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Dear Friends,
Welcome to another year of Grace Theological College "Insights". These weekly devotional and practical comments have quickly become an integral part of our ministry. By the end of last year more than 150 people were receiving them each week. We hope that number will grow this year - not because we are number-hungry, but because we want to see the grace of Christ, as it flows through us, reach as many people as possible.
This year our insights will once again be based on helpful or at least well-known books. The first of these will be Gordon MacDonald's "Ordering Your Private World" (Nashville: Nelson, 1984), a book that has sold well over a million copies in less than twenty years. This book explores the challenge of "keeping the heart" (Proverbs 4:23) in a busy world. MacDonald believes that the inner life, or private world of Christians, is the battleground of the age. He attempts to do what the Puritan John Flavel did so successfully in an earlier day - convince Christians to make a priority of guarding and strengthening their inner world.
While there is much in what MacDonald says that is challenging and helpful, there are nevertheless some questions that his book raises in my mind - questions that I want to discuss with you over the next weeks. It may seem presumptuous to suppose that there can be anything questionable about a book that has sold over a million copies and helped so many Christians. That may be so, but it shouldn't stop us from thinking seriously and deeply about what we read. It is possible that the restless quest of modern Christians for solutions to their practical problems (evidenced in the popularity of books such as Ordering Your Private World) reflects some deep-seated deficiencies in our approach to the Christian life. In other words, we may not be getting it quite right in our teaching on the Christian life. And that makes serious thinking always valid, even urgently necessary.
We hope that you not only enjoy reading our reflections on MacDonald's ideas over the next weeks, but that you are both challenged and changed by them. We are always pleased to receive comment and feedback so don't hesitate to write if you have something you want to share in response to what you read.
With our sincere greetings in Christ.
Andrew Young