FREE Audiobook on The Millennials by Thom Rainer Now Thru July 31st

Click the image to go get Thom & Jess Rainer's book The Millennials as an Audiobook for FREE!

From now through July 31st you can get Thom and Jess Rainer’s book The Millennials as an audiobook for FREE! This looks like a great book, especially for those in ministry to or parents of youth!

If you missed getting this book earlier when it was offered for free in the Kindle format (see my earlier post), this is your second chance to pick up a copy.

You will need to create an account with ChristianAudio, but it is worth it as every month they offer a FREE audiobook download! Past titles have included R. C. Sproul’s The Holiness of God, John Piper’s Don’t Waste Your Life and Desiring God, Francis Chan’s Crazy Love, and Mark Driscoll’s Religion Saves.

To receive this FREE audiobook simply click the image above, add the audiobook to your cart, check out, create an account with ChristianAudio, and then finish the checkout process. If you do this and listen to the book, I would welcome your thoughts on it.

FREE Video Download: Already Gone by Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis

Many Christian leaders have noted that alarming numbers of Christian high school students go off to college or university and as a result of their secular education drift away from their Christian faith or end up renouncing it altogether. In light of this, efforts have been made to impart to high school students a grasp of the biblical worldview and the critical thinking necessary to combat the lies faced in college. I am among those aiming to impart such things.

However, research from consumer behavior research/analyst C. Britt Beemer and author and president of Answers in Genesis Ken Ham suggest that many of these high school students were already gone long before even high school came around. The main reason? Families and churches are failing to give their students real answers to their questions and impart the biblical worldview from an early age on. In this video download Ken Ham discusses this phenomenon and how individuals, families, and churches can respond to it. I highly recommend downloading this video and giving it a careful watch. It is very well done and I think it is so important for contemporary Christians who desire to uphold God’s Word and impart it to younger generations to understand these alarming trends. Please post your thoughts on the video.

Click here to go download this video for FREE

Please Note: This video download is available FREE only until June 27. Download it and share the link to it with your friends right away!

FREE Kindle Book: The Millennials by Thom & Jess Rainer

The Millennials by Thom S. Rainer and Jess W. Rainer - Kindle Edition is currently FREE at Amazon.com

For anyone out there who has a Kindle or one of its many reading apps (for PC, iPhone, Blackberry, iPad, or Android), I would highly recommend ordering the book The Millennials by Thom S. Rainer and Jess W. Rainer very soon.

For a limited time it is available for FREE in the Kindle format. I do not know how much longer they will keep it free, but my hunch is not much longer.

Going from the description provided by Amazon, the book is a study of the Millennials (those born between 1980-2000) from a Christian worldview perspective, apparently the first of its kind. Thom Rainer (president of LifeWay Christian Resources) and his son Jess (a Millennial himself) analyze this generation through examining 1200 interviews of Millennials, trying to better understand them personally, professionally, and spiritually.  They explore such topics as the family, desire for diversity, work, money, media, environment, and religion. They conclude their book with their thoughts on how the church can minister to and engage this unique generation, the largest in American history.

For those in ministry to youth and young adults, this book appears to be a valuable tool to add to the library (and right now you can’t beat the price!). As a youth worker myself, this book appears to be a very valuable read for better understanding those to whom I minister. Doing some basic math, in this year the members of the Millennials are between 10 and 31 years of age. That obviously means that every teenager I come into contact with is a member of this generation. The same is true for you, the reader. I’m sure that understanding the macro group to which each teen belongs is a good thing for us. But, please don’t forget that while studying an entire generation is beneficial for understanding each of its members, nothing is more important than getting to know the individual people with whom you come into contact. What matters most at the end of the day is not whether you can accurately summarize the defining characteristics of a Millennial, but whether you have a relationship with the Millennial(s) you want to understand and reach.

Update: Unfortunately, this book is no longer available in the Kindle format for free.

FREE Joni Eareckson Tada Audiobook Now Thru June 30th

Click the image to go get Joni Earekson Tada's A Place of Healing as an Audiobook for FREE!

From now through June 30th you can get Joni Eareckson Tada’s book A Place of Healing: Wrestling with the Mysteries of Suffering, Pain, and God’s Sovereignty as an audiobook for FREE! This looks like a great book!

