John Woods reviews Growing in Understanding by Dirk Jongkind.
This beautifully produced hardback book has been carefully crafted by Dirk Jongkind, who is the Academic Vice Principal of Tyndale House in Cambridge.
The subtitle for the book makes it sound restricted in focus and designed for a niche audience. The author writes: “This book is for Christians in the academy. It is for scholars and scientists, for students and their teachers. I wrote it to encourage those of us who work in an academic context to read the Bible better.”
I think that all of us could do with the reminder to read the Bible better. Here the author is particularly concerned to encourage academics to read Scripture with the same rigour used in their academic disciplines.
“A big risk when reading the Bible is to underestimate the depth and deliberate precision of much of its language. Every single phrase is put there for a reason.”
The book contains 19 Biblical reflections that encourage those in the academy to engage carefully with Scripture. Each chapter concludes with questions for further thought. These might make the book helpful for personal reflection and group discussion. Talking these chapters through with others would be a great idea, for as the author reminds us, the academy, especially for the researcher, can be a lonely place.
I was interested that the first reflection was on Jeremiah 20 v7-18, in which the author explores how isolated, challenging and painful it can be to be a researcher; he cites the statistics for those at Oxford University in 2022–2023 seeking help from university counselling services(12.4%).
I was amused to read that the author has made very little use of footnotes, because when academics see them, they immediately tend to revert to work mode!
The book has been written with academics as the main target, but it is a book that anyone serious about life and Scripture could read with great profit. Preachers and Bible Study leaders would benefit from the author’s method of looking at Scripture from a variety of fresh angles. The book provides a good model for taking the application of Scripture into unexpected places. Most of us need a little help to have regular conversions of the imagination.
GROWING IN UNDERSTANDING: Devotions for Christian Academics
By Dirk Jongkind
IVP. 125 pages. £16.99
ISBN 978 1 789 745 818
