Considering What Do You Think of Me?

Ed Welch has a new book out that looks much like an old book, When People are Big and God is Small, for a younger audience. God is Small. But that would be a superficial assessment.  Ed Welch continued to think about the fear of man, and the fear of God. He thought about the topics with respect to teens and young adults. The result was What Do You Think of Me? Why Do I Care?.  I’m glad he kept thinking about all this.

The book does have a different vibe due to the intended audience.  It looks less formal (including the questions for thought & discussion) and more “trendy”.  He encourages the reader to write liberally throughout the book. The sentences are less complex, reflecting a lower reading level. He continues to provide a lot of instruction from Scripture on the topic. He walks us through the texts so we understand what they mean and how they apply.

He breaks it down into 3 big questions: Who is God, who am I and who are they? He begins with talking about how it starts in the heart. And that we all have this problem (fearing people). We all give the opinions of people far too much weight in our lives. Toward the end of the book he talks about how with family we are not (very) self-conscious. But once we go out the door, most of us care far more about how we look and act. While this is good in one sense, so we don’t all end up on People of Walmart, it can run our lives. We give other people far too much power to control us.

Welch spends most of his time on the first two questions. He spends very little time on “who are they?”.  The goal is to cultivate the proper fear of God as the antidote to the fear of man. Being free from that fear of man is not found in putting others down or pointing out the sins and foolishness. We must have something greater to love than that which we currently love. So his methodology is in keeping with his theology.

“Sure, your heart pops out people idols. In fact, it mass-produces them.”

Though this book is geared more for the young at heart, it will cause people of any age to think. It is not a problem for the young, but one that plagues us all. He writes about this in a very accessible way. He also points us to the gospel way of addressing this problem. This is not a self-help book. It is one that points you outside of yourself to Christ to put an end to your own idol factory.

[I received a complimentary copy of this book for the purposes of review.]