THE GLOBAL GOSPEL
Our God reigns
By Dr. Christopher E.M. Wigram
European Christian Mission International (http://www.ecmi.org). 138 pages
This book began life as a series of Bible readings at the 2010 conference of the European Christian Mission.
It surveys our experience of God’s reign in this world and in our lives, starting with the seriousness of our sinful situation and the alternative of living under God’s rule directed by his Word. It then looks at the kingdom of God, the church and our relationships under the reign of God. In between each of these chapters the author inserts chapters of incidents from his own life, reflecting on his own experiences, which come mainly from many years of service in world mission.
Writing style
The content is sound enough, but this book’s biggest problem is the way it is written — the style isn’t the easiest to read, especially in the opening chapters, and there are many little problems with formatting and grammar. There also isn’t much sense of continuity through the book. Occasionally you meet leaps in logic, meaning that, if you didn’t understand the subject before you started, you won’t be much the wiser at the end. For example, ‘Being involved with the kingdom is going to cost something’. Why? Because we know ‘that the kingdom is both now and not yet’. End of explanation! This example also illustrates the somewhat clipped arguments that can be found throughout the book — arguments that just suddenly stop without much sense of conclusion (indeed, the whole book ends this way).
All in all, I must reply to Dr. Wigram’s complaint of the difficulty of finding a publisher that unfortunately I’m with the publishers.
Peter Newton,
member, Shepherd Drive Baptist Church, Ipswich
