How People Grow: What the Bible Reveals about Personal Growth
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Product Description
Shows how classical systematic theology relates to growth; how growth is not about actualization, but about sanctification; what has to take place for growth to occur; and what the Bible teaches about the responsibilities of the church and the responsibilities of the individual. This book gives gatekeepers (pastors, recovery leaders, lay leaders, paraprofessionals) tools to help people resolve issues of relationships, maturity, emotional problems, and overall spiritual growth.Amazon.com Review
Whether you’re hoping to achieve personal and spiritual growth or are looking for guidance to help others, you’ll find practical and proven wisdom in Drs. Henry Cloud and John Townsend’s How People Grow: What the Bible Reveals About Personal Growth. Starting with the premise that all growth is spiritual growth, the authors then expound on the concept. Cloud postulates that we spend too much time focusing on problems, rather than on root issues. “We are not just to help others ‘feel better’ or tell better or perform better,” writes Cloud. Rather, he says, people must get back into a relationship with God. With this in mind, there’s a brief lesson in theology (“the ‘Huge Picture’”), then a look at topics such as acceptance, forgiveness, obedience, and suffering. The authors have impressive credentials: they are cofounders of Cloud-Townsend Clinic, cohosts of the nationally broadcast New Life Live radio program, and Gold Medallion winners for the bestselling Boundaries. Boxed summaries of vital concepts for growth facilitators, charts, counseling anecdotes, and lots of bullet-pointed text make the content accessible. Professional and lay readers will both find biblically based tools here for personal growth and guiding others. –Cindy Crosby
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Authors are very intelligent people with humanistic writings that cater and minister to the mind (& itching ear of man) and not the heart of man.
Also, sorry to say this sentence is unbiblical (Genesis 1) and place Jesus as the unsufficient One. “God is our refuge and might a very present help .. The planet is the Lord’s … God so loved the world that He gave us Jesus the Christ..”
Am surprised that the publisher Zondervan question these humanistic thoughts.
May the Lord bless and give us all fantastic wisdom as we write and minister unto Him “The all sufficient One”.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
“Now the serpent was more devious….”
So goes the quote from Genesis 3:1 (KJV). “Devious” also describes the errors in “How People Grow”. Like many books passing themselves off as Christian, this latest effort from Henry Cloud and John Townsend has a worldview that in no way resembles classical Christianity. So thorough is the deception provided in the words of these two disciples of modern day psychology that many are unable to see how cleverly off this book really is.
Pop-psychology and right Christianity are two competing worldviews. One is right and the additional is a deception. Psychology appears to offer answers and help, but it really only takes people further away from God. Most of this is due to the fact that psychology’s main focus is propping up the self through manmade fixes. The Bible, on the additional hand, claims that in order to find right peace and salvation in Christ, self must die – it has become so utterly distorted by the Fall of Man that it cannot be fixed, only crucified.
That Cloud and Townsend try to shoehorn these two utterly incompatible worldviews into each additional results in a syncretistic disaster. Sadly, it is a disaster that we have become so used to seeing passed off as reality that we have become numb to its right scenery. We have a trend to judge anything we hear regularly enough – and most Christian books today are filled with this kind of pop-psych pap – so “How People Grow” goes down smooth and simple. Sorry to say, we can’t have it both ways. And though they speak of the Holy Spirit effective in this process, the third person of the Trinity comes off as more a self-help group leader than the one who can burn the dross out of a name’s life.
Part of what makes this book so devious is the preponderance of Scripture quoted in it. But this book uses the Bible errantly. Hundreds of verses are quoted to shore up the authors’ presuppositions, but many are way out of context or interpreted in odd ways, permanently proving the authors’ points even when persons points are off base.
Many examples of people struggling to overcome their problems (mostly self-inflicted) are included in the book. Cloud and Townsend anecdotally chat about how these people worked through their issues. Tellingly, few overcame their issues through acknowledging their sin, repenting, and crucifying self.
A case in point would be appropriate. In Chapter 15, the authors tell the tale of three wives. One of the wives is a Christian in a stagnant marriage. She eventually has an affair, divorces her spouse, and – as Cloud and Townsend note – claims now to have peace with God. She’s growing, and as the authors say, and I quote, “[She] did a lot of excellent things. She grew emotionally and relationally.”
Doesn’t the fact that she ignored God, committed adultery, divorced her spouse, and is now living a lie catch anyone as doing a lot of BAD things that made emotional and relational chaos? Isn’t this the kind of person that absolutely needs to die to self? Just what kind of growth is this? Not the kind God approves of. Cloud and Townsend do add that this is not an optimal way of growing, but still, guys, just what are you endorsing?
I was also place off by the constant references to their additional books, especially the “Boundaries” series. It came off as a weep to buy more of their books. And sure enough, there is an ad for additional books of theirs right there on the last page.
This book also serves as a model for the self-help groups so common in the Seventies, but now nearly entirely discredited in road psychology. The groups in the book appear to be like your standard Christian accountability group, but the level of disfunction of the group members is extreme from what the examples the authors give us show. And while the writers soundly endorse the method, we must question just where all these trained leaders/facilitators are coming from. The average tiny group leader would be hard pushed to lead a group like this in the manner the authors endorse. Perhaps they also want you to take their wide training courses at a few thousand a pop so you can lead like they do.
For persons looking to overcome their problems there is some Truth here (enough for two stars), but it is so buried in glop as to be hardly recognizable. For a truly Scriptural and far superior alternative see D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ “Spiritual Depression – Its Causes and Its Cures.” Please, as Cloud and Townsend extend their “ministry” to every confront of evangelical Christianity, take their advice with a grain of salt, a wary eye, levelheaded doctrine, and a boatload of Scripture.
Reader’s Rating: 2 / 5
The book is kinda vage. I thought there would be more instruction and scripture. It’s not a terrible book, just not what I thought it would be.
Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5
Persons particular pages are the most worthwhile.
They chat about:
1. incorrect teaching
2. disentanglement from grace
3. fake standards
4. weak conscience
5. idealization of conscience
6. confusion of conscience with the Holy Spirit
7. godly sorrow v.s. worldly sorrow
8. the scenery of correction
9. right guilt and fake guilt
10. guilt as an ancient voice
11. the child position
12. isolation
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5
You can learn a lot whether you are a pastor or layman.
But, its Traditional Chinese version is one of the worst.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5