Welcome to another edition of 3 Minute Thursdays. Every year I get literally hundreds of books in the mail. That’s one of the perks of being a book reviewer. As they come in, I take a look at them, I put them in a big old stack right down here and then from time to time I take the big stack, I turn it into a little stack, so I can tell you about some of the new and notable books that I think will be interesting to people like you.
Books mentioned: God’s Word and Jesus, by Laura Martin, Paul’s Vision for the Deacons, by Alexander Strauch, The Life and Theology of Paul, Guy Prentiss Waters, The Tony Payne Collection, by Tony Payne, The Evangelical Exegetical Commentaries, by Lexham Press, Illuminated Bible, Art Journaling Edition
Transcript
Welcome to another edition of 3 Minute Thursdays. Every year I get literally hundreds of books in the mail. That’s one of the perks of being a book reviewer. As they come in, I take a look at them, I put them in a big old stack right down here and then from time to time I take the big stack, I turn it into a little stack, so I can tell you about some of the new and notable books that I think will be interesting to people like you.
So, we will get three minutes on the clock, and here we go. First up from Laura Martin, we’ve got God’s Word and Jesus. This is the third of three volumes. There’s God’s Word and Jesus, God’s Word and You, God’s Word and Your Life. Each one is geared toward a young audience. You can tell by the cover. The idea is, she helps young people think about issues that are important to them, she helps them ask good questions, she helps them resolve those questions according to the Bible. This was published by Christian Focus and really ideal for young teenagers and it could be very helpful if you’re maybe 14, 15, 16, somewhere in that age range.
Next up from Alexander Strauch, we’ve got Paul’s Vision for the Deacons. Strauch, as you may know, has written a number of books about eldership, about the deaconant. And this is yet another one on deacons. He says views on the roles of deacons vary widely among Evangelical Christians. What does scripture actually teach about deacons and their role in the church? There’s many different churches that have many different views on this. I found him a very, very helpful, trusted guide in knowing what the Bible actually says about elders and now, as well, about deacons. Be sure to pick that one up if you’re in church leadership.
Now we come to The Life and Theology of Paul which is published by Reformation Trust. Here’s a tip for you. Reformation Trust is the publishing division of Ligonier Ministries. If it comes from there, it will have high editorial standards, it will have very high theological standards. So this is a book about the apostle Paul, about his life, his ministry, about his importance within scripture. I’m sure you absolutely can not go wrong reading this one. I’m really looking forward to diving into this one as well.
Continuing to move, we come to The Tony Payne Collection. You may know Tony Payne as the author of The Trellis and the Vine, a very important book about church leadership, about structures within church leadership, about how to care for God’s people in the local church. That’s not the only book he’s written, but he’s written more than books. He’s written lots and lots of articles over the years, and this book is a collection of some of his articles, some of the most important articles he’s written, some that you may not have seen that have been published here and there. So this is a good collection. I breezed through it, there’s lots to read, lots to study in here.
Now we’ve got these three commentaries. These are three volumes in The Evangelical Exegetical Commentary set from Lexham Press, which is the publishing division of Logos Bible software. So we’ve got a volume on Jude and then two on Philippians. This is a fairly difficult series, at least it’s a fairly academic series. You probably need to know a little bit of Greek to really get much out of it. So, geared more for pastors or Bible students, that kind of thing. Helpful series, it’s growing, it’s proving itself to be a very solid commentary series.
Last but not least, we’ve got the Illuminated Bible, Art Journaling Edition. This is from the ESV. Whatever else it proves, it proves that maybe we’ve hit kind of peak Bible now. This has these beautiful illustrations, trying to recover the whole idea of illuminated Bibles that used to be so popular in the church. There’s these little sidebar illustrations as well. The idea is you can color in the main illustrations, and then you can add your own in the margins as well, as you read through it. So you’ve seen Bibles that allow you to take notes. The idea behind this one is you’d add your own illustrations. Clearly, I’m not the target market for this. Maybe it’s something that’s of interest to you?
Hope that’s been helpful. These are a few of the new and notable books that have come our way recently. I’ll be back in about a month to bring you yet another list.
