This book was recommended (and given for free) to me by a pastoral friend here in the Jefferson City area and he is much much smarter than I.  I had heard about it previously and I know CJ Mahaney is a huge fan of Paul David Tripp.  So I graciously accepted the gift and with great anticipation dove in.  I was not disappointed.

First, you have to appreciate the money quote.  The folks at Eternity will hear this repeated time and time again and it may be like a recited statement at every Sunday gathering or something:

The church is not a theological classroom.  It is a conversion, confession, repentance, reconciliation, forgiveness, and sanctification center, where flawed people place their trust in Christ, gather to know and love him better, and learn to love others as he has designed.  The church is messy and inefficient, but it is God’s wonderful mess–the place where He radically transforms hearts and lives.

It doesn’t get any better than that and it is that precise understanding that drives the whole counsel of the book which is pretty thorough (300 + pages including appendices).  I read a ton (500 - 1000 pages a week) and I have to say that this is the first book in a while that I truly felt a strong desire not to put down.  I’ve been pouring through it for a week and have just now come to the end.  It has more highlighted sections that not which means it hit me hard.

Tripp takes you down amazing roads and provides great insight into practical strategies (developed solely from Scripture) that will aid anybody in the church in counseling others.  Now before you read that and think “I’m not a counselor”, Tripp would beg to differ.  He believes, as do I, that we are all counselors.  We are all counseling others every day and typically every hour.  Tripp says the question isn’t whether you will be a counselor or not, everyone is he believes, it’s what kind of counsel will your provide?

Will you provide counsel that helps people discover who they are, who God is, what their true condition is, and how Scripture helps them move forward or will your provide counsel that trades behavior for behavior, thought for thought, emotion for emotion, but eventually produces no lasting change.  Tripp is a realist and very honest about the fact that we don’t change anybody.  God changes people.  Our job as Christians is to help them see all of life, their interactions, emotions, behaviors, thoughts, feelings, and measure them in light of Scripture.

This is definitely not a one read and on the shelf kind of book.  This is a reference.  A book to be poured over.  A book to be mastered.  A book to be ingrained into the heart of your being.  But it will be effort well spent.