Book Review: An Army of Ordinary People

I received a complimentary copy of An Army of Ordinary People to review from Tyndale House Publishers. This book has two parts: stories of real-life men and women being the church (as the subtitle suggests), and attempts to explain biblically that small house gatherings are what Jesus was referring to when the word “church” is used in the Bible. I really enjoyed the stories and just as the author hopes in her introduction, they did make me think “I can do that!” The theology, however, is really weak. She repeatedly uses the words probably, obviously, and clearly to explain scripture using her own common sense. For instance, she says that when Jesus says to take the sin of your brother before the church (Matt 18:17), it simply has to be referring to a small group because as she reasons, it would be inappropriate in a large church because the person would leave the church. We’re talking about a unrepentant sinner, right? I found her feeble attempts at biblical interpretation pretty off-putting. 2000 years later, in a very different culture, we can’t just rely on what makes sense to us to understand scripture. While this book does a great job of encouraging evangelism by making it unintimidating, it does a poor job of trying to explain “church” biblically.