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    The Rest of God: Restoring Your Soul by Restoring Sabbath
    The Rest of God: Restoring Your Soul by Restoring Sabbath
    The Rest of God: Restoring Your Soul by Restoring Sabbath
    Audiobook8 hours

    The Rest of God: Restoring Your Soul by Restoring Sabbath

    Written by Mark Buchanan

    Narrated by Eric Michael Summerer

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    Widely acclaimed author Mark Buchanan states that what we've really lost is "the rest of God-the rest God bestows and, with it, that part of Himself we can know only through stillness." Stillness as a virtue is a foreign concept in our society, but there is wisdom in God's own rhythm of work and rest. Jesus practiced Sabbath among those who had turned it into a dismal thing, a day for murmuring and finger-wagging, and He reminded them of the day's true purpose: liberation-to heal, to feed, to rescue, to celebrate, to lavish and relish life abundant.

    With this book, Buchanan reminds us of this and gives practical advice for restoring the sabbath in our lives.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateJul 10, 2018
    ISBN9781977388926
    Author

    Mark Buchanan

    Mark Buchanan is a professor and award-winning author. He and his wife, Cheryl, live in Cochrane, Alberta. He is the author of eight books, including Your God Is Too Safe, The Rest of God, and Spiritual Rhythm.  

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    Reviews for The Rest of God

    4.5/5

    81 ratings6 reviews

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    • 5/5
      I love Mark’s way of storytelling. This isn’t a hum-drum theological book - instead, through vividly described stories, Mark does a masterful job of bringing the reader along into understanding the essence of sabbath.
    • 5/5
      A call to receive the gift of the sabbath! We don’t have to wait for that long vacation.. we can experience rest today.
    • 5/5
      This is a great book, life changing! Thankful for how it has helped me establish a sabbath rest in my week.
    • 2/5
      If you listen to the 2021 interview with Canadian Leaders Network, where Jason Ballard (Alpha Canada) wanted to declare Mark to be a guide in Christian mysticism, and to be in one catalog with Ruth Haley Barton and Richard Foster, you could have been affirmed that Jason Ballard made the correct conclusion of those books written 14 years earlier. But Mark clearly distanced himself in this interview from being put into this box and explained how his mother had initially led him into 'Eastern Religions and Mysticism' and how his wife had been his guru and Spiritual Director before a gradual transformation happened.

      The book started very well and its writing style and intrinsic motivation of the first chapters to hold the Weekly Sabbath are very convincing. But the quality of the book soon takes a sharp u-turn, almost as if two different authors would have written the book. As soon as The Message Bible (Eugene Peterson, same college where he got his Master from), witchcraft and an obvious tendency to mysticism sneaked in, the book lost its value, from a book to be highly praised for the first chapters, to a book to be warned against.

      - He mentions in his book the 'Prayer of Examen', a prayer developed by Jesuits.

      - Hints to the book 'The Attentive Life' by Leighton Ford and Richard Foster (Renovare, Catholic Mystic, Contemplative Prayer).

      - Positive quotes and stories from books by C.S. Lewis, J.R. Tolkien and Brother Lawrence, all highly problematic teachers.

      - Quotes from Henri Nouwen, a Catholic priest and big name in Mysticism / Contemplative Prayer.

      - The author mentions several times the act of emptying yourself (Kenosis), without explaining what he means by it. Kenosis is a misapplication of Jesus having temporarily emptied Himself from His divine power. We do not have divine power to be emptied from. To the contrary, we want the Spirit to fill us to prevent demons from filling an unoccupied house (Mat 12:44).

      - He also mentions over and over 'silence and solitude', terms commonly used by Avila, Comer, Eldredge, Nouwen, Foster, Peterson, Rohr, Yancey and Willard, all supporters of Catholic Mysticism and Contemplative Prayer.

