There are three ways to read a good and growing number of the classics of the Christian faith. The first is to read the original work. This is usually the most rewarding option, but it can pose difficulties when the author’s language is either foreign or antiquated. The second is to read a modernized version in which a contemporary author has generally maintained the content and flow of the book, but rewritten it in modern English. The third is to read a modern adaptation of the work in which a contemporary author writes his own version or adaptation that conveys the same ideas as the original, but with fresh language, illustrations, and so on. As time goes on, many classic works are available in all three formats.

The most recent to receive this treatment is John Owen’s Communion with God. Already available in Communion with the Triune God, a slightly modernized version edited by Justin Taylor and Kelly Kapic, we now have a fully adapted version in Mike McKinley’s Friendship with God: A Path to Deeper Fellowship with the Father, Son, and Spirit.
There is little I need to say about the original text except that it is for good reason that it has stood the test of time. First printed in the 1650s, it continues to be the preeminent work on the subject of the Christian’s communion with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—realities that Owen understood to be not only crucial to the Christian life, but actually the heart and soul of it.
In this adaptation, McKinley chooses to speak of “friendship” rather than “communion.” “If you are a Christian,” he explains, “the Bible says that the eternal God—the one who made the universe and everything in it, the God who is more holy and glorious and powerful than we can even begin to understand—that God wants you to know him and be known by him. He has gone to great lengths to make it possible for you to be his friend. He delights in your company and loves to shower you with good gifts. In fact, he plans to spend eternity blessing you far beyond what you can imagine.” And, indeed, within the pages of Scripture we find the Lord referring to his people as friends, family, his body, his bride, and other terms of warmth, endearment, communion, and friendship. “That’s pretty clear, isn’t it? God intends to have a close and intimate connection with us.”
Yet we often have trouble believing this and living like it’s true—imagining that a being as great and holy and mighty as God might actually treasure a relationship with weak and broken people like us. And then even if we do believe it, we can struggle to know how to act out and foster that relationship. “I know both of those struggles in my own life and in the lives of the brothers and sisters in the church I pastor,” says McKinley. “I see it in the Christians who leave to find another church that makes them feel ‘more spiritual,’ in those who are always looking for the new conference or program that will unlock the key insight they need to feel closer to God, in those who have grown doubtful that God could really love someone like them, in those who feel like their walk with the Lord has simply stalled out, and in the people who have settled into going through the motions, hoping that something will change someday.”
And this is precisely where Owen’s book has proven so valuable to so many generations of Christians. Yet as time passes, it becomes increasingly inaccessible. “The problem (and the reason for this book) is that Owen can be difficult to read and understand. His language is outdated, the world that he was writing to is very different from ours, he never tires of listing out points and subpoints, and his writing style can seem overly complicated at times (he never seems to explain anything in ten words if he can explain it in fifty!). As a result, Communion with God just isn’t something that most twenty-first century Christians are going to pick up and read.”
Hence this modernization in which McKinley’s goal has been to “mine some of the most precious diamonds of Owen’s spiritual insights and make them available and applicable to you as you grow in your enjoyment of the friendship of the God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I’ve tried to provide some of Owen’s most accessible and helpful quotes from the book, and if this motivates you to go read Owen on your own, you will be richly rewarded for your time and effort. It is true that some wonderful things are inevitably lost when you take a masterpiece written by a genius and let a (definite) nongenius like me shorten, rephrase, and rework it. But while some of Owen’s brilliance has certainly been lost in the process of creating this book, I do have hope that much good remains to serve you in your friendship with God.”
McKinley carries out his task well and helpfully conveys the best of Owen’s work in a way that is much easier to read and digest. If you have wanted to read a classic but have been intimidated by the original, or perhaps even incapable of understanding it, Friendship with God is just the answer. I am glad to recommend it.
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Good morning. Grace and peace to you today.

