HANDBOOK FOR FINANCIAL FAITHFULNESS
Floyd Sharp and Al MacDonald, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1974, 84 pages.
The Handbook for Financial Faithfulness contains a sufficient amount of basic information relative to the relationship of finances to God and everyday life to make it worth your purchase and perusal. A number of texts are used to describe a Biblical approach to financial planning.
Forty-five of its pages are devoted to various record sheets and forms that may be used to budget and keep a record of your finances.
The book contains material that the pastor could share with a church during a prayer meeting series.
Paul Smith
THE FREEDOM OF GOD'S SONS: STUDIES IN GALATIANS
Homer A. Kent, Jr., Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1976, $2.95.
"Paul's Epistle to the Galatians stands with his Epistle to the Romans as influencing Christian thought and history more than any other New Testament book," declares Dr. Kent, author of this fine volume of 192 pages.
As dean of the seminary and professor of New Testament and Greek at Grace Theological Seminary, Winona Lake, Indiana, this author is ably qualified to give a clear analysis of this great apostolic letter. It is not only accurate theologically, but its truth concerning Judaism in Galatia is clearly set forth. Abundant footnotes throughout each chapter reveal painstaking re search on the part of the author. Maps, photos, and charts make the subject easy to understand.
This is one in a series of New Testament studies, and the publishers are to be commended for the inclusion of this timely volume. Every New Testament scholar knows that there is no scarcity of material on Galatians. But this is definitely one of the soundest and most scholarly of all studies.
Being familiar with the area from which these early pagans were called, this reviewer feels that any pastor or adult Bible teacher who uses this book as the basis for a series of prayer meeting studies will do much to build up the spiritual life of the congregation. The questions for discussion at the end of each chapter are most helpful.
Roy Allan Anderson
1,000 STORIES AND QUOTATIONS OF FAMOUS PEOPLE
Wayne E. Warner, Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, paperback edition, 1975,352 pages, $4.95.
This book is just what the title says it is, stories and quotations of famous people. The material, presented under the names of the famous persons included, is arranged alphabetically from Aesop to Woodrow Wilson. Each chapter deals with a different person, forty-four in all, and is divided into three parts: a brief biographical sketch, short human interest stories of the famous personage, and a series of direct quotations on a great variety of subjects. Those quoted are from all walks of life—statesmen, inventors, scientists, ministers, historians, poets, et cetera, every name a household word. Fourteen of them are now living or, like Dwight D. Elsenhower and John F. Kennedy, have died within recent years. The reader will find the one thousand entries both interesting and informative and a helpful resource for sermon illustrations.
I like this by John Wesley: "When I was young I was sure of everything; in a few years, having been mistaken a thousand times, I was not half so sure of most things as I was before; at present, I am hardly sure of any thing but what God has revealed."
Orley M. Berg
THE HALF-PARENT: Living With Other People's Children
Brenda Maddox, M. Evans and Company, Inc., New York, New York, 1975, 196 pages, $7.95.
More and more these days pas tors are called upon to perform marriages between couples who bring to their marriage children from previous marriages. The problems that develop in such marriages are often serious and far-reaching in society. It certainly is refreshing to see at last something on the subject of trying to live with other people's children.
"The cautious person will care fully ask himself or herself just why he wants to marry a parent," says Brenda Maddox in her book The Half-Parent. A pastor counseling such a couple would do well to raise this question and the others that occur in this valuable book.
The author gathered her material from stepparents she inter viewed in the United States and England. She did not, how ever, talk with the children of the stepparents. The reason for not doing so is explained this way in her book: "To talk with children about complicated emotions, with out professional training to do so, seemed to me foolhardy."
In The Half-Parent, Brenda Maddox has done an excellent job of listing the various types of problems that arise in such homes. Knowing that some of these problems will develop could relieve step-parenthood of much of the feelings of guilt and irritation.
It is estimated that each year in the United States some one mil lion children see their parents remarry. This means that many children and adults have to learn to live together.
It is Brenda Maddox' feeling (she too is a stepparent) that tensions in a step-family are special and real; yet she believes that the step-family can be a happy family.
Reginald N. Shires
