book review
When the first taste tastes good, you come back for another taste – right?! So it has been for me with the author, Jeffrey Arthurs. His book on preaching from different biblical genre is the best entry point into that fascinating field of which I am aware. So when Preaching as Reminding (IVP, 2017) emerged,…
READ MOREIt has been a vintage decade for books that help preachers get started on the journey. My favourites include the ones by Chester & Honeysett (Gospel Centred Preaching); Leeman (Reverberation); Dever & Gilbert (Preach [Theology Meets Practice]); Motyer (Preaching?); Lamb (Preaching Matters); Capill (The Heart is the Target); Bartholomew (Excellent Preaching); Millar & Campbell (Saving…
READ MOREI don’t think I’ve ever read a book so slowly… “Well Paul, that is what happens when you stop to locate every place in Googlemaps and cross-reference every person in Wikipedia.” Yes, I know – but it was so captivating. Austria is now deep in my bucket-list and it has nothing to do with The…
READ MOREIn preparing for our youngest son’s wedding last month, I decided to refresh my heart and refocus my vision by reading a couple of books on marriage. I selected Ray Ortlund’s Marriage and the Mystery of the Gospel as I was drawn to the author’s goal of developing a biblical theology of marriage. The Table of…
READ MOREI’ve been to France only once and that was for one day. I hopped on the ferry in Portsmouth one Saturday evening, sleeping diagonally on the tiny bed overnight and squeezing vertically into the shower in the early morning. I spent the Sunday near St Malo with my colleagues, Mike and Marie-Laure. Then it was…
READ MOREThe first sentence in the ‘Series Preface’ will grab any teacher of preaching. The Artistry of Preaching series gives practical guidance on matters that receive insufficient attention in preaching literature yet are key for preachers who seek greater creative expression in their preaching (vii). The sentence grabbed me. I bought the series. One of my…
READ MOREI’ve enjoyed two books about India this year. One tells the story of the sudden extinguishing of the British Empire – “the largest empire the world had ever hosted … at its peak, six times the size of the Roman Empire” (Indian Summer, 333). The other recounts the gradual decay of the remnants of the Mughal…
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This book will take you less than 10 minutes to read aloud (which is the only way to read it). Once you’ve read it once, you’ll want to read it again and again (so keep it on the coffee table, next to the remote). I promise you. I would do you a great disservice if…
READ MOREIt is a book written over hundreds of years by dozens of authors in numerous cultures. And yet it is one single story, guided by the Best Director, God, and featuring the Best Actor, God. Yes, the Bible is a remarkable book – and it all happened before the globe began to shrink. In training…
READ MOREAmos. First Peter. Two of my favourite biblical books through which to preach. Doing so, however, creates tension inside me. Amos is a sustained attack by God, through his prophet, on the presence of injustice among the nations of the world – and especially within His people, Israel. It is unrelenting. It is blistering. God…
READ MOREAbout Me
the art of unpacking
After a childhood in India, a theological training in the USA and a pastoral ministry in Southland (New Zealand), I spent twenty years in theological education in New Zealand — first at Laidlaw College and then at Carey Baptist College, where I served as principal. In 2009 I began working with Langham Partnership and since 2013 I have been the Programme Director (Langham Preaching). Through it all I've cherished the experience of the 'gracious hand of God upon me' and I've relished the opportunity to 'unpack', or exegete, all that I encounter in my walk through life with Jesus.