I will never again be able to look at a bunch of grapes
April 8th, 2008. Filed under: Tuesday's Tempting Reads.without thinking about the lessons I’ve learned from Secrets of the Vine by Bruce Wilkinson. This book is small in size, but big in enlightenment. I have often read John 15:1-11 but didn’t really understand the deeper meaning of that passage. At the time these words were written people understood more about grapevines, their care and cultivation. The majority of us in the present know little beyond the fact that grapes grow on a vine and taste good. It took an explanation of just what is the vine and what is the branch, as well as descriptions of the pruning and care of these plants before I could connect with what the words in this passage were meant to convey. I have managed to work through the discipline and am in the midst of being pruned. I never realized that having bits and pieces of my life cut away, while painful at the time, could ultimately feel good. Oh, how I look forward to the abiding! It took this little book to guide me through the vineyard of my life and understand why I must be pruned in order to produce an abundance of fruit and abide in the love of my vinedresser. Check into this little book to learn the principles and misconceptions involved in a life of abundance and abiding.
Per Wikipedia Bruce Wilkinson is a Christian teacher and author. He was born (ca. 1940) in New Jersey and graduated from Northeastern Bible College (B.A. and Th.B.), Dallas Theological Seminary (Th.M.) and Western Conservative Baptist Seminary (D.D.). He served as a college professor at Multnomah School of the Bible in Portland, Oregon, until resigning to launch Walk Thru the Bible in June 1976. He is best known for his best-selling (and, in some circles, highly controversial) book The Prayer of Jabez in 2000. You can find a longer biography there.