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Strangely Bright: Can You Love God and Enjoy This World?

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Learn to Delight in God and in His Good Gifts

At the heart of the Christian life lies the tension of the single-minded pursuit of the glory of God and the deep enjoyment of the things that God has made. How can Christians enjoy the good things of earth? Whether it’s a delicious meal or a game night with friends, listening to jazz or watching baseball, earthly joys often seem to compete with a deep love for God. Scripture supports both the enjoyment of the Creator and the enjoyment of the creation, revealing that this tension in the Christian life is also found in the Bible. In this accessible book, Joe Rigney displays how Christians can delight in God and enjoy his good gifts.

128 pages, Paperback

Published August 25, 2020

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Joe Rigney

26 books252 followers

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Displaying 1 - 30 of 151 reviews
Profile Image for Matt.
Author 9 books1,289 followers
September 4, 2020
4.5. After a slightly sleepy start in chapter 1, the book soars and Rigney’s pen sparkles. Lots of counterintuitive insight and convicting application. A soul-invigorating read.
Profile Image for Becky Pliego.
707 reviews493 followers
June 22, 2021
Fantastic! I have read his other book, The Things of Earth a couple of times and I loved that one tiny bit better (I love the depth of his arguments in it). BUT this one, Strangely Bright, is the one I will be giving away to friends. Such a great book.



Profile Image for Ana Avila.
Author 2 books1,235 followers
October 12, 2021
Una excelente lectura, breve y fácil de seguir, para todos aquellos que se han sentido culpables por disfrutar de las bendiciones que Dios les ha concedido.

Si alguna vez te has preguntado “¿Será que estoy disfrutando demasiado de lo que Dios me ha dado? ¿Estaré siendo idólatra?”, este libro es para ti.
Profile Image for Jonathan Roberts.
2,021 reviews41 followers
March 1, 2024
Short but with incredible depth. Rigney argues that Christians can love God and enjoy his world. Basically he says “we can love God by enjoying His good gifts of this world.” Now that seems counter to all we have been taught, and that’s his point we have been taught a truncated version of the truth. We are to love God and like a child getting a gift on Christmas love the gifts as well as a means of loving the giver. This has been pressed home to me in my current study of Ecclesiastes, helped by the books Living Life Backwards and Don’t Waste Your Breath. Life is a gift to be enjoyed as we praise the Creator! Amen!
Profile Image for Misty Wilson read.fine.print.
380 reviews25 followers
April 20, 2021
I confess I wanted to read this first because I loved the cover! Second, a friend recommended it, and third, I THOUGHT IT WAS FICTION😂. After reading the synopsis on my hoopla audio app, I decided to go for it anyway. (Some of you know I’m usually a fiction girl😊)

I love this book. It made me think about the joys of this world and how they all point to God, how to enjoy life and always remember it’s merely a taste of heaven and always, always, Jesus is better.

I highly recommend this book. I think of it often as I go about my day. It was not only thought provoking and poetic, but also practical. It’s full of every day wisdom but also deep theological truths. Scripture is on every page. I love it when a book sends me straight to His Word.
Profile Image for David Steele.
Author 6 books216 followers
June 16, 2020
“Can you love God and enjoy this world?” This question drives Joe Rigney’s newest book, Strangely Bright. Such a question often generates more heat than light as many people are accustomed to downplaying earthly things and emphasizing heavenly things. After all, the well-known hymn encourages us to:

Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full on his wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of his glory and grace.

The admonition seems sound and even reasonable. But Rigney argues something that may run counter to conventional wisdom. His argument is essentially this:

Enjoy God in everything and everything in God, knowing he is greater and more satisfying than any and all of his gifts.

The path that leads to Rigney’s conclusion is set up by examining the passages that help clarify the biblical tension. First, the author reveals that biblical texts that place an emphasis on complete devotion to Christ. Such passages are referred to as totalizing passages and include Colossians 3:1-2, Philippians 3:7-8, and Psalm 73:25-26. These texts are contrasted with things of the earth passages that include James 1:17, 1 Timothy 4:4, and 1 Timothy 6:17. These passages emphasize God’s good gift that creatures are meant to enjoy.

