Kemp, Cecil O., Jr. Better Way of Living

Reviewed by Mark Orrin

Overall Assessment

Cecil, it's becoming a growing pleasure to know you, and I praise God for the way He's worked in your life to instill His Wisdom (Who is Christ) throughout this book. Without saying more that's not to the point, let me tell you that whatever I don't take to task in it you can assume is just fine by me; I'll also point out finest things as I encounter them. When it's ready to be unleashed, I have every confidence that this book will bring great light, release and rest to its readers, as a direct consequence of your eminently practical-spiritual approach to walking by the Spirit.

Two Crucial Issues

As I've already shared with you, most of the crucial issues about the book I have to address concern how you begin it at present, and I sense these root in two particular difficulties: first, a too-wide "net-cast" toward perhaps too diffuse an audience; second, insufficient definition of a single key term readers must understand clearly in order to receive the full blessing of your work. Let me address the second problem first, in terms of a critique I made a few years ago, of an early draft of an evangelical leader's work that evidenced something of a parallel miscue. I'll quote part of that review:

"Don't think I'm saying... that your book as a whole doesn't make your case; it does, brilliantly, concisely, accurately (though not, of course, exhaustively). Even your historical reviews are lively, clear and insightful. You popularize with integrity, attacking the real 'Frankenstein,' not straw men, with great skill. So where's my beef? With how you open and get the book moving.

"My problem with what you've done is this: You start diagnosing Evangelicalism's problems with buzzwords, not with analysis or definitions; then you use inadequate and unfounded diagnosis as accusatory weaponry (which amounts to name-calling) before you've either fully described the symptoms of the malady you're pointing to or adequately defined the terms you use as part of your diagnosis and your initial broadsides. You start beating Evangelicalism over the head almost immediately with terms like Gnosticism (which I think most Evangelicals believe the church killed off during the first few centuries of Christendom), New Ageism (of which most Evangelicals think they're already staunch opponents), etc. You launch headlong into using as pejoratives almost all of Evangelicalism's sacred cows – before you ever bother to prove (which you do, more than ably, by the time the book's done) that these bovines are anything but sacred. As you say later in the book, most Evangelicals don't view themselves as Gnostics, and certainly not as New Agers; so before you can persuasively convict them as being such, you have to first define these terms and then prove that their thinking puts them within the scopes of those definitions – and then demonstrate what makes this kind of thinking 'Frankenstein-monster-ish.' In other words, you have to get them to see themselves (to perhaps their horror) in the molds of Gnosticism, compartmentalization, etc., before critiquing them, their pet beliefs, their evangelism, etc. Hit them too soon with these terms before they understand them, and they'll turn you off, and you'll never get them to give you a fair hearing."

In this author's case, he desired to show how Gnosticism and its emanations have subtly crept back inside church walls to infuse much of contemporary evangelical thought, soul-winning and Christian living. His problem was, he almost immediately leaped into making accusations that much contemporary evangelicalism was almost proto-Gnostic – before he even defined this major term at all, much less adequately. Again, most evangelicals, however, see Gnosticism as something that was booted out of the Body of Christ during the early eras of Christianity. So, assuming that to be the case, they haven't attuned themselves to Gnosticism's resonances and don't hear its falsely spiritual siren songs even as they play in their midst.

In your case, you rush into criticism of "self-help" without (as you open) explaining just what you mean by the term and what sort of thinking self-help produces that you find antithetical to the best life in and walk with Christ the Lord wants His people to enjoy and share with others. Without clear understanding of just what you mean by "self-help," Christians won't see how they may have slipped unwittingly from the Gospel's Good News of John 3:16 and that Good News's extension – "As you received Christ, in the same way walk in Him" – and moved from "Just as I am, without one plea..." into the bondage of thinking, Well, God saved me, but now that I'm walking the other way on the sawdust trail, the rest of life from here to Heaven must be all up to me. Sure, self-help's so common a term you may assume everyone who reads it will know just what it means. But unless they know what you mean by it right from the get-go, they'll have trouble making the linkages you want them to between the term and where they're at.

