Andrew J. Miller
Hi there, Reformation Heritage Books has published a series of blog posts related to my book on the Westminster Shorter Catechism. This is bonus material in addition to our book Glorifying and Enjoying God. Check these out (ones I wrote):
You can get the whole book on Kindle for less than $10.
Cover photo from RHB.
Thankful that Reformation Heritage Books is publishing my new book (with Jonathan Cruse and Bill Boekestein), a devotional based on the Westminster Shorter Catechism: Glorifying and Enjoying God. Check out our interview about the book!
Check out my latest review for Modern Reformation! “The Old Testament Written in the Blood of Christ”
Check out my latest article over at the Gospel Coalition.
How does God’s goodness affect the local church? Check out my latest article for Credo Magazine.
Check it out over at New Horizons!
Good news! I’ve found a doctoral supervisor in the UK who has approved my dissertation research proposal. There are still some details to work out so I will wait to post more, but this will be part-time and distance, so I will be able to continue to pastor full time.
By no means will I claim to be a fine writer, but I’m pleased with the progress I have made over the last few years. Below are some of the resources I have found especially helpful in honing the writer’s craft and simply encouraging me to write. Most of these I read or listened to for free from my local library.
First, the Great Courses Building Great Sentences. This course may overwhelm you (I’ve had to listen to many of the lectures over…and over…again), yet it will delight anyone who writes or speaks. There are so many memorable sentences, such as the foundational statement by Gertrude Stein of a sentence: “Why should a sequence of words be anything but a pleasure?” You’ll listen to this course once, and then know how little you know about writing!
Second, Bernard Cornwell’s Writing Advice. Completely free, the great novelist Cornwell gives numerous good suggestions.
Kurt Vonnegut once gave a splendid piece of advice. Every good story, he said, begins with a question. Harry meets Anne and wants to marry her. There’s the question already, will he succeed? But Harry is already married to Katharine, so there is your plot. Simple, isn’t it? And if your opening question is right, then the pursuit of the answer will propel the reader through the book. More important, it will propel the writer through the book.
Bernard Cornwell
Third, How to Write a Sentence by Stanley Fish. Short and sweet, this book gives joy as well as education. Fish gives many examples of great sentences and explains why they are great.
Fourth, Colum McCann’s Letters to a Young Writer: Some Practical and Philosophical Advice. Simply excellent, and it will make you chuckle, particularly if you listen to McCann read it on the audiobook version.
Fifth, Writing Tools (10th Anniversary Edition): 55 Essential Strategies for Every Writer by Roy Peter Clark. I’m only halfway, but the first half already proved the book’s worth. Easy to read, helpful, and written with a wry sense of humor.
Sixth, Stephen King’s On Writing. No, I do not like horror books or movies. Yes, King’s book has some bad language that you will want to tune out. That aside, this is a wonderful course on writing well and being a writer, told in an auto-biographical style. I listened to this on my daily walks, and I couldn’t get enough. King shines at making you yearn to know what happens next.
Seventh, Ford Madox Ford’s The Good Soldier. An aspect of the greatness of the above works is that they point you to great authors and great works of literature. I think it was Stanley Fish’s book that pointed me to this book, and I’m so thankful. Note the sentences as you listen (or read), and consider how Ford is able to reveal more and more about the mystery while still hiding so much, drawing you forward to the end.
Finally, when writing several articles one summer, I took note of some simple tips to make one’s writing more accessible, Write to Express, Not to Impress. It teaches things like “Replace adverbs with strong verbs” and avoid the passive voice.
I’m also reading Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style by Virginia Tufte, and enjoying it. I just learned about wysiwyg clauses (what you see is what you get) from her (more here). Artful Sentences is more advanced that the other books mentioned in this post.
There are a lot of helpful pointers here: The Anatomy of a Compelling Book Proposal, Write a Compelling Author Bio, and How to Hook Your Future Readers.
Although it seems premature to give guidance on academic writing until I have completed my doctoral research, I do want to briefly recommend Thriving as a Graduate Writer: Principles, Strategies, and Habits for Effective Academic Writing. I’m writing a review of it and will post a link here when it’s published, but for now it’s worth mentioning that Rachael Cayley here rightly points out that academic writers should view writing as thinking. Of course, if you “write to think” you should also revise after you’ve formed more mature thoughts! There are also other highly regarded books on academic writing, like From Topic to Thesis and Stylish Academic Writing.
