Dane C. Ortlund - The Irresponsible Reader

Deeper: Real Change for Real Sinners

Kindle Edition, 144 pg.
Crossway, 2021

Read: October 26, 2021
Grab a copy from your local indie bookstore!

What’s Deeper About?

The goal of this book is to call believers to grow in Christ, to experience a deeper kind of Christian life. Ephesians 4:15 and 2 Peter 3:18 call for the Christian to grow, and that’s where Ortlund wants to focus.

He eschews the typical calls for greater discipline, certain acts/habits, intellectual pursuits, or behavioral changes for this aim. Instead, Ortlund wants to pursue this through a focus on Christ we are changed as we look to Him and his benefits.

Growing in Christ is not centrally improving or adding or experiencing but deepening…deepening is that you already have what you need. Christian growth is bringing what you do and say and even feel into line with what, in fact, you already are.

To point the believer to looking to Christ, he focuses on nine different aspects of that action—with one chapter per aspect (that I’ll gloss over because I get into it later).

Sources/Influences

Early on, Ortland makes several references to Henry Scougal’s The Life Of God In The Soul Of Man, which just made me happy. Introducing contemporary readers to Scougall’s classic is a great thing—also, it reminded me that I need to dust off my copy. I’m far overdue for a re-read of that.

I also assumed that the whole book was going to be along those lines. Instead, he seemed to lean primarily on Martin Luther, C. S. Lewis, Francis Schaeffer, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer—not a slouch among them, but none of them are really all that well-known for their work on sanctification.

I’m not saying that’s bad, I’m just wondering if his influences led to some of my ambivalence about the book as a whole.

So, what did I think about Deeper?

I do not have nine things to say. I have one thing to say. Look to Christ. You will grow in Christ as you direct your gaze to Christ. If you take your eyes off of Jesus Christ and direct your gaze to your own growth, you will prevent the very growth you desire…

The nine chapters of this book are not sequential steps in growing; they are different facets of the one diamond of growth. In order to grow, we need to see who the real Jesus is (chap. 1), collapsing into his arms and continuing to do so all our lives long (chap. 2) as those united to him (chap. 3), drinking down his undeserved love (chap. 4) and full legal exoneration on the basis of his own finished work (chap. 5), being therefore freed up to walk in the light (chap. 6) and receive the anguish of this life as the gentle hand of God to help us rather than to punish us (chap. 7), seeing the love of Christ by inhaling the Bible and returning our love to him in exhaled prayer (chap. 8), and actually experiencing the love of heaven through the indwelling Spirit (chap. 9).

It is, no question about it, better than the previous volume in the Union series. But for a book called Deeper, it really leaned toward the shallow, he needed to expand every one of those facets—if for no other reason than to do a better job of showing how they’re facets of the one idea. Because as much as he claims he had one idea in the book, not nine, I really never got that impression. Like the Reeves book on Fear of God, if this is intended to be the “full treatment” of the idea for pastors and other leaders, it falls short.

I liked everything that he had to say, I appreciated the wisdom of it, and I agree these things, as they are rooted in the gospel, need to be emphasized in the believer’s attention and life. But…I always felt like something was missing. Both in his thinking and his presentation—it’s likely just the latter, but without the more thorough presentation, it seems like it’s his logic.

I think most people will find some benefit to this book—not as much as Ortlund aimed for, perhaps–and I’m glad I read it. I just wanted something deeper.

3.5 Stars

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Nothing against this book, but I don’t have a lot to say, but I promised myself I’d do better about posting in this genre, so here we go.

Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers

by Dane C. Ortlund

Kindle Edition, 224 pg.
Crossway, 2020

Read: January 3-10, 2021
Grab a copy from your local indie bookstore!

What’s Gentle and Lowly About?

We are not focusing centrally on what Christ has done. We are considering who he is. The two matters are bound up together and indeed interdependent. But they are distinct.

…It is one thing to know the doctrines of the incarnation and the atonement and a hundred other vital doctrines. It is another, more searching matter to know his heart for you.

Where most books on Jesus Christ focus on His work or nature, Ortland focuses on who He is—what He’s revealed to His people. As you might guess from the title, he focuses on Matthew 11:29 the phrase, “I am gentle and lowly in heart,” in particular. But he develops the idea through numerous Gospel passages.

Ortland does spend time on the Spirit and Father, showing how they are both revealed to have a similar heart. He follows that up with material from the Epistles, focusing on the Risen and Ascended Christ, still displaying the same care, the same heart for His people.

Standing on the Shoulders

In this study, Ortlund draws on insights from the Puritans Thomas Goodwin, Richard Sibbes, and John Owen (some others, including some relatively modern writers, too). Naturally, I found this material very rewarding. Ortland takes his cues from the best of the English Reformed tradition and it shows in his work.

I do sort of wish that the footnotes pointed to things other than various authors collected works, I think in some cases the material is available in other editions, and it’d be nice if it was easier to find, he makes you want to read more by these men on those topics. But that’s beside the point.

So, what did I think about Gentle and Lowly?

“Gentle and lowly” does not mean “mushy and frothy.”

But for the penitent, his heart of gentle embrace is never outmatched by our sins and foibles and insecurities and doubts and anxieties and failures. For lowly gentleness is not one way Jesus occasionally acts toward others. Gentleness is who he is. It is his heart. He can’t un-gentle himself toward his own any more than you or I can change our eye color. It’s who we are.

There’s nothing revolutionary to be found here, but there’s good, solid, reassuring material. It’s impossible to read this book and not be encouraged to draw near to Him and taking His yoke. It’s an easy read, very accessible, and one that’s well worth your time and attention.

3 Stars