In the end, Rigney skillfully demonstrates how glorifying God and enjoying his good gifts are not at odds: “All of God’s gifts are invitations - they display who he is and invite us to know him and delight in him.” The author borrows a page from John Piper’s Christian Hedonism that was introduced in his book, Desiring God that was first published in 1986. “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him,” argued Piper.

Strangely Bright is a stunning retelling of Piper’s original thesis. This is a thrilling and liberating book. One the one hand, it has the power to crush any legalistic tendencies and warn readers to steer clear from any form of idolatry. The author strikes the biblical balance and leads readers on a path that is sure to encourage many.

Highly recommended.
Profile Image for Barry.
982 reviews41 followers
January 12, 2021
Psalm 73 says, “there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.” Yet 1 Tim 6 tells us that God “richly provides us with everything to enjoy.” So are we supposed to take pleasure in God’s earthly gifts? Or should we instead deny ourselves these worldly pleasures so we can enjoy God alone? Rigney’s wonderful and wise book helps us to reconcile this apparent tension. It’s similar in many ways to another book that I heartily recommend, Gary Selby’s “Pursuing an Earthly Spirituality: CS Lewis and Incarnational Faith.” Rigney also uses insights from CSL to reinforce his exposition. Both books are excellent. Apparently Rigney also has a more in-depth study, “The Things of Earth,” which I will now need to read as well.

Here is one of many passages I liked:
“Joy in baseball becomes joy in God when I share joy with my sons and therefore love them by showing them what God is like. We know the distinct delight of introducing another person to one of our favorite pleasures. The pleasure of sharing is distinct in kind from the pleasure of the object or activity. It’s one thing to enjoy reading a book I love; it’s another flavor of joy to give that book to my son whom I expect will also love it, and then find that he does. The anticipation of sharing that story with him, of seeing him light up at the same parts, of entering into the joy for the first time, is its own reward. This is often what parents are—the bringers and introducers of joy. God is like that. He loves to be the bringer of joys.”

Thank you Mark & Tracie for the great Christmas gift!
Profile Image for sincerely.
707 reviews44 followers
November 30, 2020
I am so excited to share my *TOP* 2020 Non-Fiction read: Strangely Bright! I loved loved LOVED this book, y'all. There is so much packed in these 128 pages.  It is readable and relatable, yet deeply profound. Here is one quote I've been thinking on since I came across it: "Our experience of the world gives us categories for knowing God and his word." So good, right? This book showed me new pathways for understanding scripture and contemplating the world around me. I seriously have not been able to be quiet about this one IRL and will talk anyone's ear off about it if they get within 3 feet of me 😂 (SORRY, MOM)

Rigney writes some great truths that I have never ever thought of before re general revelation, special revelation, relational and vocational pleasures...it's really good, guys! I highly recommend. Rigney also wrote a longer, more in-depth book on the same topic, and I fully intend to read that one as well. Thank you, Crossway Books for this amazing book that seriously blessed my life. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐+❤
Profile Image for bear.hare.
437 reviews
October 30, 2021
“The heavens declare the glory of God... All of creation reveals who God is and what he is like, and it does so through a woven web of images and metaphors and pictures and analogies. Made things make invisible attributes visible.”

“Follow [the gifts] back to the giver. See them as declarations of his glory. Know them as images of divine things. And then turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in his wonderful face. And the things of earth will grow strangely *bright*, in the light of his glory and grace.”
Profile Image for Scott Meadows.
221 reviews12 followers
April 6, 2021
Freeing, life-giving, and tear inducing. How can we fall in love with natural revelation; see God in our everyday lives; experience Him in our vocation and gifts and friends; and still live in a Biblically orthodox way.

