Reading between the lines

Major Mal Davies is the Assistant Divisional Commander for Victoria, and an avid reader. Salvos Online asks Mal three book-related questions:

Besides the gospels and Psalms, what is your favourite book in the Bible and why?

Along with countless thousands of preachers through the centuries, I love the book of Romans. It’s loaded with great teaching and immense depth, and you can turn to any chapter and find material to kickstart multiple sermons.

It’s the longest of Paul’s letters, and it has a strong focus on salvation and the person and purpose of Jesus. It also teaches us about grace and justification, and how to live a life transformed by Christ.

Well-known Anglican bishop N.T. Wright says that Romans is a “masterpiece” and “a work of massive substance, presenting a formidable intellectual challenge while offering a breathtaking theological and spiritual vision”.

One of my very favourite Scripture passages is found in Romans chapter 10, where Paul writes how the Good News of Christ is to be shared and that, “If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (10:9).

Romans contains solid teaching and much wisdom and shows both Paul’s logical thought processes and his heart for seeing people come into relationship with Jesus.

---

Besides the Bible, what is a Christian book that has strongly influenced your faith?

In 2012, while writing for an Army publication, I reviewed a new book called Jim & Casper Go to Church. It was a great read, and I’ve recommended it to many officers since then.

US pastor and writer Jim Henderson wanted to know what a non-believer thought of the modern-day church. So, he advertised, recruited and paid Matt Casper, an atheist marketing copywriter, to go to 12 different churches with him and then give him his honest feedback on their church service.

Matt offers great insights as to what a visitor might make of what we take for granted. At one stage, he talks about taking up the offering: “So they pass a bag around and people just put money in it, with no explanation of what the money is for or who will spend it. That’s nuts.”

The book also spawned a follow-up called Saving Casper, subtitled, ‘A Christian and an atheist talk about why we need to change the conversion conversation’.

Sometimes we can get so caught up in ‘church world’ that we fail to see that non-church people have no idea what we’re talking about! These books helped me see church through a different lens.

---

What is a secular book that has revealed to you a Christian message or theme?

I’ve long thought that the best novel I’ve ever read is To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

The book is set in 1930’s southern USA and tells of small-town lawyer Atticus Finch and his courtroom defense of Tom Robinson, an African-American wrongly accused of raping a white teenage girl.

In chapter 24, some of the Christian ladies of the town gather at a home to hear stories from a missionary, J.J. Grimes Everett, who has returned from Africa working with the Mruna people. They speak of how he entered their “sin and squalor” to take God to the poor natives, and how those people would be lost without Everett doing so.

I remember reading this chapter and thinking: ‘Isn’t God already there?’ Do we really ‘take’ God with us – he goes only where we go? That didn’t seem right.

Lee’s writing highlights the fake Christian morality of the ladies who see themselves as a class or two above the ‘poor Mruna’. They speak of the need to love such poor, lost souls, while showing that they have no desire at all to do so.

This episode reminds me that I need to keep up with God and his work, not him with me.