Perhaps no representative of Christianity embodied the spirit of a fighting faith as well as the apostle Paul, who suffered profoundly for Christ. He also penned the famous verses in 2 Tim. 4:6-7, which refer to the Christian life as the “good fight.”

In Muscular Faith: How to Strengthen Your Heart, Soul, and Mind for the Only Challenge That Matters, Ben Patterson, author and campus pastor of Westmont College in Santa Barbara, Calif., urges readers to embrace a vigorous, “muscular” faith in the vein of Paul. “Jesus declared that one must enter the Kingdom of God the way a wrestler wrestles, a warrior wages war, and a runner runs a race,” Patterson writes. The Christian life is certainly not a passive one; rather, the author contends, it is a passionate existence.

The author reminds Christians that their journey is indeed a battle against the three-pronged enemy: the world, the flesh and the devil. He draws from personal anecdotes as well as biblical illustrations throughout his work, and judiciously quotes from novelists (Fyodor Dostoyevsky), philosophers (Blaise Pascal), psychiatrists (M. Scott Peck) literary scholars (C.S. Lewis) and theologians (Dietrich Bonhoeffer).

Muscular Faith will inspire and challenge readers to live boldly and focus on what really matters: a heart, soul and mind devoted to God and the ultimate destiny of eternity.

—Brian Smith McCallum

FICTION

Muscular Faith

Ben Patterson

Tyndale House Publishers

softcover, pages, $14.99

978-1-414-31666-6

August 2011