A Review of David Platt’s “Radical Together”

With Radical Together, David Platt revisits the message of his New York Times Bestseller Radical, aiming to clarify the implications of God’s gospel of grace for the corporate life of the church. His stated desire is to answer one question: “How can we in the church best unleash the people of God in the Spirit of God with the Word of God for the glory of God in the world?” [1]

Platt attempts to do this by examining how the Christian gospel equips God’s people for a kind of living that pushes against the entrenched cultural values of American consumerism and organizes his argument around 6 seemingly paradoxical formulations:

1. Good things often make the worst idols
2. The gospel saves us from our works so that we can freely and joyfully work for the glory of God
3. God’s word accomplishes God’s work in his church
4. A healthy church is made up of broken people
5. Christians live in the present in light of the end
6. Christians humbly exult in a self-exalting God

Throughout the book, Platt explores these basic tensions of the Christian life, demonstrating how a solid grasp of the biblical gospel leads to previously unexpected manifestations of the church’s hope in Christ. Platt has developed quite the platform, especially in Southern Baptist circles, to deliver a much needed message about how the centrality of gospel and biblical faithfulness should shape the structure, priorities, and mission of the church. His role as pastor in a prominent megachurch with a multi-million dollar budget permits him to candidly speak of the frequent weaknesses of this model in shaping effective disciples, and his numerous anecdotes help clarify some of the practical outworkings of his exhortations.

At points, Radical Together runs the risk of becoming cliche, leaving the reader longing for a not-quite-so-trendy vocabulary that could provide even more substance to the ideas presented. This book would also have benefited from more engagement with the biblical text. This is not to say that any of Platt’s assertions were unbiblical, but if it is good to exhort with the gospel, then it is even better to show how Scripture exhorts with the gospel; if it is good to identify and discuss the tensions of the Christian life, it is even better to show how these tensions are gloriously held together in God’s word. Platt also focuses largely on the appropriate gospel-driven actions of the church while offering much less attention to the communal context of action. Here, further exploration of the necessity of intimate, grace- and gospel-saturated community for Christian growth, vitality, and mission would have strengthened his assertion that radical Christians must be radical together. And with the remarkable popularity of Platt’s work, Christians should be reminded that success in life and ministry is not based upon our label as “radical” or our alignment with a prominent voice, but upon our simple faithfulness to the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ who redeems us by grace, welcomes us into his kingdom, and sends us on mission as his people in the world. I am confident Platt would agree.

Radical Together is a helpful reassessment of the way many Americans “do church” and can serve as an accessible and beneficial introduction to the oft surprising ways that the love of the Father, the grace of the Son, and the fellowship of the Spirit at work in and through the gospel can transform our desires, motivations, and purpose as the church of God.

1. David Platt, Radical Together: Unleashing the People of God for the Purpose of God (Colorado Springs: Multnomah, 2011), 11.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the Multnomah “Blogging for Books” book review program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Thinking Through “The Fountainhead,” Part One

Ayn Rand was born in 1905. Her thought and works are still profoundly influential one hundred six years later. Movies are made from her novels, philosophical movements spring from the seed of her ideas. Rand’s integrated view of life and humanity, marked primarily by a coolly rationalistic and unabashed individualism, stands in opposition to the biblical witness, but she is nevertheless an image-bearer capable of creative expression and critical thought and valid observation about the world in which we find ourselves.

A significant part of the beauty of The Fountainhead lies in Rand’s ability to reveal the radical, self-serving  bent of the human heart in even the most benign of character relationships. Among the actors in the opening of her drama are:

• The mother who feigns willing compliance with her son’s career decisions while unleashing a  manipulative barrage of sentimental arm-twisting
• The high-achieving student whose lust for competition and success is the external manifestation of a violent insecurity that can only be consoled with the comfort of others’ failures
• The executive with the authority to professionally hijack the work of his inferiors and reap the glory due their diligence
• The journalist whose perspective on any given issue is determined by the outrage and animosity she hopes to incite in her unwitting audience
• The aspiring architect whose solitary ideal is that he shall always and only consider his needs, his desires, and never bend in the slightest form of submission to another

Some may object to Rand’s brand of representation, arguing that not every human being is as callously self-concerned as all of her characters. But The Fountainhead demands that we reconsider. Here we must remember that the duty and purpose of art is not merely to show us what we wish would be, but also what very simply is (whether we like it or not) and what could be if the potentialities embedded within us were released and permitted to rage to their inevitable extremes. Perhaps the objection is raised because Rand’s portrayal of the human condition is far too honest, far too clear, far too indicting for us to remain comfortable with rosy, all-too-optimistic conceptions of the intentions that often lie hidden in commonplace interactions and the relationships we hold dear, because we know that the veiled hideousness in her characters is well within our reach.

