By Vaughan Roberts
OM Publishing. 214 pages. £5.99
ISBN 1 85078 336 5
One of the UK's finest young preachers has produced his first book. This is an evangelistic book of the highest quality, which seeks to listen to today's world and to God's Word, and to bring the two together for maximum impact. Vaughan Roberts is the Rector of St. Ebbe's, Oxford, and clearly has university students in mind as he writes; but all thinking people will soon find themselves wooed by the message of the gospel.
The premise of the book is that post-modern people long to know where they have come from and where they are going, but have lost hope of ever discovering - if indeed there are any answers to be discovered. So Roberts writes a history of the world in nine short chapters, each one focusing on a major turning point in the Bible's meta-narrative.
The joyful advantage of this approach is that the full gospel is proclaimed. Roberts takes us memorably (and with a helpful diagram that grows after each chapter) from creation to fall, from the history of Israel to the person of Jesus, from the cross to the resurrection, from Pentecost to the second coming. Here is a gospel that begins and ends with God, centres unashamedly on Jesus and the cross, and gives a strong and right emphasis on the Holy Spirit's work of regeneration, sanctification and equipping of God's people for service. Here at last is the biblically balanced gospel that refuses to ride any hobbyhorses.
Each chapter is an exposition in itself, written in an exciting, relevant and seductive style, designed for the questioning non-Christian, no matter how much or how little is already known.
The first part of each chapter draws the reader into the question which the Bible-event is going to answer. Roberts has telling quotes from many gurus of the age (Madonna, Spike Milligan, Libby Purves, Richard Dawkins . . .). He has illustrations which never fail to hit the mark. He has humour and pathos. His biblical text-work is utterly reliable, careful to avoid jargon, rarely failing to bring the two-edged sword out of its scabbard and into the mind and heart.
There is little to criticise. The book would be suitable only for those with bright and inquisitive minds. I sometimes felt there was a predictable contrast between the first half of each chapter and the second. There are too many '-ism' words on the first page; but fortunately we soon get to Cleopatra's nose.
The millennium is upon us. People are thinking about history and the future. This book will give them God's view of both: and his view of themselves as well. Reading this could be a turning point for many.
