With a line-up of contributors that includes John MacArthur, John Piper, Eric Alexander and Sinclair Ferguson, you know that this book is going to live up to its expectations and do exactly what is says on the cover. Frankly any one of the 11 chapters would be worth the price of the book. These are men who, in this regard, practice what they preach and most of whom have done so over a lengthy period of time.
Each of the eleven contributors tackles a different aspect of expository preaching, ranging from the primacy of preaching and the foolishness of preaching to experiential preaching, preaching to the heart and preaching with authority. In a book like this there is always going to be some overlap and duplication but what there is in no way detracts from the overall value and impact of the book and rather serves to underline the concerted message of the contributors’
This book is quite definitely and deliberately ‘counter culture’. The authors have no time for the dumbed-down, entertainment-orientated, people-pleasing, image-saturated diet that is so often offered up as preaching today, both in America and here in the UK. Here is a sustained call for a return to a confidence in the authority of God’s Word and the fact that lively, expository preaching, “expository exultation” to use Piper’s phrase, is the one means ordained by God for the saving of sinners and the building up of believers and the church. I wish every preacher could be made to read this book.
Ligonier Ministries; Second edition (revised, expanded) (2 Nov. 2008) Review written in 2011