The chapter on suffering lead me to internally hide a desire to sob while sitting in the student center of MBTS. Read this book. It is on par with Gentle and Lowly in the way that Rigney leads us to love God and love life through the lens of Scripture.
Profile Image for Benjamin.
158 reviews15 followers
January 4, 2022
One of the best books I’ve ever read. So beautifully written. In this introductory work Rigney successfully addresses the biblical tension between total worship and devoutness to God and our enjoyment of his creational gifts. We are to enjoy this beautiful gifts because ultimately they point us back to the splendor and glory of Jesus, the creator and sustainer of all things. Read this! I commend it.
Profile Image for Ivan.
698 reviews119 followers
September 11, 2021
“Can you love God and enjoy this world?” Yes. A wonderful introduction and teaser for Rigney’s meatier ‘The Things of Earth.’
Profile Image for James Nance.
Author 17 books42 followers
September 22, 2023
I was hoping I would like this book, and found that I loved it. Biblical truths clearly argued and beautifully presented. Now I want to go teach my grandsons how to catch a baseball.
Profile Image for Amber Thiessen.
433 reviews23 followers
November 24, 2020
On the verge of Black Friday, in the throes of online Christmas gift shopping, hoping that delivery will be on time for our stuff to arrive.

Every Christmas the great battle in my soul is focused on the question, “How much is too much?” It seems as the years go by, that definition shifts and changes. Our life in Africa was simple, we didn’t have much. The mud hut was small, there wasn’t room for extras and with the rats and termites, anything could easily be destroyed.

The contrast of life here in North America now, is obvious, hence the battle with the question in the face of a longing to give my kids ‘good gifts’ to enjoy. Returning home after a Christmas gathering as the car is packed full. There’s a guilt that begins to weigh in, it seems too much.

The created things in life are not meant to take the place of highest importance in our life. We surely continue to battle against greed, pride and selfishness, but the things of the world aren’t meant to detract from God, they are meant to point us to Him. Joe Rigney unpacks this tension in his new book, “Strangely Bright: Can You Love God and Enjoy This World?” Here are some of his main points.

The Declaration of the Heavens
The heavens declare the glory of God; His attributes, His plan of redemption, because “made things make invisible attributes visible.” This is the wonder of what God has created, because it reveals the One who made it, so that “in showing us what God is like, the world beckons us further up and further in so that we can know him and love him and enjoy him through the things he has made.”

3 Categories of Pleasures
He tells us about 3 categories of pleasure: Things we enjoy, people we love, activities we do. We don’t have to reflect long on our own lives to put our enjoyment into these categories! From the garden of Eden, in the very beginning, we can see that God gave the garden for them to enjoy, He gave them each other and He gave them work to do.

Although we often think about God’s first command as don’t eat from the tree, His first instruction was, “you may surely eat of every tree of the garden” (Genesis 2:16) and goes on to say “but the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you will surely die” (Genesis 2:17). So his first command is not the prohibition, but the permission, to enjoy what He has already placed for them.

Enjoyment When Jesus Is Better
It can be hard to reconcile the joy we find in stuff, when we feel like we ‘should’ love God more. There is this tension of experiencing gratification in something we have, and loving the Lord. But,“the pleasures of this world – whether sensible, relational, or vocational – are given to us by God for our enjoyment and as a means of accomplishing his mission in the world.” God gives us good things to enjoy, for the purpose of His mission in the world to make disciples of all nations, and to know Him more.

Surely the danger in enjoying things is that they can become idols, becoming the central focus of our life. Facing, “the two fundamental sins that human beings commit: idolatry and ingratitude” he explains that, “idolatry, then, is the separation of the gifts from the giver and then a preference for the gifts over the giver.” Our response to God’s good gifts has more to do with whether we separate our good things from God, instead of enjoying them together with God. So, we ask the question, how then do we enjoy God’s gifts without them becoming idols?

