Book Reviews

This Old Testament commentary by Philip Graham Ryken, pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church and a PCA teaching elder, is another one of Ryken’s writingsidentifying him as one of the outstanding preachers from the Reformed perspective. Exodus: Saved for God’s Glory represents his most voluminous work to date. He has earlier, in this same Preaching the Word series, written on Jeremiah and Lamentations.

Exodus is one of the key books in teaching us how the promises of the Covenant are kept. Again, as with the above commentary, Ryken studies, preaches, and teaches the Word from a biblically Reformed, historically redemptive perspective. Consequently, not only will you see the faithfulness of God throughout, remembering and keeping his promises to his people, but also how God’s plan of salvation is revealed and developed in this book.

As with other books in this series, but especially this book, there is clearly demonstrated exegesis and solid theology that undergirds Exodus, giving creative ideas on preaching and teaching Exodus for today’s audience. Why this commentary is so special to the author is stated in the preface. These expositions of Exodus were preached while Ryken was substituting for Dr. James Boice “during, and after his sudden illness and death.”

Ryken explains that one must study Exodus in its historical context of the Pentateuch, the five books of Moses. Then we must see how it connects with the rest of the Old and New Testaments. Over and over, he underscores the importance of following the Reformation principle of allowing Scripture to interpret Scripture; that seen from this perspective, “the Bible is an extended interpretation of the exodus. Thus the way to understand Exodus is to study the book itself in the context of the entire Bible.” Ryken emphasizes that Exodus is not only a great story, it is also history and a history that focuses on redemption of Israel as well as the church today.

When read, studied, taught, and preached from this vantage, you cannot help but see the glory of God revealed. This is what the Psalmist saw and wrote about in Psalm 106, says Ryken.

I became acquainted with Michael Green in 1970 from reading his book Evangelism In The Early Church. It was thorough, biblical, and just what I needed at that time in my studies and spiritual life. His credentials are outstanding, from a Senior Research Fellow at Wycliffe Hall, where he teaches evangelism and New Testament Studies, to Regent College, Vancouver where he is professor of evangelism.

Avoiding Jesus is a book that you will enjoy reading, at least from the view of knowing how to answer skeptics, cynics and the curious. Green, who has ministered globally, states that no matter where he is, he finds that men and women tend to come up with the same answers and almost universally is the notion that “Oh, but all religions lead to the same God.” “If not that,” said Green, “then ‘Oh, I have not time for religion.'” Most the responses range from shallow, to escapist, to not wanting to take the time to investigate the truth of Christianity or any other religion.

It makes an enormous difference if there is a God or not, says Green. We cannot bury our heads in the sand. I would add, we cannot do the same by not knowing how to share the Gospel with those kinds of people.

This book contains 12 responses, excuses, or attempts to ignore the truth. More specifically: I’m not the religious kind. You can’t believe in God these days. All religions lead to God. I can do my best. No one can do more. When you’re dead, you’re dead.

You will find him responding to the scientist who sees no need for God: “There is nothing in the scientific method that can either demonstrate God’s existence or disprove it. But for what it is worth, the basic presupposition of the scientific method strongly supports the existence of the mind behind matter.” Or to the person who says “if you are right about Jesus, are other religions all wrong?” To which Green says, “By no means.” But you will not find God revealed in any other religion in fully personal terms who rescues us from sins and self-centeredness. The idea “I must earn or pay something for my salvation” is present in one way or another in all other religions. There is a universal feeling that we must do something to earn our salvation. Green responds by using Jesus’ description of our human condition. The good religious Pharisees failed at earning God’s pleasure, forgiveness, and salvation.

After going through argument after argument with the skeptics and cynics, Green concludes, “If, in Jesus, God himself has come to look for us, it clearly will not do to imagine that as long as we are sincere, it does not matter what we believe. Nor will doing our best solve our problems.” Of course the answer is Jesus Christ.

This book is worth reading and using in a study group, especially for parents and youth workers to use in ministering to youth and in other small group settings to train people in knowing how to share the Gospel, clearly and biblically.

In the recent Equip for Ministry issues we have talked about open theism, denominationalism, and the emerging church movement, to name a few. Knowing something about church history is essential if we are to contend for the faith and its truth. So much of what is happening today is a result of either not knowing or ignoring the lessons from history.

