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.”

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