Latest in Book Reviews
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Adopted for Life
from Starr Meade Apr 18, 2011 Category: Book Reviews
I didn’t see any particular reason to read Russell Moore’s Adopted for Life. I have no intention of adopting anyone at my age. I won’t tell you exactly what age that is, but my youngest child just turned 30. While visiting in the home of that same youngest child, however, I saw a copy of the book. My son and his wife were finishing up the process of becoming certified to foster parent with a view to adoption. Wanting to be supportive of them, I asked if I could borrow Adopted for Life.
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A Father’s Gift
from Terry Yount Apr 13, 2011 Category: Book Reviews
Every so often I come across a book that says a great deal in a small package. No pomp or pageantry, no star quality author, and yet the truths in it resonate well past the reading. I found that to be the case with Kenneth Wingate’s A Father’s Gift. An attorney and layman in the First Presbyterian Church of Columbia, South Carolina, Wingate does well advocating his heart’s passion for prudent living. He quickly summarizes a given verse and applies it without apology or reservation to his family.
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The Priority of Preaching
from Daniel Hyde Apr 06, 2011 Category: Book Reviews
“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns.’” (Isa. 52:7) I am a firm believer that the ministry of preaching is the greatest calling any man can have in this life. To be a jar of clay housing the inestimable treasure of the gospel is a privilege I can never fully explain. Because of this I am a firm believer that there can never be enough good books on preaching. Christopher Ash’s book, The Priority of Preaching (Christian Focus/Proclamation Trust Media, 2009) is one such book.
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The Mystery of the Lord’s Supper
from Keith Mathison Mar 23, 2011 Category: Book Reviews
Robert Bruce (1551-1631) is not a household name, even among knowledgeable Reformed Christians. He was at one time, however, one of the most important leaders in the Church of Scotland. He was the successor of John Knox and James Lawson and preached at the Great Kirk of St. Giles in Edinburgh. St. Giles holds a prominent place in Reformation history, being the site where Knox preached his first sermon on the Reformation. The Mystery of the Lord's Supper (Christian Heritage) contains five sermons preached by Bruce at St. Giles in February and March of the year 1589.
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The Symphony of Scripture
from Keith Mathison Feb 23, 2011 Category: Book Reviews
When I was at Dallas Theological Seminary and struggling with the issue of dispensationalism, I ran across a little book by Mark Strom entitled The Symphony of Scripture. As a dispensationalist, my understanding of the Bible had been predicated upon the divisions in Scripture. In fact the basic motto of the dispensationalist is:"rightly dividing the Word of truth." Unfortunately, the unity of Scripture was lost in the dispensational understanding of this biblical phrase.
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A Taste of Heaven
from Keith Mathison Feb 08, 2011 Category: Book Reviews
Debates over the proper form and content of worship are not new. The apostle Paul was already contending with such disputes in the first century. One could even argue that the “worship wars” began much earlier, when Cain and Abel brought their different sacrifices to God. Closer to our own time, the eighteenth-century rise of revivalism caused great controversy throughout North American churches. Keep Reading -
Book Review: The Lord’s Supper
from Keith Mathison Jan 27, 2011 Category: Book Reviews
The Lord’s Supper by Thomas Schreiner and Matthew Crawford is the tenth volume in Broadman & Holman’s NAC Studies in Bible and Theology series. Not surprisingly, as B&H is a Baptist publishing house, the second volume in the series dealt with baptism. When I read that volume, published in 2006, I was not sure they would do a volume on the Lord’s Supper. Baptists historically have not devoted as much attention to the Supper as they have to baptism. The publication of this new volume may be a sign that this is about to change. Keep Reading -
One or Two by Peter Jones
from Dan Dodds Jan 13, 2011 Category: Book Reviews
I love paradigms, grids and excel spreadsheets; they have such a wonderful way of providing a means of systematizing information and making it understandable, accessible. Over the years I have tried to provide paradigms to categorize worldviews (or religions). I have employed the work of others and have modified some to try to simplify for my students what the various worldviews have in common and what makes them unique. Keep Reading -
The Book of Leviticus
from Keith Mathison Dec 23, 2010 Category: Book Reviews
It is probably no exaggeration to say that among Christians, the Book of Leviticus is one of the most neglected books in the Bible. It is certainly one of the least understood. How many Christians have purposed to read through the entire Bible and made it through Genesis and Exodus only to get bogged down in this seemingly obscure collection of ceremonial laws and rituals? What are we to make of this book? How are these ancient laws about animal sacrifices, and priests, and ceremonial uncleanness relevant to Christians in the 21st century? Keep Reading -
2K or Not 2K? That is the Question: A Review of David VanDrunen’s Living in God’s Two Kingdoms
from Keith Mathison Dec 09, 2010 Category: Book Reviews
David VanDrunen’s book Living in Two Kingdoms is the first attempt of which I am aware to present at a non-academic level a book-length biblical and theological case for “two kingdoms theology.” VanDrunen, who serves as professor of systematic theology at Westminster Seminary California and as an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church has dealt with this subject before. He has written several articles on the subject, and in 2006, he published A Biblical Case for Natural Law, which contains a discussion of two kingdoms doctrine. In early 2010, he published Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms. That book is an extensive academic study of the historical development of Reformed social thought with a particular focus on the Reformed view of natural law and two kingdoms doctrine. After looking at precursors such as Augustine and Luther, VanDrunen proceeds to examine specifically Reformed thinking on these subjects from the sixteenth century to the present. Living in God’s Two Kingdoms does not cover the same ground. The earlier book sought to determine whether two kingdoms theology is a legitimate strand within the Reformed tradition. Living in God’s Two Kingdoms argues that two kingdoms theology is the biblical view. Keep Reading
