Dug Down Deep, by Joshua Harris

For my 100th Reading Glutton blog entry (yippee! 100!), I decided I should actually review a book, unlike my last 2 entries.  For the 100th entry, I will be reviewing Dug Down Deep: Building Your Life on Truths That Last, by Joshua Harris, which I received free from the publisher for the Blogging for Books program.  (Click the icon to the right to go to the Blogging for Books web site, and give all my reviews 5 stars!)  I have the paperback.  For some reason, the hardcover title is Dug Down Deep: Unearthing What I Believe and Why It Matters.  Maybe it's common to change subtitles like this, but it seems odd.

This video introduces the book better than I can:

Joshua Harris, pastor of Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Maryland, first gained publishing notoriety with his best-selling I Kissed Dating Goodbye. At that time, tackling the biggest questions in the minds of teens and 20-somethings, he was 21, but now, as a pastor, he tackles nothing less than systematic theology.  Harris writes with a personal, conversational style, whittling down theological conundrums into bite-size morsels.  With a pastor's heart and preacher's gift for communication, he brings the reader to a deeper understanding of many areas of theology.  Eschatology was noticeably absent, but he covers a wide swath of Christian teaching.

For the most part, any evangelical will be comfortable with his exposition.  His perspectives are representative of his denomination, Sovereign Grace Ministries.  (I know they don't call themselves a denomination; they are a "family of churches."  But from an outsider's perspective, they seem to operate much like a denomination.)  Harris draws from his church's Reformed, charismatic theology.  He is comfortable with and relies on the writings of John Piper, Wayne Grudem, John Stott, and others.  If you know who they are, you have an idea of where Harris is coming from.

As a Baptist-turned-charismatic (I identify with the Vineyard tradition), I found Harris's strongest chapter to be the one on the Holy Spirit.  He calls on us to embrace the gifts of the Spirit while being careful to avoid the excesses that sometimes creep up in the church.  "You can limit him by thinking he can never work in specific ways.  But you can also limit him by thinking that only the spectacular is meaningful."  Most importantly, the Spirit gives us the power of a changed heart and life.  Like a spotlight focusing on a stage, the Spirit spotlights Jesus.  "You know the Spirit is working if you're more amazed by Jesus, more desirous to serve and obey him, more ready to tell other people about him, more ready to serve the church he loves."

I was less impressed with his chapters on salvation and sanctification.  I felt like he was really trying to convey the reformed position, but he had a hard time fleshing out that difficult balance between salvation that comes as a work of God's grace alone, and that comes by our faith in Jesus, and between the holiness that comes from God and the obedience that comes from our effort.  I'm sure I couldn't do a better job with these questions, but I finished those chapters torn.  Did he make sense or didn't he?

Overall, this is a helpful, thoughtful book for the new Christian and the mature believer alike.  Whether or not he has all the answers, he provides fodder for discussion (discussion questions included at the end) and points us to resources for further study.  Dug Down Deep reminds us that if we want to know God, we ought to make an effort to know about him as best we can.