      - The author first discourages people from making others work on the Sabbath, only to later list several examples how he did and would again violate the law by purchasing e.g. after an excursion. Double moral which clearly violates God’s command. He would have done well to show only a little of the courage he showed when going into the waters with his son and to better define the Sabbath without drifting into legalism. He also wrongly stated that the Bible does not provide any specification and e.g. totally missed the New Covenant indication in Acts to not travel extensively on the Sabbath. The book generally misses exegesis, what would be fine if other authors would plow that field. If only. The book does great in encouraging, but this does not last for long if the parameters and reasoning for the obedience are not provided.

      - The book suffers a lot of misinterpretations of Bible verses, exaggerations, invented conversations and acts. After 3/4 of the book, it became painful to see the Word of God being twisted over and over again. At this point in life the author was immature in his faith (at least what is visible through his writings) and would have been disqualified for writing Christian books, while being a writer with great skills for secular books. But listening to the initially mentioned interview, I suspect that this definitely changed for good.

      - The author encourages other Christians to trespass warning signs and to risk their lives in dangerous waters.

      + The speaker of the audiobook is simply excellent.


      More regarding the Weekly Sabbath:

      - He totally misses explaining the Extraordinary / Ceremonial Sabbaths. Without this differentiation we cannot grasp the differences between Old Covenant and Moral Law, between what is gone and what is still valid. A missed opportunity to motivate people by showing the much more burdensome parts of obedience that are gone, and making the Weekly Sabbath appear easy in light of what is gone.

      - Romans 14 is misinterpreted. In order to believe that this verse is talking about the Weekly Sabbath, we would have to inject it into the text, based on a preconceived belief, rather than getting it from the text itself. The entire chapter 14 of Romans is exclusively related to food and the verse most probably relates to either pagan festivals (the Romans observed 40 days per year !) and/or the Extraordinary Sabbaths (Feasts) that were usually related to the consumption of specific food (lamb, unleavened bread, no yeast, et al.). A Weekly Sabbath has no indications at all on personal food, therefore it is grossly negligent to insert this Sabbath into this verse.

      - He leaves the timing of the Weekly Sabbath open to personal interpretation, but does not state why he thinks that God leaves this choice to us. It would have been beautiful to see some boldness here and to show why a Sabbath can only mean from Sunrise Saturday to Sunrise Sunday, and not any man-made tradition.

      - The interpretation of 'Lord's Day' in Rev 1:10 is wrong. It simply means in a better translation a 'day pertaining to the Lord', ultimately describing the Sabbath in other words, while John used constantly a different term for 'the first day of the week'.

      + The interpretation of Hebrews is countercultural and indeed great. One of the few people who understand the 3 dimensions (past-, present-, and future) of those verses.
    • 5/5
      [The Rest of God] by [[Mark Buchanan]] is perhaps the best book I've read on Sabbath keeping--and I've read a lot, having kept Sabbath for all 43 years of my Christian walk. Mr. Buchanan, a pastor, doesn't get bogged down in do's and don'ts--rather he focuses on the wonderful benefits of Sabbath keeping and how much we need a break, a rest from our usual work. He relates how, despite being a pastor, he didn't keep any kind of Sabbath for years. He eventually got so sick he had to take a break, a Sabbatical from his pastorate. He found that humbling and educational for the benefits of the Sabbath. I found his candor and humility about his errors to be refreshing and made his case far stronger.I recommend this book for any Christian who wishes to draw closer to God and doesn't currently observe any day of rest. It also is educational for any person of another faith who is curious about Christian Sabbath keeping.One last point: although whether a Christian Sabbath should be celebrated on Saturday or Sunday is a divisive point, Mr. Buchanan completely bypasses the issue, focusing rather on the spirit and intent of the Sabbath--time devoted to God, every week.
    • 5/5
      Buchanan is one of the most gifted speakers and writers I've encountered. God has wonderfully gifted him with the ability to cut the bible open, and lay its contents bare. He's made me feel like I've never read the passage he's talking about before, and after sitting with his teaching in insight, I doubt I'll ever read them the same way again. In the Rest of God, Mark is aiming at the heart of the crisis of our culture of busyness and restlessness. Buchanan reminds us that the Sabbath was made for man, and that God's desire that we have and live lives with his peace and rest and joy is too easily forgotten.