Book Review: “Walking in the Undeserved” by Rev. Dr. Keith Ogden

by Robert Smith, Jr.

Dr. Keith Ogden revisits the “road less traveled” – the road that leads to compassion. In an age of combat, compassion is a balm in the context of ecclesiastical conflict that can make the wounded whole. Centered around the principle of mercy and giving, and depicted in the parable of the Good Samaritan, the author picturesquely demonstrates how mercy is lived out in the three-year ministry of the Master himself.

He is careful in contending that the mercy motive and mercy act are initiated and executed only by the Lord, thus avoiding humanism – the attempt to live compassionately in their own human power and strength.

Although the more demonstrable and sensational gifts of the Spirit –
prophecy, teaching, and proclamation – are much more desired by many
believers, mercy is a service gift provided by the same spirit that
buttresses the believer’s personal witness to the lost. It is the
gospel microcosmically examined, for as the author reminds us, Christ,
the wounded, trades places with wounded humanity, and by His wounds we
are healed. This, as the author puts it, is “mercy at its best.”

Dr. Ogden weaves the thread of his work within the fabric of his
personal pastoral experiences, thus capturing the law of reciprocity –
the law of sowing and reaping. This work marries the spiritual and the
social and does not allow them to be detached in the ministry of the
believer.

As one reads this work it will become apparent that the author
is participating in a soliloquy, a running conversation with himself.
He allows the reader to drop in and overhear his musings, extending the
soliloquy so that it becomes a colloquium in the proclamation, within
both the sanctuary and the Christian classroom.

Ultimately the author paints a portrait of the work of God in
salvation history. God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit not only saves
the believer through mercy, but also sustains him through mercy – in
order that the believer, too, may show mercy.

According to the author, believers engage the mind to see
troubled humanity on the road, to sense, search for, and suffer with
broken humanity in the ditch – to serve needy humanity. This emulates
the Master who, being full of mercy, came to “bring good news to the
poor, proclaim release to the captive and recovery of sight to the
blind and to let the oppressed go free” (Luke 4:18).

I recommend this book to everyone who would be an imitator of the Master’s mercy.

Robert Smith, Jr. is Professor of Christian Preaching at Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Alabama.