I found the book Dinner With a Perfect Stranger to be profoundly interesting, but also doctrinally faulty. David Gregor was obviously striving to answer basic questions that people might struggle with as non-believers. He did this through a fictional Jesus who invites a man named Nick to dinner. The dinner to turns out to be the perfect opportunity for Nick to ask all his questions about Christianity. To his surprise, Jesus has an answer to every question he has. Additionally, Jesus' answers are doctrinally accurate except for the one concerning how you accept God's free gift. Excluding this problem, David Gregory did a very good job presenting an answer to each of Nick's questions.
During the dinner, Nick asks Jesus what you must do to receive the free gift of God. Jesus replies, “Just receive it. That's all.” Furthermore, Jesus leaves Nick with a verse to read in order to find out how he might have dinner with Jesus again. This verse is Revelation chapter 3 verse 20 which says, “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.” There is so much truth in these statements, however, it is important to realize that this is not the whole story. Peter tells the crowd in Acts 22 that in order to be saved from their sins they must “Repent and be baptized...” to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. God could not get any clearer on this. He is asking that we show are repentance by being baptized so that he will wash our sins away. It is not like there is any thing magical in water(1 Peter 3:21); it is simply an act that “pledges a good conscience toward God.” It is because of this faulty doctrine in the book that I cannot give this book five stars.
Nick also presents the issue of the six day creation not lining up with what scientists say: “But I can't believe that God really created the universe in six days or that the earth is only six thousand years old. That's preposterous.” In response to his question, Jesus replies, “Who is asking you to believe that?” Jesus then goes on to explain that Genesis presents a flow of history and that scientists cannot argue with this. He also says that “God created the universe in an orderly fashion.” While I cannot state what I think on this issue at the present time, I will say that this way of answering the question could offend some people. This would definitely be considered questionable by some people I know.
All other facts put to the side, one of my favorite parts of this book is the way in which it parallels the story of Nicodemus in the Bible. While Nick and Nicodemus are by no means exactly alike, it is easy to see that the author had the story of Nicodemus in mind when he wrote this book. For one, Nick could be taken as short for Nicodemus. Second, Jesus tells Nick that his curiosity reminds him of Nicodemus: “You and he have more in common than just a name. In a good way, mostly.” This little insert obviously came directly from the author so that the reader could be clued in on the similarities. I found this comparison to rather fascinating.
Diner With A Perfect Stranger is an extremely interesting book with one major doctrinal fault. Some people may not view this as a problem, but I feel that David Gregory was avoiding an important issue. Despite this problem, everything else in the book is doctrinally sound. A non-believer who reads this book might in fact become convinced of God's existence and Christianity! However, I would definitely recommend following up with further further details on how to accept God's gift. Without further a do, I am going to give this book four stars for being well written and doctrinally sound except on the issue of receiving God's free gift.
I received this book for free from the WaterBrook Multonomah Publishing Group so that I might write this review. Taking the time to rate my review would be greatly appreciated so that I can learn to write better quality reviews.
No comments:
Post a Comment