All Articles For Book Reviews

I want to take this opportunity to congratulate my close friend and colleague in the ministry on the publication of this beautiful and important work. There is not, as the author comments in the introduction, any such commentary in the English language on the Canons. This book fills a great lack and we hope and pray that it has the widest possible circulation. An exposition of the Canons of Dordt is welcome for a number of reasons. For one thing, the Canons are still the Confessional basis of a large number of Reformed Churches both in this land and abroad.

THIS WAS JOHN CALVIN, by Thea B. Van Halsema; Baker Book House, 1981; 221 pp., $3.95 (paper). (Reviewed by Prof. H. Hanko.) This book was first published in 1959 as part of the Christian Biography Series. It has since been translated into several languages and now published in paperback. It is an excellent biography of John Calvin and we highly recommend it. 

PREACHING WITH PURPOSE (A Comprehensive Textbook on Biblical Preaching), Jay E. Adams; Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., Phillipsburg, N.J. 162 pp., $5.95 (paper); reviewed by Prof. H. C. Hoeksema 

EERDMAN’S HANDBOOK TO THE WORLD’S RELIGIONS, R. Pierce Beaver et al, Consulting Editors; Wm. B. Eerdmans Publ. Co., Grand Rapids, Mich. 448 pp. (cloth) $21.95. [Reviewed by Prof. H.C. Hoeksema] This is an excellent reference work. It is loaded with information concerning the ancient religions of Egypt, Greece, Rome, and northern Europe. It has a very interesting and informative section on religions of the Orient, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, etc. It contains a large section on Judaism and Islam.

JEHOVAH SHEPHERDING HIS SHEEP, Sermons on the Twenty-third Psalm by J. R. Beeke; Netherlands Reformed Book and Publishing Committee, 1982; 451 pp. (Reviewed by Prof. H.

THE CHURCH IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY: Elect From Every Nation; by Louis Praamsma; Paideia Press, 1981; 289 pp., $9.95 (paper). [Reviewed by Prof. H.C. Hanko] This is the last volume in Dr. Praamsma’s series on the history of the Christian Church. This book is a translation from the Dutch in which language it was originally printed.

This book is comprised of a collection of addresses delivered at the Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology during the years 1977-1979. They were given by such men as John H. Gerstner, R.C. Sproul, James M. Boice, Edmund P. Clowney, Roger R. Nicole, and J.I. Packer. The book is divided into four sections: Man the Sinner, Christ the Savior, The Word of Christ, and Electing Love. 

TREASURY OF QUOTATIONS ON RELIGIOUS SUBJECTS, F.B. Proctor; Kregel Publications, Grand Rapids, Mich.; 816 pp. (cloth), $14.95. [Reviewed by Prof. H.C. Hoeksema] This large volume is a reprint of a work originally published in 1887 under the title Classified Gems Of Thought. There is a vast amount of material in a book like this. This material ranges from brief sermons and sermon notes and outlines to brief paragraphs and statements on many different subjects. The quotations found in it are from a wide variety of evangelical writers.

THE FAITH OF THE CHURCH, A Reformed Perspective on its Historical Development, by M. Eugene Osterhaven; Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1982; 248 pp., $11.95 (paper). (Reviewed by Prof. H. Hanko) The church of our Lord Jesus Christ lives in an inseparable relation to the church of the past; and this relation is especially characterized by her doctrinalunity with the church of past ages. For this reason there is a great need for a book on the Reformed perspective of doctrinal development.

BIBLICAL INSPIRATION, by I. Howard Marshall; Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1983; 125 pp., $4.95 (paper). (Reviewed by Prof. H. Hanko) Of the writing of books on the doctrine of inspiration there is no end. And it is somewhat doubtful whether this latest book will advance the cause of the truth of inspiration or whether it will serve to quiet the current storm of controversy which rages over this truth.