Furthermore, most evangelical Christians think they know all about the difference between the Gospel of grace through faith and the error of "works-righteousness" and how to avoid getting trapped in the latter. But they don't see that the Gospel and self-help (the form of it not purporting to contribute to "salvation") are antithetical – or that self-help is a form of works-righteousness. Thus, as you did, they blithely mix their walk of faith with doses of Hill, Covey & Co. (especially when it comes to "business" matters), not realizing that they're drinking from Living and polluted streams at the same time and how this hurts them.

Now, I think this happens as your book begins to unfold in no small part because of the first issue I mentioned above: your having cast too wide a net at too broad an audience. So let me move to that point:

I sense that your current opening – with the stage setting metaphor and the scantly veiled scene of Jesus and the rich young ruler – may, echoing Rick Warren's approach, be an attempt to draw in non-Christian as well as Christian readers. To be honest, it took me a long time to get around to reading Warren's Purpose Driven Life because I assumed from the hype surrounding it and from a glance at its opening that it was at heart a sort of "baptized self-help" book, and I wanted none of that. When I finally did read it (after telling myself I owed it a read to see what the hubbub was about), I was surprised to find it a far more God-centered book than I imagined it would be. In a way, I think his opening and subsequent development almost practiced a bait-and-switch – from an initial masquerade of self-help to a rather elementary, but essentially sound, exposition of aspects of practical Christian living.

Given the nature of your and Patty's ministry, which if I read things correctly primarily focuses on sharing the "lost" Good News with the "saved" who aren't living in the fullness of the Spirit, I don't think you have to resort to such devices. I think you should assume that you're addressing from the start people like you once were – folks who think they're committed Christians, but have gotten side-tracked from the purity of the Gospel by philosophies and methodologies that don't jive with true Godliness. So I'm saying, don't try to "evangelize the lost" or draw in the purely secular self-help crowd with this book at all (by the time they finish reading it, many readers may realize that they don't really know the Lord and respond to a direct invitation to receive Him) – assume your audience consists of those who are religious-self-help hybrids who need to find release from that unholy coupling.

This means you can lead readers to contemplate the rich young ruler account as Scripture they think they're familiar with – yet Scripture of which they may never have recognized the implications. This means you may be able to dispense with such devices as using a Paul character as a mouthpiece to share what are in fact insights the Spirit's given you on what Paul said and did, rather speaking with the authority He's given you, as yourself (more on this later, when I get into more specific observations). Already-believers (nominal, immature and mature) are familiar with expository teaching and don't need "drama tricks" (which often confused me as you switched back and forth from ersatz Paul to you, and would utterly confuse non-believers in any case) to assimilate it. They'll relate to you even more intimately if you'll share a bit more about your own background, as I'll suggest shortly. If, as you wrote yesterday, this book is designed as more of a "graduate course," all the more reason why you should perceive and address its audience as believers from the get-go.

So, by more clearly defining your critical terminology and by recognizing more precisely your most important (and very needy) audience, you'll give your opening much more accurate focus and law its foundation far more meaningfully. I'll suggest next how you can go about settling these issues quickly so you can move more effectively into the meat of your teaching.

Implementing These Suggestions

Let me suggest a quite direct approach to implementing these suggestions. Keep in mind that these are just thoughts in a certain progression, not actual words for you to use (unless you like some of 'em, in which case you're welcome to use whatever you think's useful!):

If you've picked up this book it's likely that you're a Christian who's trying to please the Lord all you can and find the best way of life you can that's in accord with His will for you.

Well, what if I were to tell you that the great life you seek in the Lord is available to you as one of His children – but that much of the very stuff you may be trying so hard to do to lay hold on it could actually be keeping you from getting that life?