By giving thanks, and honoring God in our pleasure.

You can love the cake and eat it too, enjoying it as a gift from God, experiencing a taste of the joy that Jesus offers.

A Life Guided by Christ
In Colossians 3:1-4, we read, “set your mind on things that are above, not on things that are on earth” and we often interpret this to mean that we should only be thinking about God. However, earthly things does not mean created things, but rather sinful things. It is an invitation for us to seek a heavenly mindset, because “Christ is the North Star, the fixed point that helps us to navigate our ship through life. To be oriented by the glory of Christ means, first, that Christ is the supreme object of our desire.”

Our outward lives, how we speak, live and practice our faith, demonstrates to the world around us the great hope and joy we have in Christ. We practice self-control and generosity, setting our hope not on riches but on God.

In the Face of Suffering
God’s good gifts can be lost. We experience a natural suffering, such as sickness and disease, where we suffer both loss and longing where, “in the suffering of loss, we know the sweetness of what we no longer possess.”

He offers encouragement for us in our natural suffering, to press into Jesus and press into people. For, "nothing good will ever finally be lost. Earth has no sorrows that heaven cannot heal."

As we prepare for the Christmas gift-giving season, may you be encouraged to share in the joy of created things, with a keen awareness to any idolatry and ingratitude, and may we continue to use his good gifts toward his mission in the world.
"What does supreme and full and expanding love for God look like when it meets one of his gifts? Glad reception and enjoyment of his gifts."

How will you respond to God's good gifts to you this week?
Profile Image for Cole Wright.
50 reviews
January 29, 2024
Very approachable and helpful book on enjoying the gifts of God in this life as extensions of the pleasure and goodness of God himself.
Profile Image for Carrie Brownell.
Author 1 book40 followers
April 1, 2023
Fantastic read. This one had the quotes for me!

The pleasures of this world - whether sensible, relational, or vocational - are given to us by God for our enjoyment and as a means of accomplishing his mission in the world. (p. 47)

"We must devote careful attention to the world God made, and then we must follow the rivers back to the source. We must chase the sunbeams back to the sun." (p. 51)

You are a word from God, God means something through you. You are a communication from God about God, just like the heavens. Your conduct, your life, is itself a kind of divine speech. It is revelation from God, designed by him to show the world what He is like. Here's how this basic truth challenges me personally: Will I tell the truth about God or will I lie? Will God teach others about himself through me by way of comparison or by way of contrast? Everyone is going to glorify God one way or another. Either God will point at us and say, "I am something like that. That, even with all the flaws, is a little picture of what I am like." Or he will point at us and say, "That's the opposite of what I am like. I'm not that kind of husband. I'm not that kind of father. I'm not that kind of friend." (p. 63)

"As a husband, as a father, as a wife, as a mother, as a child, as a friend, as a pastor, you - your life, your speech, your conduct - out to be a display of triune glory and an invitation to triune glory. You ought to be a testimony to grace and an invitation to grace. You should aim to be a walking, talking, living, breathing gospel proclamation." (p. 63)

[C]orporate worship is a mixture of direct and indirect godwardness as we set our minds on God himself but with a deep awareness of his people around us. We lift up our prayers to him, but we do so with the prayers of his people, both in the room and around the world. We raise our voices to him in song, but as we sing and make melody to him, we also address one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs (Esph. 5:19). Corporate godwardness is the anchor for our week. And it's absolutely essential. Biblical authors tell us that we must not neglect meeting together (Heb. 10:25) but instead to encourage one another and stir one another up to love and good deeds. (p. 67).

[G]od intentionally filled the world with all kinds of pleasures - sensible pleasures, relational pleasures, and vocational pleasures. He gives these good gifts to us both for our enjoyment and also that we can accomplish his mission in the world. With God as the supreme object of our desires and the supreme model for our desires, we are called to enjoy God in everything and everything in God." (p. 74)
Profile Image for Rob Sumrall.
95 reviews2 followers
April 18, 2023
The old hymn says...

