I won't pretend to evaluate this book objectively. None of us come to anything with blank slates and clear spectacles. We all politely push our presuppositions onto the table, and we humbly and hypocritically hide behind our personal baggage after slamming it down with deafening clarity.
Well, I won't say "we" and speak for others. I'll say "I."
(But I'll mean "we.")
I mean "we" because my friend says he’s reached the point now where he’d honestly choose homosexuality over heaven. And my friend caught her mom in an adulterous relationship. And my friend walked out on his wife and four children after being involved with another woman over the Internet. And because I myself am neither spotless nor immune.
So, yeah. No vacuum here. I come to this book with a lot of nominal reasons to dump or to minimize, and a lot of undisclosed reasons to hope or to criticize.
Josh Harris doesn't know that he and I go way back. My respect for him is tempered but intact. To aging ministers who have spent 30-year careers struggling to establish fences at the top of moral cliffs and ambulance and nets at the foot of moral cliffs, Harris may seem like a mere upstart who quoted Elisabeth Elliot and John Piper a few times and got himself a lucky break into the Christian publishing world. Appearances deceive. And our words ought to be sweet and tender since we may someday have to eat them.
One reason I've enjoyed all three of Harris' books is that I come away from them with an increased longing for an increasingly intimate and authentic relationship with the Lover of my soul. A good Christian author will create in you a thirst to go read the Word of the Author and Finisher of our faith. As a 27-year-old with no long-term romantic relationship experience and no immediate plans for such, I feel at least somewhat qualified to say that if a "mere upstart's" book can help me to meditate on exceedingly-greater future plans and present sanctification rather than the doubts and temptations that barrage and threaten to undo me daily…I confess I don't care how wet his earbacks may be.
Josh Harris made bigtime automatic points with me when he quoted my all-time favorite song in the world -- Before the Throne of God Above. A book that cites this song cannot go wrong. He also quotes from greats like Baxter, Lewis, Ryle, Mohler, Stott, Owen, Piper and Bridges. Again -- it's hard to go wrong.
I took 4 pages of single-spaced notes from this