Radical - David Platt

Radical seemed to be one of those 'work hard for Jesus' sort of books, which litter the bookshelves and are punched up with catchy titles, and very rarely have anything worthwhile to say. Luckily this is not the case with Radical. In fact, this book is more than worth your time.

With most books of this type, you will open the book and find chapter after chapter of living for God and doing things for God. Radical could not be more different. Rather than implying that works bring us to God, this book asserts that our salvation leads us to do works, and then spends most of the book explaining what salvation is, and looks like.

David Platt is completely gospel-centered, which also distinguishes Radical from many other books of its type. The first three-quarters of the book take a careful look at what Christianity is, what it's meant to be, and how the core of our faith is Christ. Who are we supposed to be as Christians, and what do we do about it?

The last quarter of the book, merely the length of a few blog posts, explains ways in which to live a Radical life that is what Christ truly intended for his church. This is a call to get out of our apathy and do something, but it's not just for the sake of doing something: Radical is whole and completely centered around Jesus Christ.

This is an excellent book which clearly and concisely takes Christ and the Gospel as the core of our faith, and from that core explains the basic ideas of what it means to be a Christian: what Christians do. It is biblically-grounded and sound. If you are looking for a book about what it actually means to be a Christian, I highly recommend Radical.

~ Andrew J.