Book Reviews

A review by Jonathan Watson of Wayne Grudem’s Evangelical Feminism: A New Path to Liberalism? (Crossway), 272 pp, paperback, £5.99 / $15.99. This is an important book that every pastor and church officer ought to read! Let not Wayne Grudem’s well-known and controversial views on the prophetic gift prejudice any reader against purchasing this well-written […]

A review by John Halsey Wood, Jr of The Letters of Geerhardus Vos, edited by James T. Dennison, Jr. (P & R Publishing, 2006), 274pp, hardback, $29.99, ISBN: 978-0-87552-187-9. We owe a great debt to James Dennison for his work of excavating, publishing, and providing translations of hard-to-find Vos writings. Dennison now brings us a […]

A review by Edward Donnelly of James M. Garretson’s Princeton and Preaching: Archibald Alexander and the Christian Ministry.1 Bible colleges, seminaries, conferences and correspondence courses. Doctorates in ministry and professional advice from every point of the theological compass. Ministerial training has become, in our day, an expanding and profitable industry – of varying usefulness. Yet […]

This article is a response to a book by Marcus Honeysett, Finding Joy – a Radical Rediscovery of Grace, published by IVP in 2005. The author worked for ten years with UCCF among students in London. The book arose out of what he believed to be a lack of joy amongst Christians, which he attributed […]

We can scarcely have too many books on prayer, though sadly it is often easier to read books about prayer than to get down and pray. We all need stirring up to pray and this book helps to do that. As the title with its subtitle indicates, it is primarily about private or personal prayer, […]

Robert Oliver has served up a treat for his readers. Developed with additional chapters from his PhD. thesis, the book is very readable, containing fifteen concise chapters, which are both stimulating and fascinating. The author has divided his material into three parts: ‘The Eighteenth-Century Heritage,’ ‘When Good Men Differ,’ and ‘Re-Alignment.’ It is not a […]

A review by Kenneth J. Stewart of Princeton and Preaching: Archibald Alexander and the Christian Ministry by James M. Garretson.1 Seminarians do not often reflect upon the question of what has been the theological discipline standing behind their required courses in practical or pastoral theology. That the lecturer has a basic theological education plus accumulated […]

Getting the Gospel Right, Assessing the Reformation and New Perspectives on Paul1, is written by Cornelis P Venema, and published by the Banner of Truth Trust. For those who need to know what is happening in other parts of the religious world and, in particular, current threats to the gospel, this little book may prove […]

Rev Hugh Cartwright was once the professor of church history at the Free Church College, Edinburgh. He is now a minister in the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland. He was asked to review the History of the English Calvinistic Baptists 1771-1892, From John Gill to C H Spurgeon,1 by Robert W. Oliver, and this is […]

A review by Kenneth Macleod of Evangelistic Calvinism: Why the Doctrines of Grace Are Good News by John Benton, published by the Trust as a booklet of 32 pages.1 The questions this booklet addresses are: Does Calvinistic preaching – that is, true scriptural preaching – hinder the proclamation of the love of Christ to a […]

A review by Kenneth Macleod of The Ministry by Charles J. Brown.1 The author was a well-known minister of the Disruption Free Church in Edinburgh. Some readers will be familiar with his excellent little book The Divine Glory of Christ.2 Now a further little volume has been reprinted consisting, for the main part, of fairly-informal […]

DON’T STOP PREACHING Where are the preachers of the gospel in our land today? There are plenty of performers, but where are the proclaimers? From two different sources this week we received exhortations about continuing to believe in preaching. I was struck with these words of Phil Eveson, the Principal of the London Theological Seminary, […]

THE NOVELS OF JAN KARON WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU READ A NOVEL WITH PAGES PEPPERED WITH PRAYERS BY THE PROTAGONIST? Many American Christians are enthusiastic about the novels of Jan Karon, and it was in the USA that we first came across them, but we obtained the Penguin boxed set of the best-selling […]

THE PROMISE OF THE FUTURE SEMINARY PROFESSORS ARE REALLY AMAZING PHENOMENA One of the many privileges of my seminary education was to sit at the feet of Dr. Cornelis P. Venema, professor of doctrinal studies at, and recently named president of, Mid-America Reformed Seminary in Dyer, Indiana. Seminary professors are really amazing phenomena. Although you […]

BOOK REVIEW THE PRAYER OF JABEZ: BREAKING THROUGH TO THE BLESSED LIFE By Bruce Wilkinson (Sisters, Oregon: Multnomah Publishers, Inc., 2000, hardcover, 93 pages). How many of us have ever heard of The Prayer of Jabez? Had we asked this question a year or so ago most people would have answered with an embarrassed shrug […]