Preaching Christ in All of Scripture by Edmund Clowney (Crossway) 177pp.
I was looking forward to this book when I got it a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, I found it more difficult and less satisfying than I first expected. I have a great respect for Clowney as a preacher. I have a few tapes of him from when he came to preach at the Tron many years ago. However, I have not found his written work so easy to penetrate. The first 50 pages or so are instruction on seening Christ in the OT and then preaching. The remainder consists of sermons Clowney preached on various passages. Though these are engaging, I found it difficult to see how the teaching of the first 50 pages was worked out in the examples. It would have been helpful to see his thought processes as he constructed the sermons, somewhat akin to the BT Briefings one finds at beginningwithmoses.org.
The Radical Reformission by Mark Driscoll (Zondervan) 200pp.
As I have mentioned before, Driscoll is very engaging in a number of ways. Now this book. It is radical, earthy, even irreverent, but boy does it make you think. The structure is determined by the greatest command: love God, love your neighbour. Driscoll has a clear view on what needs to be held on to and what comes down to mere preference. For example, he is rock solid on the need for repentance – where do you hear that nowadays? – calling sin sin, but nevertheless loving people, even your enemies. He is uncompromising on churches that become holy ghettos, and uncompromising on the post modern movement. Then, disarmingly, in the last chapter he says,
The problem with my pastoral job is that I don’t really know what I am doing. So I read every book I can find and I cling to the Bible like a kid who can’t swim but somehow found a life preserver in the middle of the ocean.
Don’t know about you, but that seems like a pretty good way to go about things.
Doggie's Breakfast 
Hey Stephen, I am back again on the blogs! I am still on crutches as my leg is healing slowly but surely. I am not a great fan of Clowney or the Historical Redemptive preaching. The weakness that I see in this peaching is no application. I think this has been the weakness in Reformed churches. I see the sermons in Acts as preaching Christ and Him crucified but also application. The Pauline Epistles are filled with application! Might I sugges a book that is excellent on this topic and preaching: The “Imperative of Preaching” by Dr. John Carrick. Dr. Carrick is a professor at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Greenville, South Carolina. He is originally from England and holds a masters from Oxford. He is a disciple of Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones. Anyway, as usual this is my two cents!
Blessings to you and the work you are involved in. BTW, are you still thinking/praying about coming to Trindad?
Hi Steve, good to see you are on the mend, though it is taking some time. God intends these things for our good.
I understand the problems with RH preaching and have read Carrick’s book a couple of years ago. I posted on it here and here. It is a good book. Carrick welcomes some of the developments in theology that have come with Vos and others, but believes they have overshot to the point of no application in preaching. Having heard Clowney, I am not sure how one could say he does not apply the scriptures. But I am beginning to think that ‘application’ means different things to different people!
As far as Trinidad is concerned, I keep up with your blog and pray for you, but my situation will be in such a state of flux that I have not thought of when and how it might be possible for me to come over. Thinks will probably change in the summer for us. I think I need to let things settle before I make any commitments to you. Watch this space!
I came across your blog after doing a search on the phrase, “Christ in all the Scriptures”.
Wondered if you might be interested in my blogs:
http://www.christinallthescriptures.blogspot.com
and
http://www.theologyofgcberkouwer.blogspot.com