No Other Boast

Readability: 1

Length: 130 pgs

Author: Steve Lawson

You may not believe me, due to the recommending of books on preaching, but I do try to exercise reserve in the books I encourage you to read.  For those who faithfully sit in the pew eager to feast on God’s preached word you should be as desirous to know what is the soul and essence of preaching as you are to hear it.  Don’t just listen to it, know what it is to be.  Many think they have heard the preaching of God’s word when they have heard nothing of the sort.  Not only should you know what true preaching is so that you can identify it, but so that you can rightly pray for the preacher.  I am glad to know I am not alone in this assessment.  Steve Lawson writes in the introduction to the Expository Genius of John Calvin:

If you are a preacher or teacher may you be challenged to a higher standard in you handling of the Word.  If you are a supporter of one called to this ministry, may you know how best to pray.

Take up this little book, read, pray, and yearn for the adulterated heralding of the gospel.

Exposition is being replaced with entertainment, preaching with performance, doctrine with drama, and theology with theatrics.  Desperately does the modern-day church need to recover its way and return to the pulpit that is Bible-based, Christ-centered, and life-changing.  God has always been pleased to honor His Word – especially his Word preached.  The greatest seasons of church history – those eras of widespread reformation and great awakening – have been those epochs in which God-fearing men took the inspired Word and unashamedly preached it in the power of the Holy Spirit.

‘Their [ministers’] whole task is limited to the ministry of God’s Word; their whole wisdom to the knowledge of His Word; their whole eloquence, to its proclamation.’ – Calvin

‘Let the pastors boldly dare all things by the word of God, of which they are constituted administrators.  Let them constrain all the power, glory, and excellence of the world to give place to and to obey the divine majesty of this Word.  Let them enjoin everyone by it, from the highest to the lowest. Let them edify the body of Christ.  Let them devastate Satan’s reign.  Let them pasture the sheep, kill the wolves, instruct and exhort the rebellious. Let them bind and loose thunder and lightning, if necessary, but let them do all according to the Word of God.’ – Calvin

A sermon rises no higher than a preacher’s soul before God.

‘We want again Luthers, Calvins, Bunyans, Whitefields, men fit to mark eras, whose names breathe terror in our foemen’s ears. We have dire need of such. Whence will they come to us? They are the gift of Jesus Christ to the church, and will come in due time. He has power to give back again a golden age of preachers, and when the good old truth is one more preached by men whose lips are touched as with a live coal from off the alter, this shall be the instrument in the hand of the Spirit for bringing about a great and thorough revival of religion in the land. . . .

 I do not look for any other means of converting men beyond the simple preaching of the gospel and the opening of men’s ears to hear it. The moment the church of God shall despise the pulpit, God will despise her. It has been through the ministry that the Lord has always been pleased to receive and bless His churches.” – Charles Spurgeon

Readability: 2

Length: 264 pgs

Author: Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stewart

I do not agree with everything Fee and Stuart write here, most critically I disagree with Fee’s translation philosophy.  Still the benefits and skills you would gain by reading it are worth commending it.  Reading How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth would go a long way to correcting many poor ways of reading the scripture such as asking it questions it was not meant to answer, reading it sentimentally, and flip and pickin’.

Interpretation that aims at, or thrives on, uniqueness, can usually be attributed to pride (an attempt to ‘out clever’ the rest of the world), a false understanding of spirituality (wherein the Bible is full of deep truths waiting to be mined by the spiritually sensitive person with special insight), or vested interests (the need to support a theological bias, especially in dealing with texts that seem to go against that bias). Unique interpretations are usually wrong. This is not to say that the correct understanding of a text may not often seem unique to someone who hears it for the first time. But it is to say that uniqueness is not the aim of our task.

The aim of good interpretation is simple: to get at the “plain meaning of the text.” And the most important ingredient one brings to that task is enlightened common sense. The test of good interpretation is that it makes good sense of the text. Correct interpretation, therefore, brings relief to the mind as well as a prick or prod to the heart.

Readability: 3

Length: 238 pgs

Author: John Piper

One way a books value can be determined is if it impacts you as deeply or more deeply upon reading it a second time. This is my second time to read through Let the Nations be Glad!, my first to read the second edition. I love the book more not less, not even just the same. I leave the book wishing for its message to burn inside my chest. This book is verging on being beyond the difficulty level I normally advise, but the message is so God-glorifying I persist and plead with you to read this book. It is a book about what God is about. It has become the book on missions in many seminaries and schools for missions, not without reason.  It opens with one of the best sentences and paragraphs of any Piper book.

Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever.

Worship, therefore, is the fuel and goal of missions. It’s the goal of missions because in missions we simply aim to bring the nations into the white-hot enjoyment of God’s glory. The goal of missions is the gladness of the peoples in the greatness of God. “The LORD reigns, let the earth rejoice; let the many  coastlands be glad!” (Ps. 97:1). “Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you! Let the nations be glad and sing for joy!” (Ps. 67:3–4).

But worship is also the fuel of missions. Passion for God in worship precedes the offer of God in preaching. You can’t commend what you don’t cherish. Missionaries will never call out, “Let the nations be glad!” who cannot say from the heart, “I rejoice in the LORD…. I will be glad and exult in you, I will sing praise to your name, O Most High” (Ps. 104:34; 9:2). Missions begins and ends in worship.

[M]issions is demanded not by God’s failure to show glory but by man’s failure to savor the glory. Creation is telling the glory of God, but the peoples are not treasuring it.

Missions exist because worship doesn’t. The ultimate issue addressed by missions is that God’s glory is dishonored among the peoples of the world.  When Paul brought this indictment of his own people to a climax in Romans 2:24, he said, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.” That is the ultimate problem in the world. That is the ultimate outrage.

The glory of God is not honored.

The holiness of God is not reverenced.

The greatness of God is not admired.

The power of God is not praised

The truth of God is not sought.

The wisdom of God is not esteemed.

The beauty of God is not treasured.

The goodness of God is not savored.

The faithfulness of God is not trusted.

The commandments of God are not obeyed.

The justice of God is not respected.

The wrath of God is not feared.

The grace of God is not cherished.

The presence of God is not prized.

I hope your appetite has been awakened such that heart and mind salivation for truth has commenced. But hold off ordering the book just yet. Baker will put out a third edition next year along with a DVD and study guide. Or read the 2^nd edition now, and plan on reading the 3^rd edition next year.  I did, and I will, and I anticipate loving it even more.