I’ve never read anything like this before. Honestly, it’s a book you have to read with a soft heart because, regardless of how unified your church may be, this book calls all Christians to action and requires a willingness to change. It is both timely and heartfelt, and it will serve as a good resource for individuals and churches alike.

Laden with Scripture and sound reasoning, Dunlop argues for a church that is altogether focused on reflecting the character of Christ through unity. I felt vulnerable as I read this book—it shined a light on areas of my faith that need work—and I’m grateful for the opportunity to read it.

Thanks to NetGalley, Crossway, and the author for an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Love the Ones who Drive You Crazy is a timely message on gospel unity in the church despite a myriad of differences that threaten to destroy the church from within. The author uses Romans 12-15 as the backbone scriptures throughout. He also references the problems facing unity in the early church to show that while the times we are currently facing in the church seem pretty bleak for any hope of unity, it is by no means the only or the worst time we have faced as the Church.

This book was a relatively quick read and one I think would be valuable to read in a group setting within the church to help draw out more awareness of what issue’s currently threaten unity in the local church.

The heart of the book is for unity in Christ and valuing the beautiful diversity in the fabric of believers in the church, and that message is beautiful. He fences off the books message to addressing only third tier (sometimes 2nd tier) issues that don’t run contrary to the Gospel which is helpful to know on the outset where the boundaries of the books prescription are; however, in various places throughout the book, he cherry picks an issue to qualify once again that his message for unity does not count in this or that circumstance. Whenever he did this, it was very distracting to the message at large. He fenced the book off in the beginning and that was sufficient to proceed. If the author was compelled to give a list of all issues that this book does not speak to, a better place for that might be in the appendix so the heart of his message wasn’t sidelined to a caveat.

I’d like to thank Crossway and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.