Truth on Fire: A Hymnbook for your Heart

The eponymous debut album by the 1970s/80’s new wave band, The Cars, was jokingly referred to as “their greatest hits album”. First outing: every song a banger.

The first book by Adam Ramsey takes its cue from that album because every chapter in his just released Truth on Fire: Gazing at God Until Your Heart Sings: is also an absolute banger.

Adam is the Acts29 Director for Australia, New Zealand and Japan, and also the pastor of Liberti Church on Queensland’s, The Gold Coast. He has global and local roles in his ministry.

And Truth on Fire also reflects a dual focus: A big “global” picture of who God is, coupled with a “local” pastoral emphasis, which embeds those truths where they matter – in our hearts.

His approach in each chapter is to take one attribute of God, showcase it to us, and then weave the pastoral implications of that lofty doctrine into our everyday experiences. The result is a warm, pastoral book for 21st century life that reflects the tone of many of the pastoral classics from the Puritans through to Eugene Petersen. And it’s vividly and creatively written.

So having read through this book, and finding my own heart singing with so much of what Adam had to say, I spent some time on the eve of the book’s launch, talking to him from his home in Queensland about his reasons for writing what is a most timely book in a church desperately in need of both a big view of God, and hearts that sing with joy.

Have a watch and a listen. It’s a quarter hour you won’t regret: