Book Review - Discovering The God Who Is

I just finished reading R.C. Sproul’s “Discovering The God Who Is.” I must say that at first I had mixed “feelings” on the book. Much of the book is what I could describe as a God primer describing the basic attributes of the God of the Bible. It was mystifying to me that there would be a need for such a book. However, as I gave the matter more thought, I had to concede that my experience has been that there may well be such a need. Much of the church today has lost its God-focus. Sunday mornings, long understood as a time primarily designed to give God worship, have been retooled to be times focused upon the “seeking” unbeliever, or on feeding the sheep. While Sunday morning may well be a time where the church (the body of Christ) is edified, or a time when some unbelievers might come to saving faith, it is a time when, first and foremost, God is to be exalted – to be worshipped. Moreover, the practice of setting aside the use of the Confessions, and the catechizing of the young, has resulting in little or no systematic foundation being laid that ensures that new members of the church, or the children of believers, understand that who this God is that they portend to worship. Even those pastors who dutifully preach through books of the Bible can, if they are not conscientiously doing otherwise, avoid any substantive discussions of the attributes of God – attributes which must be understood to understand how God saves His own, and how we are used to reach the lost.

Moreover, in this book of 222 pages, it is not clear that the final 20 (ish) pages would have the impact that they do without the preceding 200 – even if that 200 pages all seems like a review of what the reader already “knows.” And the insights in the last 20 pages make the preceding 200 well worth the time needed to read them. The final few pages of Mr. Sproul’s work gave me further insights regarding just how much we who have trusted in Christ for salvation are blessed – blessed in ways that I had not previously considered.