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Summary: Excellent Resource To Keep Preaching Fresh
Review: Preus in this excellently written book shows the rich variety of language the Bible provides preachers to proclaim the precious, saving Gospel of Christ Jesus.First, he ties the words of Gospel to the Word Incarnate. Then he proceeds to show the wonderful landscape of biblical word pictures which convey what God has done for us in Christ crucified. Importantly in this task, Preus affirms "This Gospel stands over the church as the criterion of the church's authenticity. It is the judge of what is truly the church and what is not." And, also: "The Gospel stands under the church as its only firm foundation." It well relates how the failure to understand and utilize the fullness of every Gospel word, phrase and idea can and has led to errors concerning the doctrine of justification. Thus, the book's goal: "not to reduce the Gospel to one of its words, but to proclaim it in its fulness, to use all of its ways of being said." Two that especially enlightened and envigorated by desire to use Scripture's Gospel fullness were "peace" and "adoption." Writing on adoption: "His search ended, however, when he discovered that, through faith in Christ, he had been adopted by his loving heavenly Father. Through Baptism, God has gathered His disparate creatures and brought them into His household. He had adopted us, declared us to be His children. Now we know who we are because we know whose we are. Now we are cherished, wanted, desired, acknowledged by our Father. Now we have the full rights of children. No longer are we slaves of an evil taskmaster, objects of wrath. Now we know that God loves us. Because we know this, we may now live as children of God, as those born of God." Using six main methaphor categories (creation, commerce, legal, personal, sacrifice, deliverance) Preus applies the variety of twenty-seven other metaphorical usages. Well done, even that interested layperson can use this book to great advantage.
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