PULPIT AFLAME:
Essays in Honor of Steven J. Lawson
Edited by Joel R. Beeke and Dustin W. Benge
Reformation Heritage Books. 184 pages. £20.35
ISBN 978 1 601 784 650
This book was a surprise. Generally speaking, I do not find Festschrift (a collection of essays produced in honour of a notable scholar) engaging. However, this book was an exception to this rule.
It marks the ministry of Stephen Lawson, a retired American Baptist pastor. Stephen Lawson is now president of OnePassion Ministries and a lecturer on preaching at The Master’s Seminary, California.
The book itself, edited by Joel Beeke and Dustin Benge, is a comprehensive compendium on the art of preaching. After a concise biographical chapter on Stephen Lawson himself, it contains 12 essays from 12 well-known, highly-respected preachers and theologians on the craft of proclaiming God's word.
Mainly for preachers
The book is clearly of most help for those who preach today, but others may also benefit from it. The essays themselves fall into four groups: the mandate, the meaning, the motivation, and the method of preaching. Indeed, they form a well-balanced, complementary introduction to this important subject. The essays are coherent in that the authors often reaffirm, but never contradict what the other contributors have to say.
So why is this subject so vital for us today? Because many today would relegate the authoritative proclamation of God’s Word from the centre of corporate worship within the local church. Many today may even agree with Anthony Trollope, who once wrote: ‘There is, perhaps, no greater hardship at present inflicted on mankind in civilised and free countries, than the necessity of listening to sermons’! This book is a clear-sounding rejoinder to that misunderstanding of the importance and centrality of preaching God’s Word.
All 12 essays are of a high standard, but one in particular stood out for me. This was the essay by Albert Mohler on Preaching as Exposition. As a preacher myself who struggles with a continual sense of inadequacy, it was good to be reminded and encouraged that preaching is God himself speaking to his people and that ‘God’s people depend for their very lives on hearing his Word’. This is a book I recommend for all preachers of God’s Word.