You might well wonder what I could possibly mean by that question, who I am to ask it, how I could dare even to ask such a thing, much less know what might be less than best about your walk with the Lord – and maybe what I might have to share with you that could help you shake off every vestige of what's keeping you from the life you seek, so you can find and live it.

Answer: I'm someone who for a long time headed the wrong way myself. Someone who thought he was succeeding in the world's eyes and in the Lord's, someone who made millions of dollars and had the respect of people in his church, someone who knew the Lord and never fell into "gross sin" – but also someone who didn't know what real success meant, wasn't truly "rich toward God." I was "saved enough" to get to Heaven, maybe, but not enough to bring as much of Heaven into Earth or my own heart as I now know the Lord desired for me.

I was, if you will, a Rich Young Ruler.

You remember the Bible story:

[Quote it directly from Scripture.]

Like the young ruler, I wanted to know the way of God's best for my life. Scripture says Jesus "loved him," as I knew Jesus loved me. Like the ruler, I enjoyed the favor of "religious" people – as he did then, for many of the same reasons people assume a person's been favored by God: I had wealth, power and position (and like the ruler, all the more remarkably, at a young age), together without what many considered a blameless personal life.

Like him, though, I also needed a comeuppance from Jesus that, like him, I had no idea I needed.

Let's take a closer look at this rich young ruler, shall we – and at me?

Some thoughts the account brings to mind:

He came running to Jesus, showing his eagerness. This in itself was remarkable – rulers didn't "run" in those days any more than they do today (they have other people do their running for them). He recognized Jesus was One with the Answers (he humbled himself enough to call Jesus "Good Master" – though Jesus' reply to the young ruler's query about what good deeds the ruler could do to merit eternal life questioned whether the young ruler really knew what or Who was "good).

Instead of giving the ruler answers, Jesus asked him what the ruler knew – and the answers the ruler gave were correct – so far as they went. (Jesus' response – "Do this and you will live" – begs the question whether any sinful human being can ever "do" enough to warrant receipt by virtue of his "doing" eternal life.)

Now, this young ruler was the living prototype to the world's eyes of the "man who had everything" – and Jesus had the nerve to tell him that he lacked something! And what he lacked turned out, of all things, to be everything he thought he needed and had worked so hard to get!

You see, Jesus wanted this rich young ruler to see that the very fruits of all his self-labor – religious and business-oriented – were what rendered him poor in God's eyes! Jesus saw both how close the ruler was and how far away from God's best: The ruler wasn't looking so much for Jesus as for something more the ruler could do to win more favor from God. And Jesus loved the young ruler enough to refuse to let him entertain the illusion that all he could earn and do in his own strength might be the key to God's favor or to the best kind of life in God's care.

The young ruler went away full of sorrow because, though he was the "man who had everything" he couldn't yet see that the "everything" he had wasn't his own, but was God's and for others – and because he couldn't see that he couldn't give it away. He couldn't grasp this simple thought: If we truly have faith in God's many promises to take care of us, now and forever (by His direct Hand or through the hands of others He directs to help us), then we have all we can possibly need for ourselves, now and forever – and with it the total liberty to live our lives, not for ourselves, but for Him and for others.

Well, I couldn't grasp that, either. Instead, like the young ruler I wanted to try to prove God should love me by gaining success through my own efforts. So like the young ruler I sought out answers in the "rule books for living" of our day. But maybe worse than him, I didn't seek rules in God's Word alone; I also sought rules for life in what we call today "self-help" books, tapes, whatever I could find, "Christian" and non-Christian.

Here's some of what I explored and what those sources taught me (maybe you, too):

[Here you define what you mean by self-help, and tell about the stuff you looked into.]

And like the young ruler, I tried to "keep all these things from my youth." What I lost sight of is this: You won't find the old proverb "God helps those who help themselves" in the Bible. In fact, the Good News – the Best News! – is that God helps those who can't help themselves. Those who've run the gamut of schemes for self-advancement, Christian and secular. He helps those who know their best isn't and never can be good enough – either to get them into His Kingdom or keep them in it.