Turn you eyes upon Jesus
Look full in His wonderful face
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace


Joel Rigney respectfully disagrees. In Strangely Bright, he makes a strong biblical case for a believer's ability to enjoy God's good creation while navigating the tension of cherishing Christ above all.

"[H]ow does a single-minded pursuit of the glory of God fit with a real and deep enjoyment of created things? Let me get more concrete: how does the rock-bottom biblical truth that you are called to glorify God by delighting in him above everything else relate to your enjoyment of good friends, pork tamales, the laughter of children, West Texas sunsets, marital love, and college football?"

He helps the reader thread the needle between asceticism and worldliness. He roots his arguments in solid biblical exegesis. And he does so while resisting the urge to create a straw man to destroy; instead, he deals fairly with counterarguments.

A word on Rigney's writing style: I love how he begins each chapter with a bit of a recap so that the reader can understand the overall flow to his argument. This book would be usable and beneficial to both pastors and laity alike. I strongly recommend it!
Profile Image for F.C. Shultz.
Author 15 books25 followers
Read
July 30, 2022
A great book to help build a theology of enjoying the things of the world. Really enjoyed it. The quote about the reason bread exists blew my mind, and I’m still wrestling with it. The section about baseball was extremely timely for me, especially the quote. Looking forward to reading the longer version!

“Long before you and I existed, long before Jesus came in the flesh, before the Bible was written down, from the very beginning God invented something called “hunger” and something called “bread” so that some day, when Jesus showed up, we would have categories for understanding who he is. In other words, when Jesus says, “I am the bread of life,” he’s not finding or discovering a convenient metaphor. He’s revealing the main reason that bread exists.”

“Joy in baseball becomes joy in God when it helps me to kill sin and pursue holiness.”
Profile Image for Samuel.
262 reviews9 followers
September 21, 2020
This book functions like a condensed and focused version of Rigney’s earlier work The Things of Earth (also highly recommended). Rigney does a very good job of explaining how we can use the things that surround us in our everyday life—food, family, even baseball—to point us to the God who has graciously given those things to us. I especially appreciate his focus in the last half of the book on still holding the things of earth loosely: being willing to forgo pleasures for the sake of God, generously giving as an expression of God’s love for His creation, and enduring suffering of all sorts well because our trust in the Lord is greater than our trust in created things.
Profile Image for Anna Schmidt.
32 reviews
June 7, 2021
An easy read about enjoying the good things in the world to the glory of God. Rather than seeing things we enjoy in the world as rivals for our enjoyment of God, this book explains how an integrated approach to the things of the world enables us to see how the best things in life can fuel our joy in God. It explains that because God is sovereign over all the good things he provides for us, we don't need to feel as if our love for God must take us away from the joys of the world. The content seemed to be better fit for a sermon than a book but it was still a simple summary of the topic that I would recommend to anyone wondering how to both love God and enjoy life.
Profile Image for Matthew Groen.
34 reviews
January 21, 2021
Richly strengthening. A sweet, short read that says things simply, but allows you to linger on each thought and translate the truths into your own life. The only negative is that it isn’t longer or deeper, but Rigney answers that by offering me “The Things of Earth”, his longer and fuller treatment of this subject. I’m add that to my list and highly recommend this book!
Profile Image for Kirk Metzger.
78 reviews1 follower
January 7, 2023
Audiobooks read by the author are simply the best. Joe might have even enticed me to give baseball another chance at being a God-glorifying sport.
Profile Image for Becky.
5,653 reviews249 followers
October 2, 2020
First sentence: This little book has a simple purpose. I want to address a problem that I suspect many readers have felt, even if you’ve never named it. If you’re a faithful Christian, this problem or tension has probably haunted you, playing at the back of your mind and affecting you in subtle ways...how does a single-minded pursuit of the glory of God fit with a real and deep enjoyment of created things?

