I like David Platt. I have found his Radical books and his new offering Follow Me to be honest, alarming, soul-searching, and most of all, biblical. In my church we have a men’s group currently working through the Follow Me material. Good conversations are taking place.
But ever since I read the first chapter of Radical I couldn’t help but think something was just a bit off. It may have been off to such a small degree that I had trouble articulating what bothered me. In my copy of Radical I wrote a simple sentence at the end of the first chapter. It says:
“Good. But something bothers me.”
I wasn’t sure what bothered me. But something did. About 4 times I have started writing an article on the many positives and the one “off” aspect of Platt’s book (and those like it, which are several) and every time I stopped and deleted the entry. I just couldn’t put in words what I was feeling.
Then, today, I read an article in Christianity Today by Matt Lee Anderson entitled “Here Come The Radicals!” that beautifully captured what I have been mulling over for 2 years. It is very much worth your time to read the article carefully – Anderson is complimentary of Platt, Chan, and others who are driving the “radical” movement, but he also provides a helpful context in which these books and their message should be placed. Here is the last sentence from the article:
We begin to fulfill the command not when we do something radical, extreme, over the top, not when we’re really spiritual or really committed or really faithful, but when in the daily ebb and flow of life, in our corporate jobs, in our middle-class neighborhoods, on our trips to Yellowstone and Disney World—and yes, even short-term mission trips—we stop to help those whom we meet in everyday life, reaching out in quiet, practical, and loving ways.
Read the entire article here.