This will be a good start – I plan to put my children through this course in high-school. Of course, before you can write, you must learn to read; and a good starting place is How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler.
Marking a book is literally an experience of your differences or agreements with the author. It is the highest respect you can pay him.
Edgar Allen Poe
Take and write!
Pure and Holy Triune God, We confess this day that we have failed in various ways to uphold your law. Particularly, we have shrunk away from sharing the gospel. We confess that even our zeal for evangelism has at times been mere posturing. Our fear of rejection and persecution, of ridicule and mockery has given us pause. We have not sought out the opportunities we might have otherwise had, We have cloistered ourselves away from unbelievers. But most grievously, Lord, we have not shared our hope with the world because that hope did not excite us enough. Lord and Father, impress upon our hearts the weight of our sin and the corresponding greatness of your mercy. Enable us, by your Spirit, to be so joyful in our salvation that we become eager to share the reasons we have for hope! Empower us to trust in you, not only for the proper opportunities, but also to bring forth fruit. We confess our failures to you knowing that you have defeated our sin and its guilt. We come to you this day and pray that you would restore our souls and delight us once more in you. Bless us, O Lord, that all the nations might praise your name! We pray in the name of our great high priest, Jesus Christ, amen. (Based on various passages like 1 Peter 3 and Psalm 67)
Jeremiah 8:6-7 6 I have paid attention and listened, but they have not spoken rightly; no man relents of his evil, saying, ‘What have I done?’ Everyone turns to his own course, like a horse plunging headlong into battle. 7 Even the stork in the heavens knows her times, and the turtledove, swallow, and crane keep the time of their coming, but my people know not the rules of the LORD.
The recent movie “War Horse” notwithstanding, Alexander the Great’s mighty steed Bucephalus is one of history’s greatest horses. The horse’s name itself, “ox-head” (βοῦς “ox” and κεφαλή “head”), testifies to its determination. Alexander would name a city after his great horse, and one can only imagine, as in The Virtues of War, how Bucephalus plunged into battles bearing one of history’s most accomplished figures on his back.
God himself, speaking to Job from the whirlwind, describes the power of the war horse:
Job 39:19-25 19 “Do you give the horse his might? Do you clothe his neck with a mane? 20 Do you make him leap like the locust? His majestic snorting is terrifying. 21 He paws in the valley and exults in his strength; he goes out to meet the weapons. 22 He laughs at fear and is not dismayed; he does not turn back from the sword. 23 Upon him rattle the quiver, the flashing spear, and the javelin. 24 With fierceness and rage he swallows the ground; he cannot stand still at the sound of the trumpet. 25 When the trumpet sounds, he says ‘Aha!’ He smells the battle from afar, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting.
As vividly as you might be able to imagine the war horse charging headlong into battle, Jeremiah’s words jar us. He compares the powerful and determined war horse to the sinner. As the horse continues on his course, undeterred, so the sinner continues to rebel against God, unless God intervenes.
As a parent of small children, I witness them double-down on their rebellious behavior, stubbornly continuing in their tantrum even when it is clearly not working. I am no different.
Matthew Henry comments,
They did not so much as take the first step towards repentance; they did not so much as say, What have I done? There was no motion towards it, not the least sign or token of it. Note, True repentance beings in a serious and impartial inquiry into ourselves, what have we done, arising from a conviction that we have done amiss. (2.) They were so far from repenting of their sins that they went on resolutely in their sins: Every one turned to his course, his wicked course, that course of sin which he had chosen and accustomed himself to, as the horse rushes into the battle, eager upon action, and scorning to be curbed.
Praise the Lord that he intervenes, turns us aside, makes us “come to our senses” (Luke 15:17), see our sin, and seek the Savior who sought us out. None of us has earned God’s grace—”Everyone turns to his own course,” and this means he gets all the glory, transforming stubborn sinners plunging to their deaths into those who know their Savior’s voice and listen to his commands.