Primal Review

 

Book review: “Primal: A Quest for the Lost Soul of Christianity”

A common phenomenon within the ranks of church folks lies in the fact that we often miss the forest for the trees.  We get caught up in a great deal of peripheral issues…to the point of losing sight of what true faith in Christ should produce in our lives

Mark Batterson’s latest offering, Primal: A Quest for the Lost Soul of Christianity, adeptly identifies and quantifies the “lost Soul” of the Christian faith.  One extremely effective aspect of his foray into this topic revolves around the simplicity of his message.  After all, what could prove more clearly stated than “The Greatest Commandment?”  You know the one… Jesus responds to some teachers of the law who ask Him to reveal the greatest commandment:
²⁹“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.^{[e] 30}Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’^{[f] 31}The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’^[g]There is no commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:29-31
In Primal, Batterson creatively leads his readers through the  “prime” focus of true Christianity…loving God.  Obviously, loving God should be a way of life for all true believers.  However, sometimes the most obvious, simple truths elude us in our real, everyday struggles to know God better.
The author creatively helps his readers by drilling down into the primal elements of The Greatest Command, defining and illustrating each method of loving God: heart, soul, mind, and strength.
One of the most powerful points this reviewer gleaned from Primal was Batterson’s focus upon the order of these ways we are commanded to love God.  It all begins with the heart…loving God with all one’s heart and internalizing the same passion and compassion that motivates the Father.  Next comes loving God with your soul…primal wonder at the works of God and His nature.   Loving God with all one’s mind is an amazing thing to consider and the author truly challenges his readers in the areas of holy curiosity and the importance of taking “God ideas” seriously, to the point of acting upon them.  Finally, primal energy deals with loving God with all your strength. This refers to the blood, sweat, and tears aspect of loving God.
Mark Batterson feels that if followers of Christ can powerfully grasp and begin living out these primal elements of loving God, a new reformation will occur in the Body of Christ.
I highly recommend this book.  More importantly, I encourage each of us to purposefully dive into our own quest for the lost soul of our walk with Christ