The Fountainhead brilliantly captures the sinfully egotistic thirst for self-preservation, self-advancement, and self-glorification that the Bible says dwells at the very core of rebellious and fallen human beings and permeates the individual decisions and social dynamics within which we inescapably operate.  Rand presents an understanding of humanity that is remarkably faithful to God’s own testimony about who we truly are. She is no more pessimistic about human nature than he.

And yet a question remains, begging to be answered: If this is our miserable lot, if this is our pitiable state of affairs, what on earth can be done for us?

Edwards on the Sweet Comfort of an Unchangeable Savior

Over the past few months, I have taken a course on the life and theology of Jonathan Edwards, having opportunity to read a number of his most significant theological and pastoral works. Much of the time when I mention Edwards to folks interested in my studies, their heads turn to the side and their eyes squint in a mix of mild confusion and discomfort. And this reaction is understandable considering that Edwards is most known (and most vilified) for his sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” But to believe that Edwards was little more than an expositor of the horrors of hell would be a gross miscalculation, for the Puritan pastor at the same time demonstrates a remarkable gift for expounding the sweet, soul-gripping heights of the glory of Christ.

In April of 1738, Jonathan Edwards preached a sermon on Hebrews 8:8 entitled “Jesus Christ, the Same Yesterday, Today, and Forever.” The final few paragraphs of his message were aimed at applying the truth of Jesus’ unchanging nature for the comfort of God’s children. His insights are practical, faithful, and dripping in the richness of the gospel.

The truth taught in the text may be applied by way of consolation to the godly. You may consider that you have in him an unchangeable Savior, who, as he has loved you and undertaken for you from eternity, and in time has died for you before you were born, and has since converted you by his grace, and brought you out of a blind, guilty, and undone condition, savingly home to himself; so he will carry on his work in your heart; he will perfect what is yet lacking in you, in order to your complete deliverance from sin, and death, and all evil, and to your establishment in complete and unalterable blessedness. From the unchangeableness of your Savior, you may see how he thinks of that chain in Rom. 8:29, 30, “For whom he did foreknow them he also did predestinate, and whom he did predestinate them he also called, and whom he called them he also justified, and whom he justified them he also glorified.” The Savior has promised you very great and precious blessings in this world. And things which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, in the world to come. And from his unchangeableness you may be assured that the things which he has promised he will also perform.

You may from this doctrine see the unchangeableness of his love. And therefore, when you consider how great love he seemed to manifest, when he yielded himself up to God a sacrifice for you, in his agony and bloody sweat in the garden, and when he went out to the place of his crucifixion bearing his own cross, you may rejoice that his love now is the same that it was then.

And so when you think of past discoveries which Christ has made of himself in his glory, and in his love to your soul, you may comfort yourself that he is as glorious, and his love to you is as great, as it was in the time of these discoveries.

You may greatly comfort yourself that you have an unchangeable friend in Christ Jesus. Constancy is justly looked upon as a most necessary and most desirable qualification in a friend. That he be not fickle, and so that his friendship cannot be depended on as that of a steady sure friend. How excellent his friendship is, you may learn from his manner of treating his disciples on earth, whom he graciously treated as a tender father his children, meekly instructing them, most friendly conversing with them, and being ready to pity them, and help them, and forgive their infirmities. And then you may consider this doctrine, and how it thence appears that he is the same still that he was then, and ever will be the same.

From the unchangeableness of your Savior, you may be assured of your continuance in a state of grace. As to yourself, you are so changeable, that, if left to yourself, you would soon fall utterly away. There is no dependence on your unchangeableness. But Christ is the same, and therefore, when he has begun a good work in you he will finish it. As he has been the author, he will be the finisher of your faith. Your love to Christ is in itself changeable. But his to you is unchangeable, and therefore he will never suffer your love to him utterly to fail. The apostle gives this reason why the saints’ love to Christ cannot fail, viz. that his love to them never can fail.

