Blog? Want Free Books? Let's Chat.

"A Radical Idea" not as radical as it used to be

by Chad Feight

July 25, 2012

I recently read "A Radical Idea" by David Platt (part of a 10-pack). This is a very small book that tries to pack in a lot of information. It is basically a repackaging of Platt's other book "Radical Together."

The basic premise of the book is good enough: God uses imperfect people to do His work. Platt also has some great quotes, and some others that made me really think about ministry from a new perspective. However, I have a couple of issues with this book.

First, Platt often talks about how God doesn't really call us to big, fancy churches, etc. However, Platt is a pastor at a big, fancy church. I get that you can take a large church with a lot of wonderful features and use it for God's glory (my church does), but don't try to appeal to make it seem like your just another small-church guy doing God's work. In fact, much of what he writes could be construed as anti-church. While I understand that is not his heart, it makes me leery of sharing this 10-pack with many others.

Second, this is not a new book. It really just comes across as a way to make some more money off of his popularity. There are no new ideas in here (although I didn't think there were too many new ideas after his original book, "Radical."). If you've read his other works, you really don't need this one. If you have a bunch of people that haven't read anything by Platt, I don't know that this would be the best introduction, anyway. Although, it is probably the cheapest.

Like I said earlier, there are some redemptive qualities in this book. He does pack a lot of stuff into this tiny book and did cause me to think. Unfortunately, for me, the negatives outweighed the positives in this one.