Book Review: Francis Schaeffar

 

Part of Evangelical Press’s Bitesize Biographies Series, this book is an introduction to Schaeffer’s teaching and writing as well as an outline biography.  This is entirely appropriate as many readers will meet Schaeffer primarily in his writings.

There is enough information to help the reader contextualise Schaeffer’s thought in the issues he faced in the last century.  We observe him battling liberalism in American Presbyterianism then wrestling with the markedly different 20^th century evangelical cultures of North America and Europe where he founded the L’Abri Fellowship before returning to the States and engaging in some of its late century ethical issues.

This is an ideal book to read before launching into one of Schaeffer’s works.  As we move further away from the 20^th Century it becomes increasingly important to remember the issues that its evangelical leaders faced so that their writings can be appreciated in a new generation.   The mind-set of the youth of the sixties to whom Schaeffer ministered is the mind-set that inhabits the corridors of power today.  And it's hurting.

Book Review - Love One Another

Love One Another

Becoming the church Jesus longs for

By Gerald L. Sittser

IVP 188 pp £8.99

This is a reworked version of Sittser’s 1994 book Loving Across Our Differences. Sittser’s book deserves respect because its original version was born out of immense family tragedy in which he lost his wife, daughter and mother in a car accident. The pastoral care that he and his remaining family received from his church gave him the passion for the subject of this work.

Sittser has written a straightforward, readable and useful book on pastoral and fellowship issues in the local church. There is much illustrative material but the chapters of the book are built around the ‘one another’ sayings in the New Testament. From these sayings he is able to address areas such as Comforting One Another, Being Subject to One Another, Forgiving One Another, Encouraging One Another and even, though with understandable difficulty, Admonishing One Another.

Sittser’s expositions of Paul’s pastoral thinking are often insightful and almost always helpful. It might form a supporting text for a local church studying what the Bible says about Christian fellowship or pastoral care. It would also provide encourage warmth and breadth for the thinking of Pastors, Elders or Deacons, possibly on a retreat.

Book Review: The Priority of Preaching

This little book derives from the author’s spoken contributions to the 2008 Evangelical Ministry Assembly. The Biblical focus is on parts of Moses’ addresses recorded in Deuteronomy. Its origins as Assembly material mean that it is more a structured defence of consecutive expository preaching than an example of it. It also has the style of a transcript but has good readability.

The reader can well imagine how the arguments graciously delivered here would have encouraged listening preachers. There are many insightful moments that will certainly elevate the preacher’s sense of responsibility while, hopefully, keeping him humbled by the Word.

Valuable distinction is made between teaching and preaching.  They are not the same thing and teaching, for all its discipling value, cannot be the main agency for winning hearts to the Lord Jesus.  The book also offers a strong defence of local church ministry – all over the world the local church is a counter-cultural sign in a fragmented world that reassembly is taking place . . .  The podcast is not the point.

Anyone – inside or outside the faith - who has wondered why so many often small local assemblies of believers and enquirers sit listening on a Sunday to a man speaking what appears to be a monologue and puzzle as to its value should read Christopher Ash’s book. It matters more than the world can imagine, more than the world can know (unless it listens).

The Priority of Preaching by Christopher Ash is published by Christian Focus Publications 122pp £7.99

Book Review: Entrusted with the Gospel

 

The six chapters of this book are successive expositions of 2 Timothy transcribed from addresses at the national conference of The Gospel Coalition in Chicago in 2009.

Naturally the bi-annual conference is mainly attended by key leaders and the expositions are orientated to those listeners. The preachers are six leading American expositors - John Piper, Philip Ryken, Mark Driscoll, K. Edward Copeland, Bryan Chapell (whose advocacy of Scripture will warm many hearts) and J. Ligon Duncan. Each chapter is therefore distinctive in style and depth, making the book more of a sampler than a coherent whole. That said, almost every page contains rich expositional material such as is all too rarely heard from major evangelical voices and the whole is a readable, insightful treatment of Paul’s parting letter.

As a demonstration of the enduring richness and power of expository Biblical preaching, even in our 21st century, this is a fine book. Every preacher, and everyone who believes in Biblical preaching, should read it and a blessing will surely result.

Entrusted with the Gospel.  D.A.Carson (Editor).  IVP 158pp £8.99