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21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
How to enjoy the glorious Triune God, October 24, 2007
This review is from: Communion with the Triune God (Paperback)
C.S. Lewis understood the devotional benefit of reading good theology. "For my own part," wrote Lewis, "I tend to find the doctrinal books often more helpful in devotion than the devotional books, and I rather suspect that the same experience may await many others. I believe that many who find that `nothing happens' when they sit down, or kneel down, to a book of devotion, would find that the heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand."
I believe Lewis is right. I found my heart singing while reading this lengthy treatise on the Trinity written 350 years ago by an English Puritan pastor-theologian. In Communion with the Triune God, John Owen shows from Scripture how to enjoy fellowship with each person of the Godhead: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Editors Kelly M. Kapic and Justin Taylor have once again done the church a great service by publishing this book. Following a Foreword by Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Kapic provides a helpful introductory essay, "Worshiping the Triune God: The Shape of John Owen's Trinitarian Spirituality" that gives a "panoramic view of Owen's approach to communion with the triune God" (p. 20).
The goal of this volume, according to Taylor, is to provide "unabridged but updated and accessible edition of Owen's Communion with God" (p. 47). In other words, the editors let Owen speak for himself. This isn't an abridgement or a paraphrase. The original content is reformatted to assist the modern reader. Owen's notoriously long paragraphs are broken into smaller units. All Greek and Hebrew words are transliterated. Pithy Latin phrases are translated. Difficult words are footnoted. Helpful headings and subheadings aid in following Owen's flow of thought.
This is good news for those of us who find Owen difficult to read. However, the effort required to read this book will be repaid many times over. Mining for gold is always hard work. Passages like this keep me coming back to Owen to mine for more gold: "So much as we see of the love of God, so much shall we delight in Him, and no more. Every other discovery of God, without this, will but make the soul fly from Him; but if the heart be once much taken up with this the eminency of the Father's love, it cannot choose but be overpowered, conquered, and endeared unto Him" (p. 128).
All who desire to grow in their love and adoration for the glorious Triune God will want to read this book.
ISBN: 9781581348316
Format: Trade Paperback
Pages: 448 pages
Publisher: Crossway Books (September 27, 2007)
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Aid to Trinitarian Meditation, October 18, 2007
This review is from: Communion with the Triune God (Paperback)
In 1657 John Owen put pen to paper and produced an organized treatise on the Trinity based on a series of sermons years earlier. He wrote as both a visionary of timeless truth and as a product of his times. Over the years, the barrier of time and the evolution of language have reduced Owen to a name seminarians might have heard about in Church History or the focus of study for only the most dedicated theologians. Kelly Kapic and Justin Taylor think that should change.
Kapic and Taylor have edited Owen's Communion With the Triune God - revising the layout, clarifying the footnotes, updating the language and spelling, etc. - in order to produce an extraordinarily more accessible Owen. A modern reader no longer has an excuse to avoid this classic work.
In three main divisions, Owen systematically introduces the three persons of the Trinity and painstakingly (in a quite positive sense) details their roles and works in the lives of believers. The work is balanced as to the persons of the Trinity, meaning that it is not a distant look at an Almighty Father or a charismatic ballyhoo over the Spirit. Rather, each person of the Trinity gets his due as a person who wants to relate to each of the people of God. Owen, in keeping with the New Testament emphasis, rightly devotes the most contemplation to the work and fellowship of God the Son, but he does so in a way that emphasizes the holistic nature of our communion with God.
What impresses me most about this volume is Owen's approach. The book is theology done well, but is not merely a list of theological categories or abstract metaphysics. Owen wants you to know God, to fully know Him, to love Him, to abide in Him, to truly commune with Him in a deep and eternal way. Don't get me wrong, Owen does not write in a 21st Century touchy-feely self-help style by any means. But once you get into the ebb of his words and the flow of his thought, you find yourself loving God more as you realize all of the ways He intends to be a constant enlivening part of your life.
