THE BALANCED PASTOR
By John Benton
Grace Publications. 107 pages. £11.00
ISBN 978 1 912 154 777
CRAZY WORLD
By John Benton
Grace Publications. 128 pages. £12.00
ISBN 978 1 912 154 784
GOSPEL MINISTRY
By John Owen
Banner of Truth. 189 pages. £6.25
ISBN 978 1 800 403 291
GOSPEL LIFE
By John Owen
Banner of Truth. 237 pages. £6.50
ISBN 978 1 800 403 260
Sometimes books come along that might not provide the definitive word on a topic but do furnish the reader with a helpful first word.
These two books by John Benton fall into the latter category. John is a great summariser and simplifier. In Crazy World he compresses a huge amount of information about gender and sexual politics into digestible chunks, including a layman’s guide to Carl Truman’s The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self. In The Balanced Pastor Benton tackles three issues: calling out abusive church leaders; giving advice on how to handle difficult people; and developing a healthy church life that fosters gospel freedom rather than cult-like bondage.
Like many broad-brush style books, some things are left unsaid or only lightly addressed, but there is much here to inform and stimulate church leaders today.
Portable Owen
The other John is John Owen. Some preachers have the 16 hefty volumes of his collected works on their shelves. Their unopened green and white covers gather dust and sternly rebuke our inattention. The good news is that The Banner of Truth have produced two nice portable paperback editions of his sermons in a sensitively modernised form.
Gospel Ministry contains sermons on what it means to be a pastor-teacher. These sermons are clear, Biblical and practical. Owen manages to inform the mind while addressing the heart. Owen often surprises with the originality of his insights and his ability to speak with penetrating understanding of the human condition.
‘It is surely the case that no man preaches a sermon effectively to others who has not first preached it to his own heart.’
Gospel Life contains 13 sermons that root the Christian’s life in who God is and what He has done for us in Christ. Owen drills deep into the Biblical text and carefully excavates the human heart. Owen also reveals a high view of the importance of the Christian church as a place where community can be seen at its richest, reflecting the community of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
‘Love, and its exercise, is the principal grace and duty that is required among, and expected from, the saints of God, especially as they are engaged in church-fellowship.’
After reading these two books I might be reaching up to the top shelf to grab those hefty green and white volumes again!
