Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Catholic
Politics and Religion
Book Review: Deriving the Personality of God from His Actions in Scripture

Book Review: Deriving the Personality of God from His Actions in Scripture

Last updated on: August 6, 2013 at 5:45 pm by Rebecca Hamilton

4 Comments

Book Review: Deriving the Personality of God from His Actions in Scripture 2013-08-06T17:45:01-06:00 Rebecca Hamilton

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

FindingGodintheBible 1

To join the discussion about Finding God in the Bible, or to order a copy, go here.

I gave this review a title that more or less describes what I see as the function of the book, Finding God in the Bible, by Darren Wilson.

Mr Wilson has an interesting story of his own. He was, by his own description, a ho-hum Christian, doing an ez-pz light-weight Christian walk through life when God butted in and called him to go make movies.

He doesn’t go into detail (which I would love to read, btw) about this call, but it sounds as if God did one is his, “stand over there” deals with no explanation and expected Darren Wilson to step out in faith and do as he was told. God has never hit me with something like “go make movies” with vague directions to head off to foreign lands with a camera and see what happened. But I’ve definitely gotten more than one of those “stand over there” type instructions.

I don’t know about Mr Wilson, but I felt like an idiot the first time I did it. I mean, the version of “stand over there” I got made absolutely no sense. In fact, it placed me where I didn’t particularly want to be and where I was also (to my understanding) wasting my time. It felt at the time as if God was putting me on the bench to sit out the game. Then, out of nowhere, He pitched me the metaphorical ball, which I could never have caught if I hadn’t been standing “over there” as He’d told me.

It is true that faith grows with these experiences. It never gets easy, but you do learn that God has a plan and you can at least trust that He knows what He’s doing, even if you don’t. I am confident that there are times when God tells us to do things and we do not see the reason until we get to heaven.

Mr Wilson covers a bit of this in his book when he talks about Abraham. God told Abraham to get up, take his wife and leave a nice cushy life in the most forward-looking metropolis of his time and head out into the wilderness. This was the ultimate “stand over there.” Years later, God promised Abraham a lot of things about the great nation of people who would come from him, but Abraham never saw any of this come to pass in his lifetime. He died in that wilderness and was laid to rest in the cave near Mamre with nothing but his trust in God that all these promises would be realized in time.

The Bible says that despite the fact that he would never see them in this life, Abraham believed God when God promised him these things and God reckoned that to him as righteousness.

So maybe following a “stand over there” command gives each of us a small bit of righteousness. It would be nice to think so.

Darren Wilson did what Abraham did and what so many people do not do. He got up and headed out the door and did this utterly impractical thing that God had asked him to do. The interesting thing is that every time you do that, God counters with a bigger request the next time. Before you know it, you’re living your life built around Him.

That’s the lesson of Abraham and Darren Wilson.

It’s a lesson that reverberates throughout the interpretive re-telling of Bible stories that this book contains. One after the other, God interrupts the lives of people in the Scriptures with requests that they do what they’re really rather not do. And one after the other, they do it. Some of them do it gracelessly and after a good bit of whining and argument, but in the final analysis, they almost all follow through.

The one big exception in the stories Mr Wilson chose for this book is King Saul. Saul’s failed reign finds its failure precisely in his lack of faith. Saul didn’t wait on the Lord. Unfortunately for us type triple As, waiting on the Lord is as much a lesson of faith as doing for the Lord.

God always seems to make you wait. And then when you’ve decided nothing’s going to happen, here comes that metaphorical ball that He’s tossed you. At that moment, you understand a bit of what you were standing around waiting for in the first place.

Waiting is a lesson in faith. Just like “stand over there” is. Sadly for him, Saul failed this test.

I didn’t agree with every single nuance of every single interpretation of scripture that Darren Wilson wrote in this book. But there’s no reason why my understanding is any better than his. The point for me is the fact that he engaged me to the point that I wanted to sit down and talk to him about it.

I liked this book, and I also found myself liking its author. I plan to look up the movies he’s made and watch them.

