Book Review: We Proclaim the Word of Life

I'm slightly wary of reviewing this book, because at the moment I do not preach regularly, and I don't want to compound an easy image of me as a blogging armchair theologian. This is a book, edited by two superb evangelical New Testament scholars, that bears the subtitle 'Preaching the New Testament Today'. It is a fairly meaty (260+ pages), recent volume of essays from a range of good evangelical theologians, pastors, and biblical scholars.

The 'List of Contributors' reads a bit like a who's who of evangelical New Testament study, and I reproduce it here to tempt you; D.A.Carson, R.T.France, Klyne Snodgrass, Stephen I. Wright, David Wenham, Christoph Stenschke, Justin K. Hardin and Jason Maston, I. Howard Marshall, Charles A. Anderson, Mariam J. Kamell, Ian Paul, Peter Oakes, John Nolland, Stephen Travis, William Olhausen, Helge Stadelmann and Paul Weston. There seemed to me to be a good balance of established and new scholars.

Whilst I was reading this book, I was preparing a talk on 2 Corinthians 4:13-18, which I titled 'Why Bother with the Gospel?'. It was very helpful, alongside various commentaries, to dip into the various chapters of relevance in this book, whilst reading through the whole thing. I spent some time in Hardin and Maston's chapter, and found this very profitable for contextual and literary features, as well as the supremacy of Christ in Pauls epistles. Given the subject matter of the passage, I found Stephen Travis' chapter, 'Preaching Hope and Judgement', to be useful too, and tried to be faithful to his statement that "Eschatology, the doctrine of the 'last things', is not a ragbag of miscellaneous topics. It is about the climax of God's purpose for the world, and the different elements in it find their unity in Christ himself". Amen! This is what ties the New Testament together, and this chapter was especially helpful for me trying to keep my eyes fixed on the motivation for mission.

The entire book was a good, solid collection of essays as far as I (with relatively little theological learning!) could tell, though there were a few highlights. I appreciated Carson's treatment of 'Preaching the Gospels', and was glad to see that various chapters unpacked the different elements of the Gospels, particularly interesting to me was R. T. France's chapter on 'Preaching on the infancy narratives'. Tricky, but essential elements of the Gospel narratives. Being a fan of apologetics, I enjoyed, and was grateful for the inclusion of, Peter Oakes' chapter on 'How archaeology and history can help with New Testament preaching', as it goes naturally to the core of the New Testament claim to be a historical faith.

Given the current storms brewing over sexuality and so on, in and outside the church, I appreciated John Nolland's chapter, 'Preaching the ethics of the New Testament, which sat just before the aforementioned chapter on hope and judgement. A final real highlight for me was Ian Paul's chapter 'Preaching from the book of Revelation'. A real treat, in terms of getting a little more insight into this complicated book.

This is not a book for everyone. But I don't think it is a book for only preachers. Whilst that is its explicit market, I think there is useful stuff in here for anyone who wants to engage deeply and authentically with the New Testament texts. I'd particularly recommend it to people in theological study, as it was a warm reminder to me of the power of preaching, and a constant re-affirmation of the supremacy of Jesus in the New Testament. I enjoyed this book, and would love to hear if you did too. Recommended.