Friday, October 29, 2010

Mornings and Evenings with Spurgeon

As a blogger for New Leaf Press, I recently recieved the daily devotional book, Mornings and Evenings with Spurgeon by Charles H. Spurgeon, edited by Larry and Marion Pierce.  Apparently, Charles H. Spurgeon, well known for his influential sermons and writings, was a pastor who lived in the 1800s, continues to be a well respected classic Christian writer. This devotional book represents a "modern" revision or translation of his original work for today's reader.  Although I personally did not have a difficult time understanding the writing, it is by no means a modern piece of work by today's writing standards in today's society. I believe many readers will struggle to grasp the full meaning of the devotional passages with its formal style of writing.  In contrast to many modern devotional books on the market today which make use of an informal and simple writing style with short passages, this book with its lengthy passages and formal writing style, is not intended for the casual reader, and requires some indepth meditation and thought on the part of the reader. If you can understand that "churlish souls stint their contributions to the ministry and missionary operations, and call such saving good economy; little do they dream that they are thus impoverishing themselves", (October 28- morning) is just simply a poetic way to say that stingy people who don't pull their fair share in a ministry lose out, then perhaps this is the book for you.  On the other hand, if you would have a difficult time translating the meaning of this statement into modern English, then this book would simply be an exercise in frustration. For anyone with the time to spare, and the attentiveness for an advanced level, traditional classic devotional, this book is perfect and is full of inspiration and deep meaning.  Perhaps relative to the original Spurgeon devotional printed in the 1800s this is a contemporary update. I believe that this book would best be appreciated to those readers  into poetic, traditional Christian literature. As a blogger I recieved this book from New Leaf Press for the purpose of writing a review.

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