51 of 62 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Historical Christianity, not "replacement theology", July 17, 2006
This review is from: The Message of the Old Testament: Promises Made (Hardcover)
To correct the previous reviewer's post, Dever's position on Israel is not some new "replacement" theology but the historic Christian understanding prior to the invent of 19th century dispensational theology. Dever views God's promises to Israel in light of a covenantal structure rather than a dispensational one. The Old Covenant completely fulfilled in Christ, must now be viewed through His fulfillment and establishment of the New.
The previous poster's claims of a 7 year tribulation and millenial kingdom etc. are not to be found in Dever's book because Dever simply has a different theological lens and eschatological viewpoint than that offered by Dispensationalism.
This should not cause a loss of rating, for it is not the substance of the book, rather, the book should be judged on its faithfulness to the Scriptures.
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9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One Sermon On Each Old Testament Book: EXCELLENT, November 1, 2007
This review is from: The Message of the Old Testament: Promises Made (Hardcover)
As I have made my way through the Bible, I have been weekly interacting with Mark Dever in his two summary-of-the-Bible books, Message of the Old Testament: Promises Made and
The Message of the New Testament: Promises Kept. For the last many years Mark Dever, pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church, has periodically preached single messages covering an entire book of the Bible. Modified transcripts of these sermons make up the bulk of the content of these two books.
Trying to reveal the intent and message of the author of each book and God's design for how that message would fit into the whole of the Bible and redemptive history, Dever attempts to fly us above the details to get the big picture of the Bible. Message of the Old Testament opens with a chapter on the big picture of the Bible. Then, he follows with a chapter on the overarching theme of the Old Testament, which he summarizes as "Promises Made". Finally, grouping the books of the Old Testament into groups (i.e. Pentateuch: "The Great Story", Historical Books: "The Other Millennium", Wisdom Books: "Ancient Wisdom", Major Prophets: "Big Hopes", and Minor Prophets, "Eternal Questions") he delves into the message of each book, each having its own chapter of approximately 20-25 pages apiece.
How helpful is this book! Rightly, we are directed to dig deep into a text, and we have this modeled in excellent expository sermons that may spend weeks on a single verse and years on a single verse. This type of expository preaching is good; it is right, and it is to be emulated in personal study. But without Dever's model, the Christian may be very prone to lose his or her way. If we truly want to know the God of the Bible we must know His message, and in order to know God's message in a single verse we must know the message of the chapter, and to know the message of the chapter, we must know the message of the book, and to know the message of the book we must know the message of the Bible.
I imagine what Dever is doing is similar to how I play with the map program, Google earth. Sometimes to better understand what I'm looking at up close, I need to zoom out. We must be in the habit of doing this, and that is exactly what Dever does: He zooms us out. He describes what he is doing as flying over the Biblical landscape rather than walking (or crawling) through it.
Not only is the concept of the book an excellent one, but so is the implementation. This book has been years in the making. Written with knowledge and precision of the scholar, but at a level that a lay Christian can easily understand, I know of no other resource like this that I can recommend as highly. The hours and hours of hard work, reading, prayer, and research that went into each sermon is evident. Each chapter, full of excellent content and providing a good introduction and expository summary of the book, is made even better by the pastoral bent of the work. Dever will not settle for mere knowledge, but pushes the knowledge all the way to the heart, with the hope that the reader will love the Holy, redeeming, loving, and self-giving God that His Word reveals.
Beginning in December 2006, I have been leading my smallgroup on a study through the entire Bible, focusing on one book of the Bible for 2 weeks at a time. We have been using Message of the Old Testament as a supplement to our daily reading and study precisely for all the reasons stated above. The consensus of the more than 20 people who have likewise been weekly interacting with Dever is "Excellent". You would do well to purchase this book and make good and slow use of it. I do not have the same level of familiarity with the
The Message of the New Testament: Promises Kept that I have with this one but will post a review of it as soon as I do; I expect that it is more of the same (but I can tell you that just the foreword by John MacArthur makes it worth the price).
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Good Resource To Have!, November 3, 2010
This review is from: The Message of the Old Testament: Promises Made (Hardcover)
Mark Dever has compiled a collection of sermons for each book of the Old Testament. What this provides is a very readable, easily understood summary of each book, as well a concise treatment of the overall message of the Old Testament.
What is most helpful is the fact that sound, biblical theology is maintained throughout. When studying a passage of scripture, it is easy to get caught up in a verse or two and miss the "forest for the trees." This book is helpful in placing a passage in a theological context.
This is an excellent resource to keep on hand. When studying from a particular book of the Old Testament, Dever provides a great place to start.
I highly recommend this for any Christian's bookshelf; clergy or laity.
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