Roger Forster and Paul Marston 3rd edition revised, Push Publishing, 2013 208 pages £7.00
ISBN 978 0 955 378 355
available as Kindle and in print from Eden Bookshop, Cambridge
This is simple, straightforward Biblical overview as you have never known it. That it has gone to three editions is testimony itself to its enduring usefulness.
Reading the Bible with no preconceptions at all can very quickly becomes a series of stories about a creator who interacts with his creation – a sequence of encounters and stories about individuals, a nation, a man who claimed to be both human and divine and the beginning of an institution which continues to this day. It has a beginning, a middle and an end like any good story.
It takes people like Roger Forster and Paul Marston (and others, of course) who can sort through the mass of detail, discern a pattern and present the whole in clear, intelligible prose. Like a spy satellite in the sky surveying the entire landscape, the authors explore what the Bible says about how God has worked, and is working, in human history. The conflict between good and evil is charted at the cosmic level. Its impact on individual human beings is explained.. Not least is the part played by the nation of Israel in the sweep of history. The relationship and interactions between the human and the divine, both strategically and tactically, is very much to the fore in this book.
What is really attractive about the writers is their rigorous objectivity, their clarity of exposition and their scrupulous honesty – all of which lead them to conclude with open questions when appropriate.
Of course, they are committed Christians and come with these basic, orthodox convictions. Working with that understanding, you are taken on an all-embracing tour of God’s strategy in human history in just two sections – firstly, the nature of the conflict, followed by the history of the conflict. A useful addendum gives detailed consideration of key concepts and definitions such as Foreknowledge and Predestination or Hardening and Unbelief.
The scholarship is obvious but worn very lightly; explanations are thorough and lucid. It’s a joy to learn from these expert thinkers.
Highly recommended as a most refreshing, engaging and honest approach to the story of the Bible.
There is a second volume in which key Biblical ideas are considered in greater detail.