BOTW: Out of the Question, Into the Mystery

One weird book full of questions and mystery

To celebrate the end of the 4th month of reading one book a week, I chose to read a book that’s been on my shelf for quite some time. After reading it, I realized why it’s been there so long.

Out of the Question…Into the Mystery, by Leonard Sweet, was not an enjoyable book at all. Sweet is, without a doubt, a brilliant man and has written a number of brilliant books, but this one is like sitting in a calculus class with a teacher who knows his stuff and has no clue about how to communicate his knowledge to his students. Reading it felt tedious, laborious, arduous, wearisome, assiduous, sedulous, and hard. (Oops. Apparently Sweet’s tendency to use large words to impress rubbed off on me.)

In a total reversal of the famous “you had me at hello” line from Jerry Maguire, Out of the Question lost me right after “hello” (in the third chapter) when Sweet tried to make a case that Abraham had somehow failed the test God had given him when he was willing to offer up his son, Isaac, as a sacrifice after God asked him to.  Say huh?  God asked him to, he said yes, and he failed?

According to Sweet, it was a 2 part test (never-mind the fact that Scripture never reveals this great mystery – that’s what we have Dr. Sweet for!) in which God was looking for obedience (check) and relationship (fail).  He wrote about Abraham’s testing:

Abraham’s great gift was his willingness to obey no matter the cost.  Abraham’s great blind spot was his inability and unwillingness to engage with God when it mattered most.  This great man, this father of a nation, this hero of the faith, missed the truth of God that is only found in relationship. (p. 61)

For me, this just wasn’t passing the common sense test, so I did a quick search in Scripture for some more insight.  Sure enough, books written after the account of Abraham’s test in Scripture refer to him as a friend of God (Isaiah 41:8 and 2 Chronicles 20:7).  Even more obvious (and troublesome to Sweet’s assertion) is the fact that James 2:21-24 actually says that Abraham was shown to be right with God as a direct result of his willingness to sacrifice his son.

There are good points to be found in the book, and Sweet is a great thinker in today’s church world.  But for me, wading through all the useless academia language in an attempt to find it grew annoying.  Would I give this book anymore than 1 star?  Out of the question.

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review as a part of their Blogging for Books program. Ranking my review helps me get more books to read!

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