Book Notes: Radical

Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream
By David Platt

Note: I highly recommend this book. These notes/quotes are great, but will be fully comprehended by reading the book.


We’ve replaced what’s radical about our faith with what is comfortable. We’re settling for a Christianity that revolves around catering to ourselves when the central message of Christianity is actually about abandoning ourselves.

Yes, you are abandoning everything you have, but you are also gaining more than you could have in any other way.

We may not actually be worshiping the Jesus of the Bible. Instead we may be worshiping ourselves.

Bonhoeffer- “When Christ calls a man, he binds him come and die.”

The cost of nondiscipleship is profoundly greater for us than the cost of discipleship. For when we abandon the trinkets of this world and respond to the radical invitation of Jesus, we discover the infinite treasure of knowing and experiencing him.

The price of our nondiscipleship is high for those without Christ. It is high also for the poor of this world.

Christians shrink back from self-denying faith and settle into self-indulging faith.

The gospel does not prompt you to mere reflections; the gospel requires a response.

We desperately need to explore how much of our understanding of the gospel is American and how much is biblical.

The goal of the American dream is to make much of us, the goal of the gospel is to make much of God.

Would you say that your life is marked right now by desperation for the Spirit of God? Would you say that the church you are a part of is characterized by this sense of desperation?

The message of biblical Christianity is not “God loves me, period,” as if we were the object of our own faith. The message of biblical Christianity is “God loves me so that I might make him- his ways, his salvation, his glory, and his greatness- know among all nations.” Now God is the object of our faith, and Christianity centers around him. We are not the end of the gospel; God is.

Where in the Bible is missions ever identified as an optional program in the church? Jesus commanded us to go to all nations. We have taken this command, though, and reduced it to a calling- something that only a few people receive. We have assigned the obligations of Christianity to a few while keeping the privileges of Christianity for us all.

What if anything less than passionate involvement in global mission is actually selling God short by frustrating the very purpose for which he created us?

God is committed to providing abundant resources in support of those who are living according to his purpose.

Christians: we live decent lives in decent homes with decent jobs and decent families as decent citizens.

Disciplining Christians involves propelling Christians into the world to risk losing their lives for the sake of others.

While caring for the poor is not the basis of our salvation, it is the evidence of salvation. The faith in Christ that saves us from our sins involves an internal transformation that has external implications. If there is no sign of caring for the poor in our lives, then there is reason to at least question whether Christ is in our hearts.

No teachers (including Jesus) in the NT ever promise material wealth as a reward for obedience.

Jesus doesn’t give options for people to consider; he gives commands for people to obey.

Jesus never intended to be one voice among many; he intends to be the voice.

Set a cap on our lifestyles so that we can give more.

We are tempted to settle for throwing our scraps to the poor.

The logic that says, “I can’t do everything, so I won’t do anything,” is straight from hell.

I don’t want to miss eternal treasure because I settle for earthly trinkets.

Good coverage of “Will people who haven’t heard about Jesus go to hell?” Goal is not to try and find an answer to it; our goal is to alleviate the question altogether.

The will of God is for you and me to give our lives urgently and recklessly to making the gospel known among all peoples, particularly those who have never even heard of Jesus.