Summer trips and Summer reading

Now that I am back from my holiday in Florida it's time to resume blogging. One of the highlights of our trip was to hear R.C. Sproul preaching in his church in Sanford; his exposition of Matthew 6:25-34 was uplifting and encouraging. It was also a joy to meet up with my good friend Burk Parsons and his family again, having spent a week in Uganda with them earlier this year.

I don't know if Florida is much of a reading State, but I found it very difficult to find a good bookshop when I was there. However we did stumble across a branch of Books-a-Million that served well to stretch our baggage allowance. Among my purchases were the ESV Literary Study Bible edited by the Rykens (thanks, Phil, for this - I have already began to use it with great profit), and The Shack.

I've been following the growth of the Shack phenomenon with some interest, and now that Hodder and Stoughton have published it in the UK I'm sure that the American enthusiasm will continue across here. I began my reading of it in the last few days of my holiday, and completed it on the plane, only to see someone across the aisle from me take out his new copy of it also. It sparked an interesting conversation. I hope to post a review of it on my blog soon.

So this - and a couple of other purchases - has put my intended Summer reading list out a little bit! That and the fact that Dane Ortlund's terrific book on Jonathan Edwards, A New Inner Relish: Chrisitan Motivation in the Thought of Jonathan Edwards, was waiting for me on my return. Of the making of books there is no end: but in our business with words, they are our best friends.