Also, while we need to understand where we are today as far as Christianity is concerned, we will not be successful without starting with a good grasp of history and tradition. This is clearly illustrated in trying to understand evangelicalism in our North American culture. For example, of the two billion plus people in the world who profess to be Christians, over half a billion are evangelical Christians. But some statistics suggest that if Pentecostals and charismatics are counted as evangelicals, there are four-fifths of a billion evangelicals today. Those two groups account for 570 million while other evangelicals exceed 242 million. This is what Sweeney points out in his preface to set the stage for the overview that follows.

Sweeney first gives an overview and summary of the recent debates and scope of evangelicalism. Chapter one is merely a prelude to the good content that follows. Trying to define “evangelical” today is a bit slippery. For example: you have Alister McGrath’s six controlling convictions regarding evangelicalism. You also have David Bebbington’s definition that features four qualities of evangelicalism. Beyond those you can find John R.W.Stott’s three qualities and many broader definitions such as demonstrated by George Marsden, James Hunter and others. It is obvious that there is great diversity within evangelicalism and often unanimity as well.

Dayton and Johnston in their book, The Variety of American Evangelicalism wrote, “American evangelicalism resembles a large, extended family and should be described in only a general manner in terms of their ‘family resemblance’ rather than pigeonholed with excessive, propositional precisions” (page 21). Sweeney tries his hand at defining the term evangelical, “Evangelicals comprise a movement that is rooted in classical Christian orthodoxy, shaped by a largely Protestant understanding of the gospel and distinguished from other such movements by an eighteenth century twist. Or put more simply (though less precisely), evangelicals are a movement of orthodox Protestants with an eighteenth-century twist” (pages 23, 24).

This volume gives good summary of the “great awakenings” and their role on determining evangelicalism in America. He traces America’s great awakenings to those in Europe and Great Britain and then on the North American British colonies. Sweeney talks about the good things, as well as the challenges, that arose out of those awakenings. He reviews some of the people, like John and Charles Wesley, George Whitefield, and Jonathan Edwards who played significant roles in this development.

The book deals with some of the results and impact of the awakenings on the church and world. Although thousands joined the churches, religious controversy was also present and the revivals divided families, churches, and communities.

In the chapter “Crafting New Wineskins, Institutionalizing the Movement,” Sweeney opens up some avenues of understanding the tensions always present in evangelicalism, one being the role of institutions. He points out the truth that movements cannot survive without institutions and yet institutions have a way of squelching the Spirit, hence the need for revival. This was so clearly demonstrated in early America between the “Old Light” and “New Light” and “Old Side” and “New Side” schools of thought. The Old Light camp said we need institutions and tradition while the New Light camp maintained that all we need is the Bible. Sweeney demonstrates how both extremes fed liberalism in early New England.

One of the distinguishing characteristics of evangelicals is that they have always known how to market their faith. They knew how to capitalize on the free market concept. They knew how to advance the faith and did so with much fervor and enthusiasm. The circuit riders, the scholars, and the local churches all played significant roles in advancing the evangelical cause in America.

The book also contains a good summary of the development of the modern missionary movement. Sweeney points out how the early missionaries were able to contextualize their faith with much effectiveness, though there was a constant struggle to distinguish the Gospel from the culture “to become all things to all men so that by all means, they might be saved” (1 Cor. 9 18-22).

The history of black evangelicals contains important parts of the story. Much can be learned from studying the relationship among the races in church history. For example, Sweeney writes, “While evangelicals did not invent the sins of racism or ethnocentrism, the slave trade, segregation discrimination, or racial hate groups, literally millions of white evangelicals have either participated in or sanctioned one or more of these things, distorting their common witness to the gospel” (page 108). In the mid twentieth century this racial tension was demonstrated by both a white and black evangelical association-the white National Association of Evangelicals and the National Black Evangelical Association founded in 1963.

There is a good chapter entitled “In Search of a Higher Christian Life,” dealing with the holiness movement, along with Pentecostal and charismatic movements. This is an important chapter as we look at today’s churches embracing the evangelical framework. These are areas of great tension and controversy within the evangelical family. Today’s struggles and divisions are not new ones. Who were some of the people influential in this arena? What was their emphasis? How was it received? Sweeney uses key people to deal with those questions. People and movements such as: Charles Finney, Phoebe Palmer, Charles Fox Parham, John Wimber, Oral Roberts, Pat Robertson, the famous Azusa Street revivals of Los Angeles, the Assemblies of God and the charismatic movement.

