Phil Cook

Today I’m going to recommend a book for you to purchase as a gift. For others and for yourself.

There are so many competing, jumbled, contradictory worldviews today that it can seem that life makes little sense.

When my daughter was little, we could tell when she was getting sick. She would head into the playroom, look about with a frown, and open a puzzle box and dump it on the floor. Then she would find another and dump that one on top of the first. And then another.

That’s what it’s like these days trying to understand the world, our lives. The various views and voices falling on us like hail, all jumbled, mixed, and piled, make it a challenge to put together the right pieces to assemble a finished cohesive picture. Along with a little truth and nourishment, it’s a mess of syncretism and fiction and myth and misrepresentations and lies and manipulations and candy.

But it’s easier when you can separate the pieces and then step back and look at the puzzle box’s cover picture.

Greg Koukl has written a book to help. His central claim is that out of all the worldviews clamoring for our attention, Christianity ultimately makes the most sense.

In 1993 Koukl founded Stand to Reason, an organization dedicated to supporting Christian viewpoints producing podcasts, articles, and video training materials. He has hosted a call-in radio show covering cultural and Christian topics for over 30 years.

He has earned two masters degrees and serves as an adjunct professor at Biola University near Los Angeles. He has spoken at over 90 college campuses and has written seven books.

His latest book is the one I am recommending here, even though I haven’t actually read it. Well, I did listen to the Audible version of it a few years ago in the car on a long trip. “Wow, this is really great,” I said at the time. But listening is a weak substitute. I’m now holding a delicious physical copy in front of me; I will be taking my own advice and giving it away. Alas, the problem for me is that I need a hard copy of my own to grasp, to focus on, to inhabit. That means I will read with a nice pencil in hand, my Graphgear1000 with dark .7 lead, and annotate the pages with underlines and exclamation points and arrows and comments and question marks and squiggles and even, sometimes, folded-over corners if it’s a really good part. So, I’ll need to order yet another copy. Or three.

“The Story of Reality” has a subheading: “How the world began, how it ends, and everything important that happens in between.” That’s a rather bold claim. How have people reacted?

“When I first read ‘The Story of Reality,’ I knew I was reading a modern classic. Like C.S. Lewis before him, Greg Koukl has written a masterful, measured, intelligent, and insightful book–a must read for anyone who wants to understand Christianity and its unique ability to explain the way the world really is.” –Best-selling author and national speaker, J. Warner Wallace.

J.P. Moreland, author and a professor who was recognized as one the top living philosophers today, said, “I’ve enjoyed (Koukl’s) previous writings, but ‘The Story of Reality’ is clearly his best and most important work to date.”

Koukl makes a number of promises: To explain the story and our place in it, to give answers in detail regarding the biggest objections to the faith: The narrowness of the message and the problem of evil in the world and in people.

“At just the right moment… he has brilliantly given us a simple tool we can all use in a culture that has lost touch with reality.” –Rick Warren.

“Koukl’s ‘The Story of Reality’ does a superb job… of showing–through solid reasoning–that the biblical story is more believable–and thus more sensible–than any other way at looking at reality. For anyone who wants to be able to understand the story better or to explain it more clearly, this book is essential.” –Tom Gilson, author and senior editor at The Stream.

Justin Brierley has worked in radio, podcasting, and video for over twenty years. In his British radio show, “Unbelievable?” he engaged in conversations with sceptics, taking seriously their questions and objections. His first book was titled, “Unbelievable? Why, after ten years of talking with atheists, I’m still a Christian.”

Of Koukl’s book, Brierley says, “Greg masterfully demonstrates why no other story but Christianity can account for the way the world is and why it matters. Common sense, a logical approach, and years of experience in putting the puzzle pieces together… make Greg an ideal guide for others seeking to piece together the true Story of reality for themselves.”