Book Review: Chris Brauns - Bound Together: How We Are Tied to Othersin Good and Bad Choices

No one is an island to themselves.

I have heard people argue, "As long as it doesn't hurt anyone, it doesn't matter what I do in private". In America, we are so used to doing everything alone, that we do not know what it is to live for others. That individualism is nothing but an illusion.

Brauns book is about this very subject. He shows that we are all connected in some way. Everything we do has some consequence on others.

What about the alcoholic? If a father stays drunk most of his waking hours, what bearing does that have on his wife and children? Even worse, what if he is driving drunk and kills someone else. This tragedy will hurt not only his family, but the other family involved. It doesn't stop there. The friends and loved ones of both families are affected. There are thousands of illustration that could be used to prove the message of this book. Brauns uses many good ones.

Brauns shows that this connection we all have has both negative and positive results. With mans fallen state, we would think that the negative would win out. But he shows the positive outweighs the negative.

The ultimate negative comes from Adam. When he disobeyed God we received the results of that disobedience. We are all born sinners. The positive comes from Christ. Because He died in our place, we now receive forgiveness. He replaces the sin on our account with  His righteousness.

I heard Martyn Lloyd-Jones make a statement one time (also quoted in this book) that if we can not accept the idea that Adam's sin can be accounted to us, we can not have Christ's righteousness accounted to us.

Even though we reap the fruit of what others do, we are still accountable for our own sins. Adam will be punished for his and I will be punished for mine. There is a mystery here of the same variety as the Trinity. Our finite minds can not understand it fully. But we see enough of it in the world that we know it is true.

This book is a must read. If you have a problem understanding how we are accounted sinners because of something Adam did or righteous because of what Christ did, this book has the best explanation I have found. He uses many real life illustrations to prove that we are all connected.

I highly recommend it and give it 5 out of 5 stars.

I received this book free of charge from Zondervan, Cross Focused Reviews, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.