From the unchangeableness of Christ you may learn the unchangeableness of his intercession, how he will never cease to intercede for you. And from this you may learn the unalterableness of your heavenly happiness. When once you have entered on the happiness of heaven, it never shall be taken from you, because Christ, your Savior and friend, who bestows it on you, and in whom you have it, is unchangeable. He will be the same forever and ever, and therefore so will be your happiness in heaven. As Christ is an unchangeable Savior, so he is your unchangeable portion. That may be your rejoicing, that however your earthly enjoyments may be removed, Christ can never fail. Your dear friends may be taken away and you suffer many losses. And at last you must part with all those things. Yet you have a portion, a precious treasure, more worth, ten thousand times, than all these things. That portion cannot fail you, for you have it in him, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

It is staggering how one aspect of Christ’s infinite beauty can proffer such contentment and rest to his people. We need people like Edwards to remind us every now and then of the glory of God and the depths of the gospel.

You can read the full text of “Jesus Christ, the Same Yesterday, Today, and Forever” here.

Greatness, Power, and the Kingdom of God

Toward the end of the spring semester, I was given the opportunity to speak in a Friday chapel service at the school where I teach. Here is the outline that I used for Matthew 20:20-28–Greatness, Power, and the Kingdom of God.

We often find it very difficult to allow the message of the gospel to permeate into some of the most obvious areas of our lives that need transformation. Our desire for and use of power is undoubtedly one such area. As we see who Jesus is, may God strip us of our pride and our idolatrous thirst for personal glory, satisfy us with all that he is for us in the gospel, and give us a spirit of humility and meekness that takes joy in serving others the way Jesus has served us.

Worshipping as a Family

Jason Helopoulos at the Gospel Coalition blog has put together a list of 11 reasons to worship with your family, challenging believers to think carefully about the significance of the family in God’s good design and the ways that a regular practice of exalting Christ together in the home can glorify God and benefit everyone involved. I think his reflections can be easily extended to the life of the gathered local church as well.

It has become a common practice in many churches to (perhaps unintentionally) separate the family unit whenever the body is gathered. Ministries are all too frequently segregated on the basis of age, gender, marital status, musical preference, or any number of other factors. There is much that could be said about this issue, but I would simply ask that we take a few minutes to read Jason’s thoughts and consider how his observations about family worship in the home might alter our oft-individualized notions of corporate worship in the church and help us see the potentials for mutual edification that come when whole families praise God together.

The Spirit Gives Many Good Gifts to the Body of Christ

This past week I taught a lesson in the college class on 1 Corinthians 12:1-31 entitled The Spirit Gives Many Good Gifts to the Body of Christ. May God faithfully work in our hearts as he forms us into a unified and loving community that embraces and rejoices in the diverse gifts that he has given us for the good of the church.

Discipline in the Life of the Church

This week, I taught in the college class at Calvary Baptist Church from 1 Corinthians 5 concerning Discipline in the Life of the Church. I hope these notes will be a blessing as we try to think rightly as a community about how the gospel of Christ and our identity in him moves us to humbly love our brothers by disciplining unrepentant sin with an eye toward restoration.

The Gospel of Christ Exposes and Destroys Our Idols

This week in the college class, we looked at Colossians 1:15-23 and saw how The Gospel of Christ Exposes and Destroys Our Idols.

As we dwell upon the greatness of Christ and the magnitude of his work on our behalf, may we see more and more of the ways that we fail to love him rightly and battle our idols with the sure truth that he is better.

The Lamb of God is the Risen Messiah

Last week, I taught the college class at Calvary Baptist Church on John 20:1-18. The lesson notes are available here: The Lamb of God is the Risen Messiah.

Biblical Theology (and the Gospels)

I recently gave a class presentation entitled Biblical Theology (and the Gospels) that introduces the discipline of biblical theology and specifically highlights its usefulness for our study of the Gospels.

I have made the notes available in the hope that they will be beneficial to others who seek to understand the unity of God’s glorious Word, the beauty of Jesus as the fullest revelation of God, and the centrality of the cross as the climax of God’s plan to redeem his people from sin.