FOR THE SAKE OF THE GOSPEL
Philippians simply explained
By Hywel R. Jones. Evangelical Press. 167 pages. £8.99
ISBN 978-0-85234-723-5
It was with a degree of trepidation that I started to review Dr. Jones’s commentary on Philippians. Never before had I been asked to evaluate a book where two of the author’s children and four of his grandchildren belonged to the church where I serve! What if it wasn’t any good? Would I have to use a pseudonym?
Thankfully, it was good! For the sake of the gospel is part of EP’s Welwyn Commentary series. This is a series which aims to explain the Bible simply so that a typical church member can understand it. It’s actually a rewrite of a commentary which Dr. Jones wrote several years ago.
The book starts with a short introduction which gives some helpful background material on Philippi as a city and which argues that Paul wrote it from prison in Rome. It also summarises succinctly why Paul wrote to them at all and argues for the importance of Philippians to the church today.
The commentary itself follows. On average there are 1.5 pages of comments per verse, though some verses are covered in much greater detail than others.
Some of Dr. Jones’s comments are very brief and pithy. I found that I had to work quite hard with the text of Philippians to follow what he was saying. This was especially true of his remarks on the first half of Philippians 1. This was not typical of the book as a whole, however. When writing more expansively, I found his observations to be incisive, clear, thorough and helpful. There was brilliant attention to detail. There were useful explanations of some Greek words. There were short discussions about matters such as apostleship and healing, and longer discussions about the identity of those who were troubling the church at Philippi. And there were some short applications here and there too.
In short, I found For the sake of the gospel to be a very useful commentary, and I would recommend it to you. Much to my relief.
James Muldoon,
co-pastor of Carey Baptist Church, Reading
