Book Review: How People Change

How People Change by Tim Lane and Paul Tripp (2008) is one of the core resources for the Christian Counseling and Education Foundation.  I first heard of the book when I attended the annual CCEF conference last fall and decided it was worth reading.  I was not disappointed. 

Lane and Tripp have provided a Gospel-centered look at soul care with practical suggestions to the reader.  In the first chapter, the authors point out several forms of Christian externalism that we use but which do not address our needs.  They then turn the corner to identify why the centrality of the Gospel is essential to counseling and Christian growth.  The demonstrate how we all face times of difficulty (heat) and that our responses may result in thorns or fruit, but that it is the Cross that leads to fruit in our lives. 

I would recommend this book for those looking to understand the Gospel in their own lives; not just as an abstract concept or as something they believed in to be saved, but as a message that sustains day in and day out.  4.5 stars.

Quotable quotes:

• Without an awareness of Christ's presence, we tend to live anxiously. We avoid hard things and are easily overwhelmed (5).
• Perhaps postmodernism and sexual immorality are not the greatest threats to the church of Christ in our day. Perhaps we are in more danger from the subtle lies that flow from subtle shifts in how we understand the gospel (11).
• Jesus is not a vending machine that dispenses what we want to feel good about ourselves. He is the Holy One who comes to cleanse us, fill us and change us (25).
• By God's grace, you are being progressively delivered from the one thing that can completely destroy you: sin (40).
• In 2 Peter 1:3-9, Peter says that many Christians live ineffective and fruitless lives because they have forgotten who they are in Christ (58).
• One of the mistakes we make in handling God's Word is that we reduce it to a set of directions on how to live (79).
• We shouldn't be surprised when suffering and difficulty come our way; in fact, we should probably be surprised when they don't (101).
• The reason we fail to keep commands 4 through 10 is because we have failed to keep the first three (136).
• Romans 1:25 indicates that idolatry is often the result of taking good things in creation and making them ultimate things (139).

There are, of course, many others.  I would encourage you to pick up the book.