In Joe Rigney's newest book, Strangely Bright, he addresses the tension between loving God and loving the world. He insists it isn't an either or question. It isn't either we love God with all our hearts, souls, and mind and hate the world....or love the world with all our hearts, souls, and minds and hate God. There is room in our hearts--in our lives--to love both. He uses Scripture to back up his argument.

Of course, he knows that there are Scriptures to support both viewpoints. There are scriptures that tend to insist that we are to love God and only God and hate the world. There are scriptures that encourage us to celebrate life and all of God's gifts--to see God, to see God's blessings and gifts, to see God's providence in everything. Rigney encourages readers to embrace all the Scriptures have to say. Don't limit your loves and call yourself pious, in other words.

I like that each chapter tends to focus on one or two passages of Scripture at a time. This keeps it manageable to keep up and follow his argument.

Did I like this one? Love it? Well. I found it a bit strange. I'll try to clarify exactly what I mean. Is it possible to agree with his conclusion but not exactly how he arrived there??? I believe we were created to enjoy, to experience joy. I also believe this only truly works when God is at the center. Or perhaps at the top? However you want to phrase it. I believe in priorities and not necessarily excuses. In other words, it would be super super easy to use the "well, God is in everything and everything is in God" argument (I actually hate that phrasing but Rigney uses it in his book, so there you go) and enjoy a lot of things that God really isn't all that crazy excited about.

Also I don't really think people need encouragement to enjoy the world more. I don't think we live in a culture--a Christian culture--of self-denial and minimalism. I don't think the majority Christian culture is all that "set apart" and isolated from worldly pleasures and experiences. Perhaps a few people do feel guilty about how much pleasure they take in various experiences. But I don't think most do. And places where guilt is occurring may not connect directly with I'm sinning against God by enjoying XYZ. For example, a person may feel guilty about REALLY loving cheesecake. But if you get right down to it, it has more to do with body image, what culture has to say about what we eat, about what we look like, about what we should be doing or not be doing. There might be a lot of regret when we give into temptation--but I doubt "I am sinning by daydreaming about cheesecake instead of daydreaming about Jesus coming back isn't going to be on a top ten list" Or "I hate myself because I love cheesecake more than reading the Bible."

I do think people need more encouragement to actually take joy--find joy--live joyfully--IN Christ. I think more people are binging on the world than on Jesus Christ. If people actually lived more in the Bible and actually tasted and saw God in all his glory--or as much of His glory as we can humanly fathom--we'd rightly appreciate God in relation to his blessings and gifts.

A book that I would recommend instead is probably The Practice of the Presence of God. Or perhaps John MacArthur's Found: God's Will.

I also found it a bit strange in conveying ideas.
First, as we’ve seen, creation is designed by God to show us what he is like. Or, to be more specific, creation is designed to reveal who Jesus is. God has designed the entire universe to reveal Jesus. Long before you and I existed, long before Jesus came in the flesh, before the Bible was written down, from the very beginning God invented something called “hunger” and something called “bread” so that some day, when Jesus showed up, we would have categories for understanding who he is. In other words, when Jesus says, “I am the bread of life,” he’s not finding or discovering a convenient metaphor. He’s revealing the main reason that bread exists. Every growling stomach, every empty belly, every hearty meal, every satisfied hunger in the history of the world has been leading to the moment when Jesus shows up and people ask, “Who are you?” and he replies, “I am the bread of life.” Second, in this case, it’s not merely that God’s creation reveals who Jesus is. Human culture reveals who Jesus is. Jesus says that he is the bread of life, not the grain of life. Grain is something that God makes. Bread is something that people make out of the grain that God makes. That’s what culture is—a mixture of God’s creation and man’s creativity. And this tells us that not only is creation designed to reveal God, but human culture is also capable of showing us what God is like. When we faithfully mingle our creative labor with God’s creation, we glorify the things of earth. Bread is grain, but glorified through man’s efforts. Wine is grapes, but glorified through man’s efforts. While human culture is fallen and broken by sin, it is still able to be a reflection of divine wisdom and glory so that we can know who Jesus is and how we should relate to him.
I would have to spend a lot of time trying to think through this before I arrive at a conclusion if I agree or disagree with this argument.