When the rich young ruler had to face the fact that Jesus wasn't impressed by his ability to help himself, and found he didn't have the heart to help others, he ran out on Jesus, even though he knew in his heart that Jesus had the answers to life. He didn't like Jesus' answers.

Neither did I – until I got my comeuppance from Jesus, too. [Here I think you should tell your own story in a bit more detail than you have in the book as I have it. You should tell about the crises – the accident and your father's death – that led you to acknowledge your own sense of spiritual bankruptcy and moved you to dispense with all you'd previously through valuable – including your own self-efforts – and embrace life whole with Him.]

Did the rich young ruler ever truly respond to Jesus' love and do what Jesus asked? (You might point out that Jesus didn't ask everyone who came to Him to do the same – when the tax collector Zacchaeus cried out to Jesus that he'd give half his goods to the poor and repay four times whatever he'd cheated anyone of, Jesus didn't say, "That's not enough, you have to give it all!"; He recognized that salvation had come to Zacchaeus' home and heart – He knows all our hearts and what we need most to let go of to make full room for Him, though we don't know.) I know that by God's grace I did take these steps:

[Tell what you did in response to Jesus "comeuppance" in your life.]

And in doing so I grew to become more like someone else you've read about in the Bible: [Here you draw parallels to the Samaritan woman.] Instead of trying any longer to drink from wells of my own self-sufficiency, instead of trying to help myself on God's road, like her I turned to the only source of Living Water there is.

You know, I've found that many Christians like me came to the altar, in response to John 3:16, to the strains of "Just as I am, without one plea..." but somehow forgot that verse and song as we walked away from the altar. And somehow we've never learned this key truth: "Just as you received Jesus, so also live [by His Spirit] in Him" (Colossians 2:6; Galatians 5:25, etc.). How did you and I receive Jesus? Not by our own self-help efforts, but by believing faith. So how are we supposed to walk His walk and live the new life He's given us. The same way.

Why do we go astray and think we can't live that way? Often because no one tells us God's best way to walk and live. And often because we don't realize how deeply steeped we are in self-help thought – "religious" and secular – how much of it we've dragged into God's Kingdom with us. How much we think despite the Good News we've heard that walking with God the best way in this world "all depends on us."

As the rich young ruler walked away, self-help thinking plagues even Jesus' disciples. The evidence? They cried out, in essence, "What? If this guy can't be saved, who can?" Jesus' calm reply shared the blunt truth with them: "With all man's effort, it's impossible to be saved – but with God [and Him alone] all things pertaining to salvation are possible." That's as humbling truth to realize today as it was back then.

As you read this book, and as I explain more about crippling self-help thinking and how it hurts you and me, you may be shocked, as I was, to recognize how much of it still lurks in your mind and heart. But I can assure you, not on the basis of some theory, but on the painful and joyous grounds of my own walk and way with Him, that it takes no "special" person in your life but Jesus to go His best way, and how you can get on this road.

And as you read, I'll do my best to tell you not only that you can enter that way, but how to discard your lingering self-help thinking you didn't even know you were doing, walk on that road with God's Spirit as your Secret Agent and Guide, and, like the Samaritan woman, drink His Living Water all the way! Shall we start the journey together?

[And you'll have begun. I believe the rest of what you have to say will follow gracefully from such a start.]

Page-by-Page Observations

Cecil, because I find most of the rest of the book so sound, I'm going to move on to observations of things that caught my attention here and there. Some of what I say will address issues I've raised above. I'll cite the appropriate page numbers as I have 'em in the manuscript you sent me.

Title page: I don't find the title Better Way of Living particularly catchy. Give some thought and prayer to this alternative, a hybrid of your early title and your present one: [Main Title] From "Riches" to Rags to True Riches [Subtitle] Freedom, motivation and power to live extraordinarily!

