A really weird, but really cool, book

Often when I read current Christian books, I get the sense that they were shaped more by the demands of the publisher than by the needs of the reader. The author will start out sharing some really fantastic ideas for the first 150 pages, and then begin repeating him/herself mindlessly for the next 125. I get the sense that the first draft of the manuscript was mailed back to the writer with an editor’s note stuck to it, saying: “Brilliant stuff! But we need at least 250 pages if we want this baby to sell.”

Well, the other week I ran across a little book that was (obviously) never written with publishing in mind. It is one of the weirdest and coolest books I’ve seen in a long time... It’s called A Gospel Primer for Christians by Milton Vincent (Focus Publishing.) I worked through it recently in my daily Bible reading and prayer time, and it truly did me a lot of good. (In fact, after reading it for a few minutes one morning, I could hardly contain my joy or hold back my tears.)

Milton Vincent is pastor of Cornerstone Fellowship Bible Church in Riverside, California. For a long time, even though he was in full-time ministry, he struggled with deep feelings of frustration as a Christian. Everywhere he went, he felt he was constantly followed by a dark cloud of God’s disapproval. He experienced very little joy. He felt constantly condemned. His personal struggles with sin seemed hopeless to him. Then he began to rediscover the doctrine of justification – the doctrine that sits right at the center of the gospel message. (Of course, Vincent had understood this doctrine intellectually for years. He had even been a seminary professor. But he rediscovered justification on a heart-level, not just on an intellectual one.) Returning to these basic truths of what God had done for him through Christ set his soul on fire.

About the same time, Vincent ran across the suggestion that he should ‘preach the gospel to himself every day.’ So he started to do it. He wrote out truths about his justification on a 3x5 card and carried it with him. He writes, “I would pull the card out and read it several times a day. As I did so, I could hardly believe my good fortune. I drank in the doctrine of my justification like a thirsty man drinking a tall glass of water in the desert. The way those truths put my soul at rest was indescribable.”

As the information on the card increased, Vincent eventually started typing it out on sheets of paper. Some of these sheets turned into bulletin inserts that he slipped to his congregation on Sunday mornings. Pretty soon he compiled them into a whole bunch of papers stapled together as a unit. It became his Primer.

As Vincent told friends about what God was doing in his heart, they asked for copies of the stuff he was writing down. Pretty soon photocopied versions of the Primer were being passed around among eager Christian readers. Finally, somebody had the good sense to publish it as a book (even though it appears virtually unmarketable: its format is unorthodox; the cover art is weird; there are no ‘group discussion questions’ at the end of each chapter; and, the book is only 97 pages long.)

But I recommend it. The Primer is sort of serving as a chiropractor for my heart right now, as I get ready to preach a series through the book of Galatians, a book of which justification is the central theme. I want to make sure the wonderful truths of justification start working on my heart before they start flying from my lips. You can find the Gospel Primer at the website of the Westminster Seminary Bookstore (www.wtsbooks.com).