This isn't a long book. It has taken me just over a week to finish it. My conclusion at the end of reading it was the same as the conclusion that I had when I finished it the first time. It's a good book.
So why would you read it? If you've ever wondered what life should be like for the Christian, then this is the book for you. In previous posts when I've been talking about Ryle I've mentioned that his books require a bit of concentration. This is true of this book, but the advantage of this one is that the chapters are short, so you're attention span doesn't have to be that long. If you want to read a book with a friend this would be a good one to read. This is how I ended up reading it the first time round. I hadn't heard of it before someone suggested we read it.
What should the Christian life look like? Each of the chapters looks at a different aspect of what it means to walk with God. So there is a chapter on happiness, and a chapter on pride, and with fourteen chapters a good bit of ground gets covered. The chapter that stuck out for me was the chapter on hell. Ryle doesn't soften the blow. Hell is real and he doesn't want anyone to end up there. His explanation of what hell is has shaken me, and now I'm thinking about how little I've cared about it and that that needs to change. It's easier to care when you realise how awful it is.
The other part of the book that I'm giving some thought to is the appendix that is about the "Lord's Day". It raises the question about how we treat Sundays. I'm not sure that I agree with Ryle on everything that he says in this chapter. So, I don't think it is a bad thing to be reading a novel on a Sunday, but I think that he has a point about how little time we spend thinking about God and His holiness (so novel reading would be a distraction from this which is why he doesn't recommend it). It's something I would like to be clearer on, so further thinking will be happening.
Have you read it? What did you think?
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