The editors have done a fine job "cleaning" the text with restraint. They have not paraphrased and have preserved Owen's authentic voice. At times, I thought they actually showed too much restraint, electing to preserve words like "nigh" with a footnote explaining the word means "near." Still, the work is quite readable with most of the retained archaic words carrying some particular theological freight in Owen's usage and defined by a glossary in the back of the book (a very considerate addition). Kapic has also included a lengthy essay on Owen's Trinitarian theology. It was quite helpful in enjoying the text proper.
I recently prepared a study of the Trinity for use in my church. Reading Communion With the Triune God helped the study stay focused on abiding with God instead of falling to the level of regurgitating factoids and formulas. There are a handful of places where I would disagree with Owen's reasoning, but the work is so meditative and thought out that I am hesitant to list my disagreements here, lest in the future I am embarrassed by the naive thoughts of my youth. Take some time with this book, perhaps a few sub-sections at a time, and revive the union with the Triune God who communicates Himself to us.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
John Owen made accessible., October 4, 2007
This review is from: Communion with the Triune God (Paperback)
Kelly Kapic and Justin Taylor have once again done a huge service for the church by making John Owen accessible to those who desire to read him. Certainly Owen is still a towering theological giant that is challenging to read, but many barriers that could have been used as excuses have been removed in Communion with the Triune God. Kapic and Taylor have chosen a tremendous work to edit as this volume deals with rigorous exegesis, Trinitarian theology, and the practical idea of how it is we relate to God and He relates to us.
Within this book we find Owen dealing with not just how we relate to God, but how we relate to each person of the Triune Godhead. All the while Owen keeps before us that the oneness of God as well, which is not easy task, but embodies the mystery of the Trinity. For the Father Owen stresses the love that emanates toward His people, and towards Him, realizing that there are similarities and distinctions between these types of love. This love that the Father bestows on His people should be something we treasure everyday, and we should allow it to cause us to delight in Him.
In relation to the Son (where Owen spends the majority of his time), the idea of grace is lauded and seen as where our fellowship with him consists. In this section we get an unbelievable display of who Christ and all that he has accomplished on our behalf, particularly in his death and resurrection. It was at the cross that grace was purchased on our behalf, and something we should see as infinitely valuable through this eminent description. It is through the acceptance of the gospel that we are able to relate to Christ and enjoy the benefits in all things pertaining to life and godliness. Owen cites many different blessings we experience in Christ, all of which should drive us to have the obvious commitment he had in relating to the Son of God in an intimate way.
Finally, Owen gets into relating to the Holy Spirit, and what his actual ministry is in our lives as we commune with him. Owen is thoroughly scriptural in his assessment, and it should give rise to praise in our hearts for all that the Spirit does on our behalf. In this and the other sections it is helpful that Owen raises and answers objections to his positions, as we still face many of the same questions today, though perhaps in a different form.
Though it can be difficult to follow Owen's logic, as has been previously stated, this volume does an amazing job at making a challenging work accessible. Kapic and Taylor have given us immense help in understanding Owen's work by giving us a lengthy introduction (which is basically a detailed commentary), and a rigorous outline to give continuity to the work. They have also helped us immensely by footnoting translations to difficult words and phrases, updated the language, modernized punctuation, helped with Owen's citation of Scripture, as well as added Scripture where Owen alluded to it, but did not cite it, transliterated Greek and Hebrew, and many other helpful details.
Even with all of these updates this work is not for the fainthearted, and perhaps that is the only weakness of this volume. None of the works of Owen would be considered light reading in contemporary society. However, the effort put forth will reap benefits beyond what one can imagine. And this topic is certainly one that speaks to our culture just as much as it did back in Owen's day; we need to learn how to better commune with our God.
John Piper has exhorted us to find a dead hero, delve deeply into his works, and live with him there. I for one have decided to go with John Owen, who though challenging to read, has been pushing me spiritually for a while now. Thank you Kelly Kapic and Justin Taylor for your work on this, it is greatly appreciated.
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