P.5: Your last paragraph especially lacks foundation for immediately leaping to these conclusions – particularly because you haven't yet even defined "self-help."

P. 6, par. 1: Have you introduced the concept of "faith" too quickly here? You suddenly toss the term in, undefined, then proceed to draw conclusions – not cricket to do this with undefined terms! Lower part of page: Here again, self-help needs definition. Don't take for granted that any reader knows what you mean by your use of the term.

P. 7: Here you disparage what you call the "mind of reason" – but does this mean that the mind of Christ is "unreasonable?" Surely not – He is the Logos, AKA The Reason! Last par.: Is God's promised not Jesus Christ's Spirit? Scripture says so. Needs slight rephrasing to be theologically accurate...

P. 8: Why would a Christian businessperson necessarily be superficial? One might characterize Job as a believing man of business, yet he wasn't superficial. What made your path superficial? Maybe you should share at greater depth here.

P. 9: O.K., how do you define "just being born again?" Many nominal Christians don't even believe in being born again – how might you distinguish what you were from what they are? Suggestion: Italicize Higgaion whenever you use it, for clarity's sake. I like your use of this device; it's appropriate to your frequent use throughout the book of lyrics from worship songs.

P. 12: "Self-help gurus" – who are some and what do they say and advocate? Again, don't assume that your readers will know.

P. 13: I don't disagree with you here, but this process – why and how one thing necessarily leads to the other – needs better explanation, I think. Brings to mind my response to Tim LaHaye's books dealing with public policy issues: I often agreed with his conclusions, but found his reasoning by which he arrived at them unpersuasive. Lower down: I assume you're talking here about the Baptism with/in the Holy Spirit. Some Christians say, of course, that you can't have Christ and not have the Holy Spirit. Later in the book you clarify this issue somewhat, but maybe you can also begin to here...

P. 14: Second par.: How do you do this? Last par.: Make this part of your earlier self-narrative.

P. 16: "When self-centered character, etc..." Essence of what you share here need to be shared, and more clearly, much earlier on, as foundation. What "illusion" do you mean in this paragraph?

P. 19: You may want to introduce this "Secret Agent" concept a bit sooner.

P. 20, ff.: Don't think you need this "ersatz Paul" gimmick. I find it distracting and a bit presumptuous, putting modern words in Paul's (and later, others') mouth(s). I think you can safely talk "off your own bat," especially if you've established as much intimacy by now as the alternate opening approach I've suggested will give you.

P. 23: As you make clearer going along, there are "religious" and secular brands of self-help. The first we know as Phariseeism, the second pays no lip service to God. You need to distinguish better between the two – if you do, you can make it clearer why a Christian shouldn't try to put new wine in old wineskins.

P. 25: These kinds of definitions (of self-help esp.) need to come far earlier in the book.

P. 27: "Real Success" – has God in His Word ever defined that term per se? If so, where? Don't want to be putting words in God's Mouth...

P. 28, first bolded par.: Actually, as read it Scripture says this "seed" is not ours, but is His, sown by Him in us (cf. sower and seed parable).

P. 31, first par.: Excellent summary here of what this book's really all about!

P. 32: Added thought: We can't either create or re-create ourselves because we're neither The Creator or The Re-Creator!

P. 33: A hybrid-attempt of any one or all of these with Christianity just won't work! You were born again, but were trying to live a live in Christ compromised by and guided by self-help, not by the Spirit. Last par.: Now you're scoring solid points!

P. 38: Here, share more personally in detail about the difference this understanding's made in your own life. Second par.: Here and a few other places encouraged me to send you the article about Haughey and Forsythe. Your phraseology about this point of theology led me at first glance to suspect you were among those who thought Jesus only "achieved" Deity by His rise as a Spirit-led man. But though Jesus veiled His Deity, He never relinquished or ceased to possess it. He was more than just Spirit-led, He as Spirit-conceived, without original sin to begin with. The old Christmas carol puts it well: "Veiled in flesh the Godhead see/Hail the incarnate Deity/Pleased as man with man to dwell/Jesus our Immanuel [God with us]." These points of doctrine need to be phrased carefully, so as to avoid confusion...