But there were plenty of places we do agree.

To say that we desire nothing besides him is an empty compliment if it is literally true. It would be as if to say, “I desire nothing besides you because I’ve never desired anything at all.” But surely what the psalmist means is, “I have desired many things in my life, many things of earth. But compared to you, they are as nothing. You are my strength. You are my portion. Jesus is better.”
Profile Image for Hadassah.
7 reviews18 followers
February 20, 2022
4.5 stars.
In simple yet sure form, Rigney showed me a world where one strives to live out the statement "GOD IS MOST GLORIFIED WHEN WE ARE MOST SATISFIED IN HIM-AND WE ARE MOST SATISFIED IN HIM WHEN WE GLORIFY HIM IN EVERYTHING." Pretty remarkable, I'd say.
And when he writes "everything", he literally means EVERYTHING.
To me this book expounded on Psalm 105:6, challenging the reader to let every breath be a chance to let Love of GOD shatter the ceiling.

Accidentally read this book in tandem with Randy Alcorn's "Money, Possesions, & Eternity", resulting in a most amazing soulfelt outlook on life: my own and how i view the world.
Both books were poignant to me in a timeline when most believers are battling between ascetism (not the good kind) and lawlessness (definitely the bad kind), there is an insane spectrum that has on its sides options of either self-penance or self-pleasure; Too far right or too far left.

There's a lot of people I would want to reccomend this book, but I am worried that most of them might imperiously assume they already live this way...when in truth, the majority of us do not.

While I enjoyed how he tied everything to Scripture and especially how he elaborated on the beauty of the Hebrew language, I was fairly let down by how he simplified the Word to fit certain metaphors, I dont believe the Bible needs watering down. But maybe simplistic is what my soul needed to finally understand the revelation and meaning of Bread.

Here's a quote GR gives on his page that i liked:
“The written, authoritative word of God is what keeps us on the right path. It keeps our metaphors and analogies in check. The law of the Lord revives the soul, makes us wise so we don’t say foolish things about God, enlightens our eyes so we see God everywhere, and guards us from error.”
― Joe Rigney, Strangely Bright?: Can You Love God and Enjoy This World?

I would probably read his other and longer book, which is apparently a more detailed book on this subject. Though he reminds me very much of John Piper, I guess I dont have the qualms with that association as much as I thought I might...
I have found that GOD has much to teach me in this walk.

May we show the mercy we have received.
January 4, 2022
The central tension this short book addresses is the love of God above and beyond all else and the love of the good gifts that God has given us in our lives. The food, the family, the fun, everything that brings us joy; but does the enjoyment of these thing pose a danger to our relationship with God? Are we to perfect our love for the Lord by stifling our love for everything else?

Rigney’s approach in this book is masterful in threading the needle between these two biblical truths, and marrying them instead of setting them at odds. The categories of thought regarding God and His gifts are deeply wrought, and will stick with me as I move forward, enjoying the good gifts of the greatest God.
131 reviews1 follower
August 14, 2021
This is a very digestible book and it’s not about ‘finding that balance’ between loving God and creation - but seeks to set out the perspectives we should have and conduct ourselves accordingly. Halfway through I realised I subconsciously approached this book with a selfish mindset, and I learnt that “hey, my life isn’t about me - and enjoying and suffering isn’t about me.” Have a read if you can!
Profile Image for Tiffani.
450 reviews12 followers
January 30, 2023
Any review I give I don’t think will properly describe how much I loved this book— will absolutely go down as one of the most defining in my walk with the Lord and the depth with which this touched me, gave me lasting insight and joy in things I had already been studying in Gods word. I will read it again and again.
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