Today’s Kindle deals include a selection meant specifically for teens and/or their parents. There are several other interesting titles as well.
(Yesterday on the blog: The Beauty of Gender Difference)
Her Present Absence
Karen reflects on the nature of sorrow. “There is no sin in the sorrow we feel in our loved one’s present absence, and there is no wrongdoing or shame in acknowledging its reality. It’s simply a testimony of our enduring love for them, and our certainty that we will soon see them again.”
‘Journey to Bethlehem’ and Christmas Cringe
“Faith-based movies have been enjoying something of a renaissance lately—gaining ground not only in commercial viability but also in artistic credibility. To be sure, the bar has been low. Most of these movies are still not great; they’re just better than what we’ve come to expect. Sadly, the faith-based genre’s latest holiday movie sets the genre back—considerably.”
Aayan Hirsi Ali says she’s now a Christian (but only if that’s okay with the rest of us)
Aayan Hirsi Ali, who famously abandoned Islam in favor of atheism, recently explained how she became a Christian. Stephen McAlpine isn’t pleased with the skepticism of many believers.
The Super Generation (Video)
The John 10:10 Project celebrates one of nature’s wonders. “Every year, millions of Monarch butterflies travel up to 2500 miles to reach a dozen small patches of forest in central Mexico. There, they spend the winter safe from the freezing temperatures in Canada and the midwestern United States. These fragile insects have no idea where they are headed on their migration. Yet, with ingenious navigational systems stored within their eyes, brains and antennae, they locate the same forests and trees that provided sanctuary to their ancestors for generations.”
Church Planting Is Rarely Rapid
Matthew Spandler-Davison has traveled more than just about anyone I know and says, “I have come to believe there are two great threats to gospel work in the world’s poor and unengaged communities today: the prosperity gospel and the encouragement toward rapid multiplication.”
Realistic Expectations From a Life of Ministry
Mathew Santhosh Thomas: “Earlier, I wanted to serve God and ‘do ministry.’ But later God changed the way we thought. Ministry is not about us doing great things for God. It is understanding what God is doing in his world. We simply align our lives with what he is doing, to abide in him and walk with him.”
Flashback: The Happiest Christians and the Happiest Missionaries
Who are the happiest Christians? Who are the happiest missionaries? And what is it that makes them so happy?

Not only is all your affliction momentary, not only is all your affliction light in comparison to eternity and the glory there. But all of it is totally meaningful…Therefore, therefore, do not lose heart. —John Piper

The man who lives in the Swiss Alps is probably not terribly impressed when he visits North America and strolls through the Adirondacks or the Smokies. The woman who has spent her life snorkeling along the Great Barrier Reef is probably not too enthusiastic about snorkeling off the East Coast of Canada. The person who has grown up on the beaches of Maui is probably not going to break the bank to vacation on the beaches of Lake Superior. There is nothing wrong with the Adirondacks or the Smokies, nothing wrong with the East Coast of Canada or the beaches of the Great Lakes. It’s just that they are not nearly as good, not nearly as impressive, not nearly as awe-inspiring as the alternatives.

It does us good at times to ponder heaven, to ponder the future God has promised to those who love him. He has promised that we will be with him forever in a new heaven and a new earth—a re-creation of this world in which all sin and sorrow, all pain and danger will have been removed. Here we will live out the purpose for which God created us—to spread out over the earth and enjoy it with him and for him.
As we make the pilgrimage from here to there, as we endure this long journey, we expect that it will be difficult. We expect that we will experience the consequences that have come with mankind’s fall into sin. We expect that we will endure sickness, bereavement, persecution, chastisements, and so many other forms of suffering. This is all inevitable in a world like this one.
While we do not wish to suffer, we must be confident that God always has purposes in it. And one of these purposes is undoubtedly to prepare us for what is to come, to shift our hearts from earth to heaven, from what is temporal to what is eternal. The sorrows here prepare us for the glories there. And this makes me wonder: wouldn’t it be the ones who suffer most on earth who are best prepared to enjoy heaven? Wouldn’t it be the ones who were deprived of so much here who will be most satisfied there?
Just think of the wonder of a stroll in the garden for those who were long confined to the sick room, a hike in the mountains for those who spent their lives in a wheelchair, a place in God’s mansion for those who lived in nothing more than a hut.
Imagine the music of the heavenly choir to those who ears were deaf, the splendor of the New Jerusalem to those whose eyes were blind, the joy of crying out praise to those whose lips were mute.
Imagine never hearing a sound for your entire earthly existence only to have the heavenly choir as the first notes to ever reach your ear. Imagine never seeing anything on this side of the grave, only to have the face of Jesus be the first sight that ever meets your eye. Imagine never being able to form a word here only to have your tongue loosened in Christ’s presence so the first words you ever speak are an expression of love to him.
Surely it’s not the man who lived in fine palaces who will be most amazed by the streets of gold, but the man who lived in poverty. Surely it’s not the woman who enjoyed fine dining every day of her life who will be most satisfied by the heavenly feasts, but the woman who lived in deprivation. Surely it’s not the person who traveled to the four corners of the earth who will be most satisfied to explore the wonders of God’s creation, but the person who was unable to leave his hometown, or perhaps unable to leave his bed.
Those who were lonely in this world will marvel at the joy of fellowship, those who were abused in this world will be satisfied to experience perfect safety, those who were estranged in this world will rejoice to know full acceptance. The one who had so many loved ones taken from her arms will be most satisfied to know that pain and death and sorrow and sighing shall be no more.
We know that heaven will be a wonder for all who are admitted, a place of perfect peace and perfect satisfaction for all who enter its gates. But surely heaven will be a greater wonder still for those whose joys were fewest, whose sorrows were deepest, whose earth was most distant from heaven.