Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Him We Proclaim: Preaching Christ from All the Scriptures

That's the title of a forthcoming book by Dennis Johnson, professor of practical theology at Westminster Seminary California.

Him We Proclaim advocates the Christ-centered, redemptive-historical, missiologically-communicated, grace-grounded method of Bible interpretation that the apostles learned from Jesus and practiced in their Gospel proclamation. Moving beyond theory, it shows how apostolic preaching opens up various biblical texts: history, law, wisdom, psalm, prophecy, parable, doctrine, exhortation, and apocalyptic vision.

Dennis Johnson has written a magnificent book that magnifies Christ in all of scripture. Every preacher and teacher of the Scriptures should read this gem of the book. Johnson convincingly explains and defends the thesis that Christ should be proclaimed from all of Scripture. But he also illustrates with specific examples what it looks like to proclaim Christ in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. This book is exegetically faithful, theologically profound, and practically helpful. I wish I had read a book like this when I started my theological education thirty years ago.--Thomas R. Schreiner