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Simply God is poorly written, poorly edited, unorganized, borderline presumptuous, and not entirely biblical.

The book’s description set it up as a challenging manual for Christian leaders. It promised to discuss the difference between “convincing” people and “equipping” believers, which it never did.

The language is dated, a little peculiar at times, and very informal. I wondered, alternately, if the author’s first language was something other than English, and then if it the book was a re-release of something published 50 years ago. Neither turned out to be true.

Simply God is also rife with typos and grammatical errors.

“God is trying to stop the viscous circle …”

(Loc 2350) made me laugh out loud.

Although it’s listed on Thomas Nelson’s site, it’s published by WestBow – a division of Thomas Nelson. It turns out WestBow is a Christian self-publishing service provided by Thomas Nelson. Blinders removed.

The first ten chapters of Simply God propose eight important aspects of the kingdom of God. They are fine Christian basics, but nothing really “radical,” as the books description suggests. More importantly, Richards may have done well to end the book after Chapter 10, and leave us with a simple Christian primer.

The ensuing 14 chapters are disconnected and repetitive.

Much of the later 14 chapters are, supposedly, God dictating text to Richards. He reaffirms this about once per chapter, writing, for example:

“Much of what is written has not been of me. I have tried to make my mind a blank slate and let the Spirit sift through the Scriptures for their truths. It has been a privilege to write what God and Jesus spoke …”

In later chapters, some of the text that God is speaking is even set up with “God says,” and enclosed in quotation marks.

I’m sure that Richards genuinely believes this. His sincerity throughout the book, won’t allow me to call him presumptuous or arrogant for claiming to write the spoken word of God.

It’s just that much of the text isn’t … Biblical.

“There will only be two important people in heaven – God and Jesus” (Loc 1173).

“Anger and unbelief are both sins” (Loc 1299).

“Animals that were food and wealth for their masters became sacrifices. This weighed heavily on the children of God, because these sacrifices were their livelihood. God thought that if sin took away the people’s bread and butter, they would stop and think about committing sin” (Loc 1988).

“Before Paul was an apostle, he worked for the Roman army. … Paul’s fear was that if he did not kill the Christians, they would become the controlling power, and he would be killed along with the Romans” (Loc 2836).

Richards writes repeatedly that it is important to spend “huge amounts of time” with God. I completely agree, and I don’t doubt that he strives to do that. I believe it’s equally important to spend huge amounts of time studying – not just reading – scripture, so that we can know that we know that we’re hearing from God in those times.

Rick Richards strikes me as a guy I’d like to get coffee with now and again.

I imagine we’d sit and talk about the Lord, that he would even put off my questions about his service in Vietnam to talk about Jesus instead, and his face would beam, and I’d leave – every time – feeling encouraged and full of God.

My love of the Word of God, however, and of literature in general, dissuades me from recommending Simply God.