By R. Albert Mohler Jr.
R. Albert Mohler, Jr., is President of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY.
Are we witnessing the end of the book? That is the question being asked by educators, publishers, and booksellers as a recent report indicated American adolescents currently enrolled in high school and college programs are reading less. While educators debated the causes for this deficit in reading, some noted the competition now represented by digital technologies.
As if to make the point, Amazon released its new digital book format, the “Kindle,” just in time for the 2007 Christmas season. This new technology supposedly allows for more natural appearance to the page, making it appear more like traditional ink on paper. This may be so, but I still doubt many readers will look forward to curling up in bed with a digital screen.
The anxiety among publishers over the future reading habits of American adolescents should be mitigated, at least in part, by the voracious reading appetites of preachers. Preaching is intimately related to books and study, and this goes all the way back to biblical times. Preachers and books simply go together, and the most powerful combination of preacher and book comes when just the right book is available at just the right time in order to clarify and focus the preacher’s thoughts on the biblical text and the challenge of preaching.
The past publishing year has seen the release of a nearly unprecedented number of new titles. Many of these will be of tremendous interest to preachers. This review is offered as a way of introducing preachers to some of the most noteworthy titles released over the past year.
Biblical Studies
If preachers are integrally tied to the study of books, this is especially true when it comes to books helpful in Bible study for the preparation of expository messages. Over the past several decades, something of a renaissance in evangelical biblical scholarship has occurred, and we are now in a season of publication with many of the most mature biblical scholars reaching the point of maximum scholarly production.
At the same time, publishers are releasing interesting new commentary series, some pioneering new ground in theological and historical materials intended to supplement the pastor’s engagement with the biblical text. Donald K. McKim has edited a fascinating resource in the massive Dictionary of Major Biblical Interpreters (InterVarsity Press). This reference volume — adding up to more than a thousand pages — reviews the major interpreters of the Bible from the patristic era to the present. Helpful articles will provide something of a summary of the development of biblical exegesis over the last twenty centuries. While preachers may not need this resource on a weekly basis, the task of interpretation and the challenge of hermeneutics is now so acute, that preachers will find this volume to be a very helpful guide in understanding the present challenge in light of historical developments.