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Preaching Christ from the Old Testament.
Sidney Greidanus, Eerdmans,
2000, 373pp
Review by Rev. John Westendorp
In the case of Graeme Goldsworthy
and Sidney Greidanus it must have been a case of ‘Great minds think
alike!’ Last year I reviewed in these pages Goldsworthy’s excellent
book, ‘Preaching the whole Bible as Christian Scripture’. I’ll make the
same observation here as I made then: this book is especially written
for preachers and intending-to-be preachers but it also offers much
thought provoking material for interested elders and pew-sitters who
want to understand how the Old Testament functions in the Christian
life.
Both authors share a common concern – the misuse of the Old Testament
due to a failure to see how Christ is central to its message. One
problem is that the Old Testament often offends Christian sensibilities.
For example, the reader of the book of Joshua who laments that that
Joshua was a real dictator; or the reader of Psalm 137 who wants to cut
out the last verse about smashing babies against rocks. Greidanus quotes
John Bright who raised the interesting question, that although the Old
Testament occasionally offends our Christian feelings, it did not
apparently offend Christ’s ‘Christian feelings’.
One of the results of this offence is that we preachers often avoid
preaching from the Old Testament altogether. Or another, equally
dangerous mistake: we preach the Old Testament in a horizontal way –
looking for the biographical lessons. But as Greidanus points out, the
result is that “Unable to preach Christ and Him crucified, we preach
humanity and it improved.”
More than 26 years ago, when I was wrapping up my RTC studies, another
then ‘new book’ by Sidney Greidanus gave me some good handles on
preaching. That was ‘Sola Scriptura’. This present book will be a great
benefit as new textbook for a new generation of student preachers.
However. I close with a word of encouragement to my colleagues in the
preaching ministry: if you haven’t bought or read a book on preaching
for some time then make sure you don’t miss this one. There are some
gems for getting handles on some difficult texts.
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