Review:David Platt’s target audience in his new book Follow Me is the large portion of the Christian church who call themselves Christian but are not living in an obedient, committed relationship with Jesus Christ. In his words:
“This
book represents an admittedly feeble attempt to address a malady in
contemporary Christianity. While multitudes of men and women often loosely and
many times falsely claim to be Christians, I have sought to explore what it
actually means to follow Jesus…Being a Christian involves leaving behind
superficial religion for supernatural regeneration” (David Platt, "Follow Me," Tyndale, 2013, p. 208). He states: “Only
those who are obedient to the words of Christ will enter the Kingdom of
God. if our lives do not reflect the
fruit of following Jesus, then we are foolish to think that we are actually
followers in the first place” (p. 16).
The book exposes several wrong principles that pervade the
nominal Christian culture. It is a
helpful look at the reasons why contemporary Christianity in the global north
has seemed to lose its fire and transformative edge.
Excerpts:
Repentance involves “a decided
break with an old way of living and a decisive turn to a new way of life. We
literally die to our sin and to ourselves – our self-indulgence, self-effort,
self-exaltation. …And as Christ begins to live in us, everything changes…our
minds change…our desires change…our wills change, …our relationships change, ...our
reason for living changes (p.23).
Wrong
principles:
1.
Christianity does not start with an invitation
we offer to Christ [to invite Him into our hearts] but with an invitation Jesus
offers to us…He takes the initiative and invites us to follow Him. Then everything changes on multiple levels. First,
our souls are struck with the greatness of the One who has called us” (p.29, 37).
2.
Christianity is not a superficial religion that
follows rules, “doing things outwardly but without inner transformation” (p. 58).
3.
Making Jesus my personal Lord and Savior is
wrong. “We have no right to personalize Him. Instead, He revolutionizes us…The
authority of Jesus’ words are tied to the actuality of Jesus’ resurrection” (pp. 76, 79).
4.
“We have no need to ask God to reveal His will
for our lives; instead, we each ask God to align our lives with the will He has
already revealed” (135).
5.
“There is a problem with calling people to make
a commitment to Christ without making a commitment to the church…To identify
your life with the person of Jesus Christ is to join your life with the people
of God” (p. 149-150)
6.
“So much of what we associate with the church
today is extra-biblical at best [it adds to what God’s Word says] and
unbiblical at worst [it undercuts what God’s Word says].” A church is not a
building filled with customized programs but, “a church is a community of
Christians who love one another and long for each other to know and grow in Christ.”
It takes personal holiness seriously (pp. 152,
154).
7.
There is a “ludicrous idea that we need to make
it easy for people to join the church, [by] hiding a commitment to holiness
from members in the church or dumbing down and not talking about the
seriousness of sin in the church…God has purposed to raise up a people who by
his grace are so holy and so pure and so abandoned in their obedience to Him
that…they help each other avoid [sin] at every turn because they know how
dangerous and deadly it is” (p. 160).
8.
“We don’t just follow a Savior who pardons our sin;
we follow a Savior who purifies us from sin. And we treasure his death enough
to treat sin seriously in his church” (p. 161).
9.
Dating the church [i.e., hopping from one church
to the next church…without a commitment to a permanent relationship] neglects
the Biblical understanding of the Body of Christ (p.163). “Each Christian is to be an active
accountable member of a local church under Biblical leadership for the glory of
God” (p. 170).
10. The
Great Commission is not a choice for us to consider but a command for us to
obey (pp. 178-179). In countries where it
is illegal to share the gospel, “brothers and sisters who have the Holy Spirit…simply
try to saturate all of their interactions with varying strands of the gospel,
like weaving various colored threads into a quilt… This is gospel sewing in action” (pp. pp.179-181)
11. The
sinner’s prayer is too often prayed “apart from a biblical understanding of the
gospel… without ever counting the cost of following Christ…We would be wise not
to give people blanket assurance regarding their eternal destiny apart from the
fruit of biblical faith, repentance, obedience and love” (pp.189-190).
12. Our goal is to make disciples, “teaching people
to follow Christ. This necessitates that
we show people …what the life of Christ looks like in action... In addition we teach people to obey all that
Christ has commanded us.” This includes moving out in witness around the world
to reach the 6000 people groups [out of
the 11 thousand people groups in the world] who are still unreached. “Every disciple exists to make
disciples of Jesus here and among every
people group on the planet” (pp.191, 193-194).
To foster transformation in Christians’ lives Platt asks 6
questions: 1. “How will I fill my mind with truth?” 2. “How will I fuel my
affections for God?” 3. “How will I share God’s love as a witness in the world?”
4. “How will I show God’s love as a member of a church?” 5. “How will I spread God’s glory among the
nations? How will I pray for the nations? How will I give to the nations? How
will I go to the nations?” 6. “How will I make disciple-makers among a few
people – how bring them in, how teach them? How will I model obedience? How
will I send them out?” (pp. 211-225).