“How can we in the church best unleash the people of God in the Spirit of God with the Word of God for the Glory of God in the world?” This is the question that David Platt sets out to answer in his second book, Radical Together: Unleashing the People of God for the Purpose of God. Throughout these 130 pages Platt reminds the audience of core teachings he laid out in his first book, Radical: Taking You’re your Faith From the American Dream, and he gives guidance on how the “radical” lifestyle can be implemented in the local church body as a whole. From the outset I want to recommend this book. It will definitely put your lifestyle into perspective and give you much food for thought and leave you in tears and prayers of repentance on more than one occasion. I would say that all the way through, Radical Together is a better book than Radical. I believe this is due to the fact that Platt is able to build upon, refine, and correct teachings he presented in Radical. Radical Together is a great read, it does have some spots that are worth noting.Radical Together is more balanced than Radical, but it is still given to extremes. One of my major issues with Radical was that, at times, Platt was given to extremes. Oftentimes he left the readers feeling like if they supersized their meal then they were personally responsible for the starvation of an entire third-world country. Okay, maybe it wasn’t that bad, but guilt did seem to be a motivator oftentimes where the Gospel should have been. To be fair, it was definitely implicit. Platt never came out and said anything close to this and, based on his preaching, does not even believe anything close to this. I commend Platt for addressing this head on in Radical Together. In chapter 2 Platt gives a hypothetical situation with a girl named Ashley. He explains that, for her, the challenges as they were laid out in Radical would be too much. She has a soft heart and would swing to the extreme end and be plagued with guilt and worry because she could never be “radical” enough. I praise God for Platt’s pastoral heart. Here, and other places in the book, Platt simultaneously exhorts, in a prophetic way, those who have no desire to be “radical”, he edifies and comforts, in a pastoral way, those whose hearts are already tender and hurting for those in need.While Platt made great efforts to help his readers avoid those extremes, at times we find him going there himself. At one point he even claims that “Satan, in a sense, is just fine with missional churches in the West spending the overwhelming majority of our time, energy, and money on trying to reach people right around us.” While there is truth to the concept that Platt is trying to get across, that it is not faithful to Scripture to be focused entirely on our immediate surroundings, his concept gets lost in this exaggeration. This mentality, which is a major theme in the book, ignores the fact that those who have been saturated with a false Gospel are, in a real sense, as much “unreached” as those who have never been exposed to a Christian or the Christian message. Both types of people need the Gospel and Satan does not rejoice in either group being presented the true Gospel message. To some degree this feels like showing partiality to the impoverished at the expense of the wealthy, which is not a biblical attitude.One of my main complaints with Radical that remains in, albeit to a lesser degree, Radical Together was an issue of semantics. It may seem like nitpicking, but from a pastoral sense it is crucial. Terminology like “live the Gospel” and “be the Gospel” is confusing and misleading. The Gospel cannot be lived. It was lived by Jesus. The Gospel is the historical truth of Christ’s life, death and resurrection. We cannot live that. We can live a life in response to the Gospel, changed by the Gospel, but we cannot “live the Gospel”. The most troubling usage of this language is on page 28, in a section called “Saved from Work”. Platt gives a beautiful presentation of the Biblical Gospel. He plainly goes through the sinful condition of man and God’s plan to save all who will call upon the Lord through the perfect life and finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ, concluding with His victorious resurrection. He concludes that, even though many would desire him to end right there, “The Gospel says something else”. He then shows us, Scripturally that we are saved to work. This is 100% true. The only problem, and it is a big problem, is that this is not part of the Gospel. It is our response to the Gospel. Our response is not part of the Gospel. Any deviation here leads to much confusion and much heartache. We do not add to the Gospel (even if what we are adding is a good thing). We do not take away from the Gospel (even if the edges we dull would make it more palatable for the hearer). The Gospel is the death, burial and resurrection of Christ and it is the power unto salvation. Platt knows this and if the issue is brought up I am certain he, like many who use the terminology, would say it is just shorthand for “living in light of the Gospel”. The problem, again, is that this shorthand can be misleading and confusing and I feel it would be best to write as clearly on this subject as possible. I will say this. This type of language is not nearly as present as it was in Radical and by no means would it be considered pervasive or even prevalent.For a while through the book I was beginning to worry. I felt like there was not much Scripture being used. As I read chapter 3, which is about the primacy of Scripture in the life of the church, I thought, “Hey, Platt. What’s the deal? You say Scripture is important and I barely see any. I hear a lot of vague, Scripture like references, but no real Scripture citations.” So I flipped back through the preceding chapters and was shocked. This book is saturated with Scripture. David Platt has a sneaky way of getting Scripture into the conversation…sneaky in a good way. His covert use of Scripture, here and in Radical, allows these books to be read and received by some who would be turned off by blatant Scripture references. Like Radical, this book has the ability to be embraced by those who do not share the Christian worldview, even when there are pages devoted to pure Gospel presentation and absolute Christian truth claims.Radical Together is a great challenge to live a life not consumed by the “American Dream” or the “American Evangelical Dream”, but to live a life powered by the Gospel to fulfill the Commission of God to take the Gospel to the ends of the earth. Platt passionately and consistently calls the reader to live a life of sacrifice, not to earn favor from God, but to adorn the Gospel message well and send it to the ends of the earth. I appreciate this book greatly and would recommend it to any who desire to be stirred and challenged and pressed on to good works and a life faithful to the Word of God.The good people at Multinomah sent me a copy of this book, free of charge, through their Blogging for Books program. Thank you greatly for a great book. 'The gospel compels the church to go to God with everything we have and everything we do and then ask, "What needs to go? What needs to change? What needs to stay the same?"'Radical Together brought some good questions to the forefront of my mind. Platt does an excellent job of convicting in a loving, Christ-motivated way. I look forward to spending time with the Lord asking the questions mentioned in the above quote.
What do You think about Radical Together (2000)?
Great points are made throughout this book. Well worth reading.
—anussha
Good resource to compile with Platt's first book
—ariana