You will need to create an account with ChristianAudio, but it is worth it as every month they offer a FREE audiobook download! Past titles have included R. C. Sproul’s The Holiness of God, John Piper’s Don’t Waste Your Life and Desiring God, Francis Chan’s Crazy Love, and Mark Driscoll’s Religion Saves.

To receive this FREE audiobook simply click the image above, add the audiobook to your cart, check out, create an account with ChristianAudio, and then finish the checkout process. If you do this and listen to the book, I would welcome your thoughts on it.

Christians Should Preach the Gospel to Themselves Daily

The Gospel for Real Life by Jerry Bridges

I am excited to introduce to my blog readers the first book which I am reading through:

The Gospel for Real Life: Turn to the Liberating Power of the Cross…Every Day by Jerry Bridges!

If you are interested in reading a description of the book and/or purchasing it, feel free to click the cover image to the left to go to its product page at Westminster Bookstore.

I have picked this book as the first to read through and interact with here on my blog for at least two reasons:

1. I received this book free from its publisher NavPress in exchange for reading it and a review.
2. I thank the Lord for how He has used previous books by Jerry Bridges in my own life. His more recent book The Bookends of the Christian Life has been extremely helpful to me in understanding the two “bookends” upon which I should lean all the elements of my life: the perfect righteousness of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit at work in my life. I am hopeful  that reading through another Bridges book will be extremely edifying for me, and I hope the same for my readers.

The book at hand, The Gospel for Real Life, is mainly about the implications of the gospel (i.e., good news) for the Christian’s present life. While Christians are well aware of the future impact of the gospel (e.g., going to heaven), many of them have little or almost no idea of how the gospel relates to their everyday lives. Furthermore, while some (if not many) Christians have the mistaken idea that the gospel is primarily for unbelievers, Bridges contends that we as Christians must “preach the Gospel to ourselves every day.” As Bridges summarizes in his preface, his book is intended to answer three questions:

• What is the gospel we should preach to ourselves?
• Why do we, who are already believers, need to preach it to ourselves?
• How do we do it?

Personally, this book looks very exciting to me. For a while I have had the hunch that believers should never grow weary of or “get over” the simplicity and beauty of the gospel. I am not suggesting Christians should prolong their time with spiritual milk when they should be pressing on to solid food (cf. Hebrews 5:11-6:1). Rather, I am arguing that in pressing on Christians never truly leave behind a love for the gospel. On the contrary, that love ought to be deepening as the Christian understands more fully the rich implications of the gospel for his present life and eternal state, as well as the inestimable cost to Christ to accomplish all of what He did at the cross.

I am really hoping that Bridges supports his idea that believers should preach the gospel to themselves with a ton of Scripture verses. Let us see whether he does this, and if so, how he does it. It is important to consider what verses he uses as well as the methodological presuppositions he employs in the task of interpreting Scripture.

As I hope has been already conveyed, I am just thrilled to read through this book and blog on various parts of it with a review to follow.  Are you thrilled about it?

Welcome to Dan’s Musings on Scripture & Books

Welcome! You have found your way to the blog of Dan Radke, recent graduate of Northwestern College, youth worker with Teens For Christ, and future seminary student. Thanks for spending a few moments to check out my blog! I hope you find it edifying and worth your time.

This blog will serve three main purposes:

1. To publish my reflections and (insights?) on Scripture (the 66 books that make up the Christian Bible)
2. To interact with and post reviews of books that in some sense relate to Scripture or theology
3. To link to good Christian stuff that is available for FREE

Just so you know, there is no guarantee as to the frequency of my posts. Perhaps I will post 7 posts in one day. Or I will not post for over a week. In reality, somewhere in-between those two numbers will likely be how often I will post.

Also for your information: A good number of the books that I will be interacting with and/or writing reviews of will be ones that I received free in one way or another (e.g., the various Blogging for Books programs that exist). For me personally, the tasks of reading a book, analyzing its main themes, interacting with key points, summarizing the book as a whole, and offering a critique of it will be beneficial for me as I seek to understand contemporary theological trends and practice the skill of reading and writing. Be sure to check out the “About” tab above to learn more of who I am.

Thanks again for arriving here and reading thus far. Feel free to read other posts and comment on them.

Soli Deo Gloria