Journal: Puritan Reformed Journal
Volume: PRJ 04:2 (Jul 2012)
Article: Book Reviews
Author: Anonymous

PRJ 4:2 (July 2012) p. 225

Book Reviews

Ruth Asp-Odlander, The Wayfarers. Burleigh, Queensland: Zeus, 2009. 274 pp., paperback.

Among missionary biographies of recent years, this has to be one of the most challenging. Without the least attempt at the sensational, the author (b. 1935) tells the story of her Swedish parents who went out to Yunnan with the Swedish Free Mission in the late 1920s. That whole area of China, beyond Burma, was then little known, although faithful missionaries, including James Fraser among the Lisu, had been there for many years.

Using original documents and her own memory, Mrs. Asp- Odlander’s book falls into three parts: her parents’ pioneering work, their captivity in the Japanese occupation during World War II (when her father died), and her own difficult return to Sweden at the age of ten. The final chapter is a moving account of her return visit to Yunnan in 2001 and the discovery of a Christian witness continuing in the places where the gospel had been brought by her parents and others seventy years earlier.

Here is a picture of serious faith sustained through hardship, and lives motivated by “the fact that he had sacrificed himself and given his life for me.” Unobtrusive Pentecostal belief comes into the narrative, and a question (unstated by the author) must humble those who believe that they have been given clearer biblical light, namely, why do our beliefs not lead to a greater number of missionaries? In the bibliography, Joseph Tracy’s book The Great Awakening is mentioned, and it is interesting to note the author’s reference to pastors Martyn Lloyd-Jones (“speaking to thousands of enthusiastic young people”) and Stephen Wang in London in 1952 (226). Those who, like

PRJ 4:2 (July 2012) p. 226

the reviewer, too seldom read a missionary title, should read this one. We have much to learn.

— Iain H. Murray

Joel R. Beeke and James A. LaBelle, Living Zealously. Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2012. 160 pp., paperback.

Once in a while, a book comes along that realigns how we think and how we live. Living Zealously for God’s Glory is one of those books. Apart from the Bible and some good biographies, few books have so impacted my approach to Christian living.

In a series by Joel Beeke and James LaBelle that collects Puritan observations on particular topics and synthesizes them for today’s reader, Living Zealously examines the nature and marks of Christian zeal, the necessity and motives of zeal, regulation of zeal, objects and outworking of Christian zeal, and the means to develop and sustain Christian zeal.

Perhaps part of...