The BST Bible Themes Series

'Today is the day we live in and today is the day we need to hear the voice of God' writes Elaine Storkey, whom you can hear regularly on Radio 4 and at Spring Harvest. She is talking about a series of books that has helped the Bible speak into our contemporary world for the last thirty years or so. The Bible Speaks Today series covers all the books in the New Testament and a good number of the Old Testament. In fact the latest New Testament volume is The Message of Matthew by Michael Green, and my perusal of it to date certainly shows it keeps up the standard of effective speaking into today's world.

Now we have a very welcome addition to the 'Bible speaks today' concept - The BST Bible Themes series. The publisher tells us what they are about:

'The BST Bible themes series seeks to maintain the same standards of biblical exposition. The key aim of the series is to explore Christian doctrines through the exposition of the principal biblical passages relevant to the theme and provide a balanced, thorough and comprehensive treatment of the subject. It is hoped that in providing biblical exposition from a systematic perspective, the shallowness and repetitive nature of much of today's preaching, which has robbed many Christians of an adequate understanding of their faith, might be challenged and corrected'.

I have dipped in to the first two books in this new series and they certainly help me to see the Bible to be speaking today. I would commend them to all preachers, Bible study and house group leaders and all who want to hear the Lord speaking into today's contemporary issues from the Word he has caused to be written and preserved for our learning.

In recent years I have been listening to more sermons than for many years and I fear the comment about 'shallowness' is sadly often true. Meeting long-standing Christians with an inadequate understanding of the faith is a regular occurrence in my life. We need books like these! Peter Lewis writes on The Message of the Living God and Paul Beasley-Murray on The Message of the Resurrection. During this year it is planned to bring out The Message of the Cross by Derek Tidball and The Message of Salvation' by Philip Ryken. It will be no surprise to Headline readers that in 2002 our own David Wilkinson plans to give us The Message of the Creation.'

If you are ever wanting to give a present to a preacher in the family look no further. What more can I say than to quote Roger Forster: 'This series is brilliant for tuning in to God's voice'.

All are published by Inter Varsity Press at about £10 each