Jeremy Walker Surveys Recent Banner Titles

Not every Banner title is for every reader in every season. Books have different strengths, readers different needs and circumstances. For this reason, sometimes a digest of books can help, pointing the way to a book in season. Jeremy Walker, pastor of Maidenbower Baptist Church and Book Reviews Editor for the Banner of Truth Magazine, surveys some recent Banner titles:

Our Daily Food: Or Portions for the Lord’s Household (small clothbound, 208 pages)

James Smith was a contemporary of Spurgeon’s and a previous minister of the New Park Street Chapel. He was a prolific writer, and a variety of devotional materials flowed from his pen. Our Daily Food, or, Portions for the Lord’s Household is one of the briefest and sweetest, produced in a form close to the original, a fine size to put into a pocket or purse and to carry with you. Each day provides, very simply, a phrase of Scripture and an appropriate selection of holy verse, some of which those who love the older hymns will recognise, while others will seem fresh to most readers, the source material having fallen out of fashion. Smith thus doles out a nugget of spiritual nourishment to stir and sustain the soul through the course of one’s daily labours. An ideal gift, and especially valuable as a devotional resource for those whose energies are flagging or whose capacity is low, perhaps because of sickness or old age.

The Shorter Catechism Illustrated from Church History and Biography (clothbound, 284 pages)

John Whitecross was the father-in-law of John G. Paton, and this collection suggests much about the character and quality of Paton’s wife. The current Banner edition is entitled The Shorter Catechism Illustrated from Church History and Biography. The format is exceedingly simple: after each question is stated and answer is given, the author provides two or three pages of illustration and anecdote, some more verifiable than others, but all warm and colourful. For those learning the catechism, especially as part of family worship or church life, this book will wonderfully enliven and illuminate the process, as well as suppling an abundance of material for any preacher’s stock of illustrations. Presented in hardback, it is an excellent resource.

Shapers of Christianity (small paperback, 112 pages)

In Shapers of Christianity Nick Needham provides a highly-selective and high-speed tour of Christians whom the Lord has used to glorify his name, or—to use the book’s subtitle—‘brief sketches of twelve outstanding Christians from across the ages.’ While it is hard to trace any other obvious criteria for a selection that spans two thousand years, and travels from Lyon with Irenaeus to Princeton with Machen by way of Canterbury, Geneva, Oxford, and Zadonsk (yes, Zadonsk), each of these little pen-portraits is fascinating in its own right. In lively prose and with refreshing bluntness (and sometimes surprising sympathy), Needham analyses and assesses each of these personalities and their contribution to the cause of Christ. This book will introduce you to brothers you perhaps had no idea existed, as well as refresh your acquaintance with names you might think you already know.

Pain of a Particular Kind (small paperback, 88 pages)

Pain of a Particular Kind: The Loss of a Child is a harrowing little book, as reflected in its title. It develops themes which Peter Barnes has addressed in shorter forms, growing out of his own wrestling with the topic as pastor, parent, and grandparent. Some of it will make difficult reading, especially for those who have suffered this pain for themselves. Loaded with quotation and anecdote, the book considers the sorrow of loss, God’s answers to our questions, helping those who grieve, and God’s final word. Acknowledging our lack of certainty at some points, Barnes points us back toward the certainty of God himself. There is a straightforwardness to the book which might cause some to wince, but the author wields his knife to cut out the fat and to leave the lean meat. That food will ultimately strengthen the soul.

Isaiah’s Oratorio: An Appreciation of Isaiah 24–27 (small clothbound, 184 pages)

Hywel R. Jones offers us Isaiah’s Oratorio: An Appreciation of Isaiah Chapters 24–27. The treatment is technically and theologically dense and precise, but still lucid and sweet. The insightful introductory material, essential for understanding the author’s approach, soon gives way to the exposition itself. There Jones moves from the overture through the seven movements of Isaiah’s oratorio, this holy flood of speech and song. To call this a literary treatment is not to diminish the author into a mere teacher, still less to suggest that he treats the inspired text with anything less than a proper reverence. It is rather to recognise the depth of careful and prayerful thought and the devout scholarly awareness that lies behind and seeps into this book. Most of us will not and should not attempt to wrench this book, for all its poetry and piety, into sermons. However, properly employed, it will help us to preach Isaiah 24–27 as the glorious Word of God, and to anticipate the day in which God makes his Word glorious.

Unveiling the Cross: Beholding and Proclaiming the Whole Christ (clothbound, 272 pages)

Another treatment of Isaiah comes from W. Ross Blackburn, his entitled Unveiling the Cross: Beholding and Proclaiming the Whole Christ. It is an interesting book, somewhat derivative in that it deliberately responds to and interacts with Sinclair Ferguson’s Whole Christ. This is not to disparage the book, for where Hywel Jones gives us a glorious sweep over several chapters of Isaiah, Blackburn offers a deep dive into chapter 6 to set before us Christ as the crucified one. In some respects, Isaiah 6 acts more as a springboard than a target, providing for a wide-ranging treatment of the main theme of the book. Although the prose can be pedestrian at points, with supporting quotations produced somewhat relentlessly, the author’s fixation on the person and work of the Saviour as the One who makes atonement gives the book its colour and force. If more preachers and authors aimed to keep the dying Saviour so central, we would do very well.

Two New Volumes of Texts that Transform

Finally, Terry L. Johnson gives us another two entries in the ‘Texts that Transform’ series with Texts that Transform Marriage & Family (small paperback, 184 pages) and Texts that Transform Our Hope (small paperback, 160 pages). In each, the approach is the same: to take a series of key texts along a particular theme and to develop them practically. With a wide range of reference, and what seems a deliberate attempt at brevity, these volumes act as helpful primers to believers who may not have considered these issues before. Neither volume offers anything novel, and that is a commendation. The book on marriage and family introduces mankind as male and female, the mutual duties of husband and wife in the divinely-ordered estate of marriage, and then several chapters on child training and education. Similarly, the book on hope introduces us to Christ’s glorious kingdom, and then covers heaven and hell, before concluding with an intriguing consideration on the freedom of God—essentially, the right of the Almighty to do as he will, in accordance with his inscrutable wisdom and to the end of his own glory. Brief and punchy, these are clear introductions to important issues that may prove useful to those who are learning for the first time, as well as to those who need to ground in Scripture their developing ideas, and arrange a growing understanding with order and sense.