If reading Dr. David Platt’s first book Radical was like getting a punch in the stomach, then reading Radical Together was like getting your teeth knocked in. Dr. Platt uses a simple and direct way of communicating the heart motivation that believers should have. And every time I read something that was not present in my life my heart was pricked by conviction. The Gospel is radically good news. It should change us and leave us wanting for more, but this is not always the case.
In Radical Together Dr. Platt moves the focus from the individual Christian to the corporate fellowship of believers. How should radically transformed believers live out their lives together? This is a powerful question that we have to take seriously. There are six areas that are covered in the book:
- The tendency to be satisfied to easily
- Misunderstanding what the Gospel is and does
- A failure to trust the Word of God
- The arrogance of favoritism
- Our fear of what’s to come
- Our prideful sense of our own worth
These are my takeaway’s from reading the book. It is difficult at times to come face-to-face with what you are doing, or not doing for that matter. What makes Radical Together helpful is the way that you are confronted, comforted, and challenged to make the changes that need to be made. It is not that you are doing these things on your own. I think that this really is the point. The combination of the church’s power and presence to facilitate these changes is invaluable and incalculable.
I would say that the book is worth the price of three pages found at the end of the book. As I read them I was so convicted that I had to re-read them as they spoke to my heart. Dr. Platt shares a personal story about sharing tracts to an unreached people group and thinking to himself that “God must be really glad to have me on his team.” He then quotes several paragraphs from A. W. Tozer‘s book The Knowledge of the Holy. As Dr. Platt puts it, he just so happened to be holding the book. This particular passage captures the essence of whole.
“An effective speaker can easily excite pity in his hearers, not only for the heathen but for the God who has tried so hard and so long to save them and has failed for want of support. I fear that thousands of younger persons enter Christian service from no higher motive than to help deliver God from the embarrassing situation His love has gotten Him into and His limited abilities seem unable to get Him out of.” (A. W. Tozer, quoted in Radical Together, p. 122)
This section alone is worth the price of the book! I am thankful for Dr. Platt’s faithfulness in sharing these insights and encouragements. I pray that the universal church would take to heart what God has called her to. I also pray that I would live a life worthy of the God who saves in such a radical way.
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