Book of the Week 15

I have just finished this great book thanks to the 8 hours afforded by a flight to East Africa at the start of a three week ministry safari in Rwanda and Kenya. I’m not sure how soon I’ll be able to post this review or the ones for the other titles I have brought with me and which I hope to find time to read while I’m on my travels.

Graeme Goldsworthy’s ‘Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture’ is truly a masterpiece and ought to be one of the foundational tltles in any preacher’s library. It is another of those books I wish had been around when I was starting out on my ministry and would have provided a great corrective to much of the fragmented, piecemeal preaching I fear too many of us are all too guilty of. By my own observation in recent months, Goldsworthy is right when he says, “My own impression of the modern literature is that it is predominantly weighted towards matters of effective communication and methods of sermon preparation. I find that questions regarding the nature of Scripture, which provide us with the principles of interpretation and application, are not so prominent.” (p7)”…apart from a few scattered references, there seems to be very little that takes up the function of biblical theology in the process of moving from the text to the hearer.” (pix). The result is that, even “by many evangelicals…Texts are taken out of context; and applications are made without due concern for what the biblical author, which is ultimately the Holy Spirit, is seeking to convey by the text. Problem-centred and topical preaching become the norm, and character studies treat the heroes and heroines of the Bible as isolated examples of how to live.” (pp15-16).

This is a book of two halves. In the first Goldsworthy asks and answers a number of questions such as ‘What is biblical theology?’, ‘Was Jesus a Biblical Theologican?’, ‘Can I Preach a Christian Sermon Without Mentioning Christ?’ and ‘How Does the Gospel Function in the Bible?’ He tackles head on some of the popular misconceptions about Bible texts and the meaning of such words as Gospel, all in the cause of demonstrating that the Bible actually has one great theme - Christ, and, “When done properly, preaching Christ from every part of the Bible need never degenerate into predictable platitudes about Jesus. The riches in Christ are inexhaustible, and biblical theology is the way to uncover them.” (p30)

For me personally the most helpful in this part of the book was the chapter, ‘What Kind of Unity Does the Bible Have?’ Recognising that biblical theology is a discipline that is based on both the unity and the diversity within the biblical texts Goldsworthy considers literary variety, historical progression and progressive revelation, warning against some of the errors that have arisen out of a false handling of these features and giving some very helpful advice on preaching progressive revelation, focussing on the three polarities of ‘Type-Antitype’, ‘Promise-Fulfilment’ and ‘Salvation History-Eschatological God’.

He includes some helpful diagrams which illustrate his theses but which also form the basis for the practical and detailed second half of the book. Here Goldsworthy works through the individual genres of Scripture, recalling where they fit into the unfolding drama of redemptive history, providing guidance as to how to preach form each of these genres in a way that is faithful to Scripture as a whole and concluding each section with some tips on planning sermons from that particular genre. I will certainly be referring to these pages each time I approach a new section of Scripture in my preaching preparation.

Goldsworthy closes with a call to Bible Teachers and Church Leaders to actually teach biblical theology to their congregations, either in specific teaching sessions or through the way they handle God’s Word. “it is one thing to recognise the place of biblical theology in the preparation of a sermon so that the way we explain a text and apply it is shaped by the way that text fits into the grand scheme of biblical revelation. It is another thing to actually preach a sermon that demonstrates the method of approaching the Bible in this way. This is really a matter of emphasis and not a complete separation of the two approaches. Every sermon without exception should contain the results of doing biblical theology. Sometimes we might want to demonstrate the way it is done. In other words, sermons can teach people how to read and understand the Bible. Every sermon should do that to some degree, but sometimes we should make it the main theme.” (p24
If you are a preacher who is concerned to be a faithful servant of God’s Word this is absolutely a ‘must read’ for you.