I think, after reading Finding God in the Bible that I can see why God gave that particular assignment to this particular man in the first place.

finding god in the bible

Previous Post

August 6, 2013

Short-Circuiting the System to Play Elected Dictator

Next Post

August 7, 2013 Being There: The Magic Means of Passing on Your Faith to Your Kids

Recent Comments

4 Comments | Leave a Comment

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category 10 Commandments 2012 Election 2016 Election 2020 Election 2022 Election 2024 Election Abortion Addiction Adult Day Care Advent Africa AI Alcoholism Alex Pretti Renee Good America American Citizenship American Fascism Announcement Anti Semitism Anti-Semitism Apologetics Archbishop Coakley Argentina Armenian Genocide Ash Wednesday Ballot Box Salvation Biden Big Beautiful Bill Bishop Black Mass Blasphemy Boko Haram Book Review Brainwashing Breast Cancer Bribery Calling Evil Good calling good evil Cancer Canonize Caregiving Catholic Catholic Vote Cause for Sainthood Chaos child abuse Child Labor Child Rearing Child Sacrifice Christian Bashers Christian Leadership Christian Persecution Christian Solidarity Christianity Christmas clergy Clergy Sex Abuse Scandal Climate Coakley Common Good Communion Communism Computers concentration camps Conclave Confession Consecration to Our Lady Conversion Coptic Christians Coronavirus Corporatism Corruption COVID Crisis Pregnancy Centers Culture D Day Death Death Penalty Dementia Democracy Designer Baby Destruction of the Family Dictator Dignity of Work Divine Mercy Novena Divine Mercy Sunday Divorce Doubt Drug Addiction easter Ebola Economics Education Egg Harvesting El Salvador Elderly Epiphany Epstein Eternal Life eternal life Eucharist Eugenics Euthanizing Children Euthansia evangelization Excommunicate Biden Extraterrestrial Life Failed Clergy Faith False Gods Family Fascism Fatherhood Feast of the Assumption First Amendment Flood the Zone Following Christ forced conversion Forgiveness Fortnight4Freedom fourth amendment Fr James Altman Fr Stanley Rother free press Freedom Freedom of Conscience freedom of religion Freedom of Speech Freedom of Worship vs Religious Freedom Geek Stuff Gender Theory Genocide God the Father Good Friday Gossip GQP Greenland Grief Gun Control Gun Violence Hate Blogs Health Health Care Heart Attack Heaven Hell Herod HHS Mandate History of the Crusades Holy Father Holy Father' Holy Father's Tweets Holy Matrimony Holy Saturday Holy Spirit Holy Thursday Holy Week Home Homeschooling homosexual Hospice Human Dignity Human Rights human trafficking Humor ICE Idolatry Immaculate Conception Immigration Incest Infertility Inspiration Iran War ISIS Islam Islamic Brotherhood Israel JD Vance Jesus Jobs Jordan Judas Judicial and Legislative Murder Judicial Murder July 4 Just War Justice Kavanaugh Ketanji Jackson Brown Laity Latin Mass Leadership Lent Less of Me Lying Lying for Trump Mad King MAGA Magnifica humanitas Mama Marriage Marriage Protection Amendment Martyr Media Bias Medicaid Men and Abortion Mercy Military Dictatorship Misogyny Motherhood Movie Review Murder Music National Catholic Register Nazi Clergy Neo Nazis New Category New Evangelism New Evangelization News Headlines Nigeria No Kings Novena for the Persecuted Church Nuns Obama Oklahoma Oscar Romero Our Lady Our National Embarrassment Pakistan Palm Sunday Papal Conclave Papal G8 Pedophile piano political priests Political Whore Clergy Politics Polygamy Pope Francis Pope Francis Visit United States Pope Leo XIV Pope's Prayer Intentions Pornography Post Christian West Poverty Prayer Prayers for the Persecuted Church Pro Life Prophecy Prostitution Purgatory Putin Quack Medicine Racism Rape Religious Freedom Renee Good Republican Republican priests Rerum Novarum Retirement Risen Lord Roe v Wade Rosary Sacrament Sacred Heart Sacrilege Saints Salvation Same Sex Marriage Sanctity of Human Life Satan Save Our Democracy scandal Scripture Shroud of Turin Sisters Slavery Social Justice Social Security Solidarity Cross St Michael the Archangel stations of the cross Stop Late Term Abortion Stroke Suicide Supreme Court Surrogacy Surveillance State Synod Syria Taliban Tariffs Taxes Technology Thanksgiving The Ascension The Cross The Locust Class The Political Heresy The Resurrection The Tomb The Transfiguration The Trinity The War on Girls Tornado Trauma Trump Trump Coup Trump Destroying America Trump's Coup Trump's War on the Rule of Law Trumpism Ukraine Uncategorized USAID USCCB Vatican Vatican Reform Violence Against Women Violence in America Vocation Voting Rights Wages Walk for Life War Weight Loss White House Why Aren't You a Feminist Too? Woke Women Leaders Women's Rights Worker's Rights World Hunger World War I World War III World Youth Day Worship Writing Year of Faith

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 March 2024 February 2024 November 2023 October 2023 August 2023 July 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 October 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 August 2016 May 2016 April 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 January 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who predicted Jesus' betrayal price?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Isaiah Daniel Jeremiah Zechariah