The last major chapter focuses on the fundamentalism and neoevangelicalism that emerged in the late 1800s through the twentieth century, dealing with topics such as the “fundamentals” and their attempt to put down modernism. He also talks about men such as Carl F. H. Henry, J. Gresham Machen, Billy Graham and their role in the neoevangelical answer to both fundamentalism and liberalism. Of course Sweeney points out that we cannot overlook the role of the famous Scopes Trial in this mix. Then there was the decline of orthodoxy in the mainline churches with the influx of German higher criticism, thus undermining the authority and integrity of the Sciptures, and the need for Christians to be salt and light and make a cultural difference rather than withdrawing their cultural influence. He also accents the tensions between those who believed that the best theology had already been produced and those who believed in always reforming their theology according to the Word.

This book is readable, extremely interesting, and tremendously helpful in understanding why we are Presbyterians who are Reformed evangelicals following Presbyterian polity and government. This would be a good book for personal and group study. I recommend it with much enthusiasm.

Here is a book that I hesitate to review. Why? Because in the limited space available I fear I will not do justice to its importance. I have challenged the author, William Edgar, to develop a leader’s guide that will encourage local church teachers and preachers to use this book.

Truth In All Its Glory, Commending the Reformed Faith is a fantastic book that really does what the title communicates. I would like to go through the book summarizing each chapter; however, I will forgo that desire and simply tell you why I think this is an important and strategic book.

For those of us who are Reformed in our understanding of Christianity, we love to be known as Reformed. However, for many who do not understand the Reformed faith, it has received some bad press through the years, some of which has been justified both by the way it was communicated and by the way it has been applied.

The Reformed faith is a system that is life-oriented. It is a system built upon the truth of God’s revelation set forth in the Scriptures. It does not embrace legalism or moralism. While believing strongly in total depravity of man’s sinful nature, it also believes in God’s ability to change peoples’ lives and to do so in a way that impacts the world around us.

Edgar does an outstanding job of showing the Reformed faith in its fullest and most glorious expression of biblical Christianity. He tells of his “conversion” to his movement into the Reformed faith, not too different from mine, hence I easily identified with his pilgrimage.

At first you think you are reading the best history book on the development of the Reformed faith as you read about the history and origins of Reformation theology. As one good example, Edgar writes, “Depravity is total in that every part of our being, from the body to the mind, is sinful. We are saved neither by light of nature nor by the law of God but only because of the “glad tidings concerning the Messiah.” Edgar highlights the central doctrines and themes of Reformed theology that communicates both to those in leadership roles as well as the average person in the pew.

This book could be used to prepare an officer in the church and to help us understand who we are in the Reformed faith. It is effectively and winsomely written. It is life-oriented because Edgar has a good grasp of our world and age and how the truths of the Reformed faith touch all areas of life. While definitely understanding and appreciating things like the five points of Calvinism, known as TULIP, Edgar is quick to point out that the Reformed faith is far more comprehensive than those five doctrines. He gives special attention to the doctrines relating to salvation and their application throughout the three parts of the book.

Having spent a good part of his life both in France and Switzerland, he demonstrates not only a grasp of different cultures, but also how to communicate his case from a worldview perspective while maintaining his commitment to the Reformed faith and the Presbyterian form of church government.

You will particularly be challenged to see how the Reformed faith is to be played out in our world. Part three is entitled “Living Reformed Theology” and underscores the ultimate purpose of the Reformed faith is spiritual and practical in nature, not merely academic in tone. A much needed theme for today stresses the importance of the church in the Reformed faith. “We have stressed that according to the Reformed faith, walking with the Lord is not only individual but also communal…Accordingly, the church is the fellowship of all those who are called to live in covenant communion with the Lord.”

You will appreciate his comments on the church in a section called “Ardor and Order.” There he deals with form and function of the church and he does not dodge the difficult topic of leadership and gender. He explains the church’s purpose is threefold-worship, edification, and missions.

My favorite part of the book is the final chapter, “All the Glory of God.” In this chapter Edgar puts everything together starting with creation, the fall, and then redemption. He writes about the church and kingdom and its mandates culturally, preaching and teaching the doctrines, and administering the sacraments. In this final chapter he gives a neat and concise summary of God’s Ten Commandments.

