where do I begin? This is supposed to the place where I summarize “the Good, the Bad and the Ugly” after reading your first chapter of You Were Born for This. I’m afraid that you – and everyone else reading for the past few weeks – know that there’s much more bad and ugly to write about than good, but I’ve been trained to always start with the good. So here goes nothing . . .
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That’s right. Absolutely nothing. I’m not kidding. I can’t honestly say there’s one single component of your book that jives with what we read in Scripture. Not surprising, though, when “the Bad” and “the Ugly” are this bad and ugly:
1) You never identify the identity of your reader. You know the problem as well as anyone: if you write so generically that it applies to everyone, then what you write can’t be biblical (unless you’re speaking of the fact that we all sin or we’re all going to die one day or something like that).
One will, of course, sell more books if they write it so generically that it appeals to both non-believers and believers in Christ alike (but you already know that from personal experience).
2) Your definition of a “miracle,” which is the main topic of your text, is not biblical. Again, unless God suspends the very laws of nature or something terribly earth-shattering like that, it’s not a miracle. You ought to call these occurrences what the Bible calls them: good deeds.
(By the way, your two examples of “everyday miracles,” as you call them, fall firmly under the category of “good deeds,” unless you’re striving to make something out of nothing…again…)
3) Your book relies on people hinging their experiences on their emotions rather than on what the Bible says about our experiences.
4) Places like “Everyday Miracle Territory,” “the Land of Good Deeds,” and “The Land of Signs and Wonders” need to either be permanently filed away (in File 13 as we call it in class), or relegated to fictional maps (like we see in The Wizard of Oz and The Lord of the Rings books). Really, Bruce. Where was your editor when you proposed such nonsense? Never-never-land?
5) For support, you refrain from doing the biblically-responsible thing and actually use your previous text, The Prayer of Jabez, as support for your text. Incredible. (Incredibly bad job on your part, I mean.)
6) Finally, you never mention when it is that true believers, according to the Bible, can absolutely, positively be used by God in a miraculous way: EVANGELISM.
When a Christian shares the Gospel to an unbeliever (in obedience to the Great Commission given to all believers, and out of love for said unbeliever), God may then do His miraculous work of conversion in the life of that person.
All Christians reading this already know that, though, for they know that God wrought a miracle in their lives. Col. 1:13-14 states, “For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” (NASB)
Yet your text doesn’t speak of this, the most important miracle of all that any believer could ever be involved in. Incredibly disappointing.
Therefore, it can be no great surprise when I unapologetically and most sincerely give this book an:
F
Can’t say it’s been fun (though I can say it’s been educational),
Chris
(For past responses to You Were Born for This, click on the following posts: Title & Table of Contents, Table of Contents addendum, Testimonials, 3a, 3b, 4a, 4b, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13.)
(For new readers, I’ve compiled my earlier analyses of Jesus Wants to Save Christians: A Manifesto for the Church in Exile (by Rob Bell and Don Golden). Simply click on my title, Clear as a Bell, and download for your own instruction.)
