Resources on Book Reviews
God’s Ambassadors: The Westminster Assembly and the Reformation of the English Pulpit, 1643–1653, by Chad Van Dixhoorn. Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage, 2017, xxi + 215 pages, $40.00. The mere convening of the Westminster Assembly in 1643 is a wonder. Since the days of Edward VI, reform efforts in the church of England had stalled or been reversed under his Protestant successors, Elizabeth, James, and Charles I. The eruption of the English Civil War, with its political and military tumult, made the convening even more unlikely. But convene it did, and over the next decade, the fruits of its labors were prodigious. General histories and expositions of the assembly’s Confession of Faith and Catechisms are many. What distinguishes God’s Ambassadors: The Westminster…
Read MoreOne of my goals at RTS Jackson is to introduce students to the “neglected voices” of the evangelical church. I am not the best qualified to remedy this neglect, but have made it my habit to assign readings that will help. One such book is Thabiti Anyabwile’s The Faithful Preacher: Recapturing the Vision of Three Pioneering African-American Pastors. The book presents biographical sketches of Lemuel Haynes, Daniel Payne, and Francis Grimké, along with selected writings. First, Lemuel Haynes. Born in 1753, he was abandoned by his parents when only a few months old. He became an indentured servant to a Connecticut family who treated him as their own child, and where he was to receive the blessings of family…
Read MoreMichael A.G. Haykin gives a concise and inspirational account of the life and work of William Carey, English missionary to India and often called “The Father of Modern Missions.” Reformed theology was the solid foundation of Carey’s ministry. Haykin explains: In his theology, Carey married a deep-seated conviction regarding God’s sovereignty in salvation to an equally profound belief that in converting sinners God uses means.… Without understanding Carey’s consistent delight in Calvinism throughout his life, we cannot understand the man, his motivation, or eventually the shape of his mission. (43–44) One example of Carey’s firm grasp of the doctrines of grace appears when he writes that one “may well expect to see fire and water agree, as persons with…
Read More
Paul took “pains to have a clear conscience toward both God and man” (Acts 20:16). So should we. Christians must prize and protect a biblically informed conscience. Heed our conscience, and we shall honor God and faithfully serve our fellow man. Resist conscience, and we wreck not only our lives, but also harm others, leaving a trail of brokenness, heartache, and misery. Given the stakes, it is tragic that conscience is a word that has largely slipped from our vocabulary. That’s why I am grateful for Christopher Ash. In Discovering the Joy of a Clear Conscience he proves himself a skilled physician of the soul. Aiming straight to the heart, he asks: “If you die today and have some time…
Read More
When I finish a book, I add it to my annual “books read” list. My 2018 list is at the end of this post. I don’t have a detailed reading plan – I select books based on interest and recommendations. I also use commentaries, Bible dictionaries, and systematic theologies as I prepare two weekly sermons and one Bible lecture. Since I seldom read these cover-to-cover, I don’t include them in the list. 2018 was spent in Romans, Exodus, 1 Timothy, and a December morning and evening series in Isaiah. What follows are some of my 2018 reading highlights. Several of my comments come from booknotes I wrote earlier in the year. Every year, I read a few substantial volumes in…
Read More
My day begins with putting on my eyeglasses; it’s the very first thing I do. Most of the time, I do it without thinking. But occasionally, when I pick up my eyeglasses, I remember that I am holding one of God’s most precious gifts to me. Eyeglasses are a relatively recent development of the human story. David Landes writes that the invention of spectacles more than doubled the working life of skilled craftsmen, especially those who did fine jobs: scribes (crucial before the invention of printing) and readers, instrument and toolmakers, close weavers, metalworkers. The problem is biological: because the crystalline lens of the human eye hardens around the age of forty, it produces a condition similar to farsightedness (actually…
Read More