Throughout the book and especially at the conclusion, he makes it clear that while the Reformed faith is God’s system of truth revealed in his Word, there is more work to be done in the key areas of theology. He mentions three areas in need of change: interpreting Scripture, relating union with Christ to other doctrines, and developing the doctrine of the Trinity. And those must not be done in isolation from the non-western countries especially Africa, Japan, and China. Nor must we do our theology in a cultural vacuum. For, to paraphrase Abraham Kuyper, all of life is under the sovereignty of God and that is the heart of the Reformed faith.

One of the most strategic things a Christian can do is to pray. Prayer has been referred to as a Christian’s lifeblood. It is hard to be a growing Christian without an active prayer life; however, to grow properly, the early disciples are not the only ones who needed to know how to pray.

I have read many books on prayer over the years and found much help in most of them, especially the reminder to pray and to pray correctly. While it is true that God knows our hearts, even when we do not articulate our prayers in the best way, and he reads our hearts as the primary indicator of our sincerity in prayer, we need to know how to pray in the right way.

To underscore this point Bryan Chapell suggests that the best way to keep our priorities straight in prayer, rather than end in the customary, “in Jesus name” is to start with that phrase to emphasize the importance of reordering our priorities in prayer. Properly done, prayer is a key reminder that it is not about us but about God. It is so easy to start with ourselves, our needs, and requests only to be discouraged and lose heart. Starting with God, however, sets our minds on the truth that God is who he says he is and will do what he says he will do.

Chapell develops this novel approach, though it is not really novel to all, to help us think through the whole exercise of prayer and how we enter into it. His opening question, “How would your prayer change if you began where you normally end?” Throughout the ten chapters and conclusion, Chapell, in his easily readable style, unwraps and answers this question. His main thesis is praying backwards will help us reorder our priorities and keep the focus on God. I begin by praying this prayer for Jesus sake, says Chapell, will make our prayers less self-oriented and more Christ directed, more blessed and more satisfying to our hearts. It is something like following Jesus instruction “to seek first his kingdom…” which will cause us to focus on God and His kingdom. That has a way of changing, tweaking, or readjusting our priorities in all of life, including our prayers.

Given my definition of a kingdom disciple, as one who thinks God’s thoughts after him and applies them to all of life, I appreciated his emphasis and reminder that “In biblical prayer, we think God’s thoughts after him.”

This book is challenging, practical, and able to assist you in thinking more intentionally about prayer. We discussed several of the chapters in our CEP staff devotions and benefited greatly from the studies.

As we talk about and emphasize the sovereignty of God over all of life, it is important to remember that while the church needs godly dedicated leaders, so does the world. Many Christians have not understood that when the Bible talks about leadership, it not only refers to church, it also refers to the broader kingdom as well. The kingdom is broader than the church and Christ is the king over all.

Miller challenges the reader to see the importance of having a right focus and priorities by aligning their agenda to God’s. That is the only way to advance the kingdom of God. A kingdom disciple understands that kingdom living is far more inclusive than being a church member. It means that in “all things Christ preeminent” -whether we eat or drink or whatever we do, we are to do it in the name of the Lord Jesus. One does not have to work full time in the church or be a missionary to serve Christ.

Michael Miller is the director of Church Relations for LifeWay Christian Resources. He is correct in stating that most Christians do not appreciate the value of their influence in the marketplace. Many are tempted to embrace a dualistic way of life that separates life into the sacred and secular realms. Understanding the kingdom will keep a Christian from that trap of dualism. He also writes “regardless of your place of service, I want to encourage you to develop a kingdom focus.” That is the theme of CEP, as well. A clear understanding of the kingdom of God will encourage a kingdom focus in all of life. Miller reminds us that Jesus Christ is king who directs the affairs of his eternal kingdom. He wants us to be “kingdom focused leaders” who understand that Jesus Christ is king of the kingdom with all authority.

Miller reveals three dimensions of God’s Kingdom: height, depth and width, meaning God working in us, through us and around us. This three-fold dimensional paradigm becomes the kingdom focused leader’s primary focus. As we realize this more and more, we will also know that we are to represent God in all that we do. This requires obedience to God’s calling to us. It also requires developing a Christ-like character. It involves living a balanced life with the godly characteristics of a kingdom focused leader.

“Kingdom focused leaders look for opportunities to use their gifts and resources to help people become united with God through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Sometimes these opportunities come as they meet needs in the lives of others.”

This book will be a good primer or refresher to all Christians in places of leadership or who aspire to be kingdom focused leaders.