Booknote: “Glorifying and Enjoying God” by William Boekestein, Jonathan Landry Cruse, and Andrew J. Miller
William Boekestein, Jonathan Landry Cruse, and Andrew J. Miller, Glorifying and Enjoying God: 52 Devotions through the Westminster Shorter Catechism. Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2023. $22.00, clothbound.
“Catechisms are small books of big doctrines” – that’s the claim made by the authors of Glorifying and Enjoying God: 52 Devotions through the Westminster Shorter Catechism. Catechisms, they write, “boil down Scripture into major theological themes reflecting the high honor Scripture gives to doctrine” (33). Page by page, the authors back up their claim. The scriptural doctrines set forth in the Westminster Shorter Catechism are presented, accompanied by clear expositions of their biblical foundations. The devotional quality of the book lends itself to profitable personal use by believers at every stage of the Christian life, from teenager to senior saint. Its crisp and well-structured declarations of doctrine make it profitable for officer training, Sunday School classes, and small groups.
The book’s publication is timely. Reformed Theological Seminary is in the early phase of a multi-year enhancement program designed to ensure that the Westminster Standards are incorporated into every component of its curriculum. When graduates leave RTS, it is the desire of the seminary’s trustees that they be equipped to use the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms to strengthen God’s church.
In my lifetime, I have been saddened to see the church’s doctrinal standards frequently placed at the periphery of church life. Quite appropriately they are used to determine the doctrinal fitness of candidates for ministry and for resolution of doctrinal conflicts in church courts. Occasionally they appeared in Sunday School classes. Mostly, however, their use was limited to the most doctrinally alert members of a congregation.
As an instructor in pastoral theology, I enthusiastically commend Glorifying and Enjoying God to my students and fellow pastors. While I prize more extended treatments of the catechism (e.g., Thomas Boston’s), the church must have accessible, concise, and contemporary expositions of the catechism that can be integrated into the church’s educational ministry and devotional life, as well as providing a gateway for new Christians to enter the joys of Christian theology.
