How People Change by Timothy Lane and Paul David Tripp is the most practical book I’ve read on discipleship to date. This is a dense volume chock-full of biblical truth and encouragement, belying its humble 254 pages, leaving little excuse for leaders and disciplers not to read it. Any Christian leader, teacher, deacon, elder, father, mother, sibling, or friend (see: everyone) who desires to love, lead, teach, exhort, encourage their fellow Christians (see: everyone) would find this book encouraging, enlightening, and exceedingly helpful.
Using the analogy of heat (the trials and difficulty of life), thorns (our sinful “flesh” responses), cross (God’s power in us to change), and fruit (the good change that God’s grace produces in us), Lane and Tripp provide a easily digestible and quickly remembered structure for how we can assess the struggles of those around us and point them to Christ and His sanctifying grace.
The book ends with two detailed case studies, one involving a couple and their struggling marriage and another involving a church and the struggling congregation. In both, the authors challenge readers to apply what they have learned and place the details of the struggles in the heat/thorns/cross/fruit structure. This allows the reader to immediately practice the principles learned.
Throughout this book I was reminded of the case studies I did in nursing school, but instead of injuries and maladies I was presented with different persons and their thoughts, feelings, strengths, weaknesses and the various trials and obstacles of life. These well-described example “cases” let readers practice applying the principles.
While exceptionally practical, this book is still rooted firmly in the Bible, leading the reader through what God has to say about our thoughts and feelings and motivations and, of course, how we change. It’s the gospel and God’s grace that changes people, but we can be instruments of that change by God’s power.
