Proclaimer Blog
The Gospel as Center
This is a US book. You can tell that from the misspelt (UK readers)/correctly spelt (US readers) title. But there is just about where any US/UK divide happens. Some books are so rooted in their immediate context that they just don't work over the pond. There are US titles which are addressing peculiarly US issues, and UK titles similarly hampered. This is not one of them. So, the book is The Gospel as Center, the subtitle is "renewing our faith and reforming our ministry practices" and what you have, under the careful editorship of Carson and Keller, is a concise set of essays on the important and defining elements of The Gospel Coalition's beliefs.
So – don't be shocked – on one level this is an entirely uncontroversial, safe book. You know where it's coming from before it begins and you can have a pretty good guess at each of the conclusions reached. Such is our constituency. Ordinarily, this safeness might have made it rather dull and useless. But that's simply not the case. Instead, there are a collection of useful essays from the pens of quite different writers. Some are more useful than others, of course – but the dual-authored chapter on baptism and the Lord's Supper by Thabiti Anyabwile (a baptist) and Lig Duncan (a presbyterian) is worth, as they say, the admission price alone. It really helped me think clearly about how and why we celebrate these sacraments in church life.
Here are the chapters:
- Gospel Centered Ministry – Carson & Keller
- Can we know the truth – Richard D Phillips
- The Gospel and Scripture – Mike Bullmore
- Creation – Andrew Davis
- Sin and the fall – Reddit Andrews III
- The Plan – Colin Smith (hoorah for the Brits!)
- What is the gospel? – Bryan Chapell
- Christ's Redemption – Sandy Wilson
- Justification – Philip Ryken
- The Holy Spirit – Kevin DeYoung
- The Kingdom of God – Stephen Um
- The Church – God's new people – Tim Savage
- Baptism and the Lord's Supper – Thabiti Anybwile and Lig Duncan
- The Restoration of all things – Sam Storms
If you're going to read it on your own then it's a book for reinforcement – and there's nothing wrong with that. If you're going to read it with others (e.g. a leadership team – and that's where there's real value), then it's a book for learning and growing. Both are worthy causes.
It's a nice hardback, 300pp. Come along to the EMA and there'll be a very nice price, signficantly under list of £14.