P. 45: You touch on a key problem here – why should we bother God with what we can do for ourselves? – an attitude all too many Christians have. The longer I walk with the Lord, the more utterly dependent I realize I am and must acknowledge myself to be on Him. I flatter myself if I imagine (which I sometimes do, sadly) that I can do anything "apart from Him."

P. 47, third par.: Excellent point you're drawing here!

P. 51: Yet Jesus shows Himself through our individuality. The notion that our individuality must be "obliterated within the All" is Eastern, not Christian thinking.

P. 53, ff.: Fine illustration!

P. 56: Top, good distinction drawn. Again, watch your theological expression here: Yes, Jesus was God, even in human form. He was the God-Man; cf. esp. the many "I AM" passages in John's Gospel when He claims present possession and identity as Deity.

P. 65: You'll serve better here, I think, using more personal example and less, if any "ersatz Paul."

P. 67, par. 2: Neat parable; where'd you find it, or did you make it up?

P. 69, bolded par.: "best-kept secret?" Hmm – isn't Pentecostalism/Charismaticism today's fastest-growing strain of Christianity worldwide?

P. 71: I'd really think twice about putting words into Jesus' mouth.

P. 73: Good description of the Biblical concept of "the flesh," and you might clarify it even more by also pointing out that it does not mean the physical body per se...

P. 80: Here also, more sharing of your personal experience would help nail these thoughts down.

P. 107, first par.: Yet because He was God the Son, Jesus was able to do so uniquely and with a total purity that we, with our divided nature, aren't capable of.

P. 117, "Contrary to popular belief," ff.: This kind of distinction needs to be drawn clearly throughout the book.

P. 127: This entire chapter on Habits offers splendid guidance!

P. 142: This also is a vital, well-written chapter, presenting sound and clear perspective on temptations, trials and adversity.

P. 151: Watch it! We don't know this, really, from Scripture alone.

P. 156, first half of p.: Great lesson you draw here from Job!

P. 159: I point out here again that Jesus was not just Spirit-led; he was also Spirit-conceived, God's Son and God the Son by virgin birth, without original or subsequent sin, and in fact the Spirit of God is His Spirit. We are not and will never attain to His unique status as Deity.

P. 165: Good exposition here, on Job's friends, his wife, etc.

P. 175, ff.: Another fine chapter!

P. 176: That Einstein ended his life a "devout Christian" few historians will allow; that he was a confirmed Theist his own writings and public statements aver.

P. 181: You might add a third "means": the counsel, fellowship, preaching and teaching of wise, Spirit-led people in the Body of Christ.

P. 193: At this point in the ms. I wrote this note: "I'm curious – did you stay in business after the Lord got your ear in a big way? What did you do afterwards?" Of course, earlier in this evaluation I suggest that you tell readers what you did near the book's beginning.

What's Next?

Again, once you get past your opening, generally superb job. Your manuscript can use a line-by-line edit; this evaluation doesn't chide grammar, punctuation, awkward sentence constructions, etc.; but you should have line-editing done before submitting the work for publication. I do that sort of work; if I can be of service in that way, let me know, and we'll talk more about it.

But before that, here's what I'd like you to do: Prayerfully read and consider my opening suggestions and if you feel led, take a whack at rewriting your opening along the lines I suggest. I sense you'll find that you open much more fluidly, laying much better foundation for the excellent teaching that follows. It's essential to good proposal-making that things are settled about the structure of the "critter" we'll be proposing!

All in all, this is splendid, anointed and important work. Let's give it all the attention and ask God to guard the excellence of all it can be, so that millions may be blessed. Thanks for allowing me to be part of bringing it to birth and fruition!