Preaching is not just for preachers. Every Christian can, and, I’m increasingly convinced, should be educated about the task and calling of the preacher. I am convinced that there is great benefit in all Christians becoming students of preaching. This applies even to those who will never stand behind the pulpit and bring the Word of God to His people. The book I would recommend to laypersons wishing to learn about preaching and to pastors wishing to learn how to preach better, is Al Mohler’s He Is Not Silent. Just released by Moody Publishers, this book is a brilliant and insightful look at the task and challenges of preaching in a postmodern world. It is not a how-to guide and is not a dry exhortation valuable only for those with theological degrees; instead, it is a compelling, winsome, biblical case for understanding the utter centrality of preaching to Christian worship.

A.J. Jacobs, an editor at Esquire, must have a lot of time on his hands. Several years ago he decided to read Encyclopedia Brittanica from cover to cover, apparently in a quest to become the smartest person in the world (though a subsequent attempt to prove his knowledge on "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?" showed that he had a long way to go (he missed the $32,000 question). He documented his year-long journey through the Encyclopedia in a bestselling book titled The Know-It-All. In his second book, The Year of Living Biblically, he dedicates a year to attempting to follow every rule and law in the Bible. Like its predecessor, this book has sold very well, quickly making its way onto the lists of bestsellers.

Bart Ehrman is a New Testament scholar who chairs the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has both an M.Div. and Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary where he studied under the renowned scholar Bruce Metzger. Though he formerly considered himself a Christian and even pastored a church, he is now an avowed agnostic. Much of Ehrman's career has been dedicated to attempting to prove that history has been incorrect in suggesting that it was heretics such as Marcion who were responsible for tampering with the original texts of the Bible. He suggests and attempts to prove that it was those who professed faith in Christ who sought to change the Scripture to force it to adapt to their beliefs.

Finding Your Purpose in This World

Timothy Paul Jones responds to the fallacies of Bart Ehrman’s “Misquoting Jesus.”

There are some books I can read in an evening or two and feel like I have a good grasp of what the book is all about. There are others that I can pour over hour after hour and still feel like I am only scratching the surface of the book. Evangelical Hermeneutics falls into the latter category. Though not an easy read, this book is rewarding.

Hermeneutics is one of the steps used in interpreting and studying the Bible. Specifically, the author defines it as “a set of principles for interpreting the Bible.” Once a passage has been properly interpreted, meaning and application can be drawn from it. It stands to reason that if the principles of interpretation are wrong, the meaning and application are likely to be wrong as well. What the author seeks to show is how these principles have changed over the past decades and the effect that is having on Christianity today.

The author’s goal for this book is fourfold:

At long last, the ESV Reverse Interlinear New Testament has become available. What is a Reverse Interlinear Bible, you ask? The Preface answers well. “A conventional interlinear New Testament provides an English translation directly below each Greek word in a Greek New Testament. This tool is called an interlinear because the English words are placed between the lines of Greek.” Though remarkably helpful tools, interlinears do have one weakness. “Since the English words are merely translations of individual Greek words, the English words are out of grammatical word order, do not constitute any particular translation, and cannot easily be read. Their only use is as a reference. This is not to say that conventional interlinear New Testaments should not be used. One simply must be aware of their purpose and limitations.” “A reverse interlinear displays an English translation as the primary text and then weaves the corresponding Greek words between the English lines.

God’s Bestseller is the second biography of Tyndale I have read this year and one of only a few produced in recent decades. Written by Brian Moynahan, the subtitle provides a glimpse of the author’s emphases: “William Tyndale, Thomas More, and the Writing of the English Bible—A Story of Martyrdom and Betrayal.” Less-scholarly than David Daniell’s William Tyndale: A Biography, God’s Bestseller is also more readable, as evidenced by the Mail on Sunday’s endorsement which suggests it is “almost worthy of LeCarre.”

The Gospel of Judas has had its fifteen minutes of fame. It is but another in an endlessly long line of stories or documents meant to shake the foundations of the Christian faith. Like its many predecessors, it gave National Geographic and anti-Christian authors an opportunity to voice their dissension with the biblical story of Jesus. A book titled The Gospel of Judas shot to near the top of the bestsellers lists and nearly as quickly, shot straight back down. Still, while its popularity was short-lived, it allowed Bart Ehrman and other revisionists a chance to laud the epistle for its new insights into the life of Christ. Surely Ehrman forever cast doubt upon his credibility as a historian when he blathered, “(The Gospel of Judas) is one of the greatest historical discoveries of the twentieth century. It rivals the finding of the Dead Sea Scrolls or the Gnostic Gospels of Nag Hammadi.”

The Da Vinci Code, until recently the talk of the Christian world, seems to have rapidly become yesterday’s news. Though the book continues to sell and the film continues to draw, Christians seem to have lost interest. That is often the way things are in the church these days. Christians seems to react quickly and enthusiastically to a perceived threat, but these threats soon fade and Christians move on to other things. While many of these threats are merely perceived, some are genuine and have the potential to draw people away from the faith.