PREACHING CHRIST FROM ECCLESIASTES
Foundations for expository sermons
By Sidney Greidanus. W.B. Eerdmans. 357 pages. £17.99
ISBN 978-0-8028-6535-9
You may or may not find this book easy reading, but I can tell you one thing: once you open it you will not be able to put it down!
Remind yourself of the wooden unimaginative unhelpfulness of G.A. Barton’s International Critical Commentary of 1908 and see how remarkably Old Testament study has changed — and what a favoured day we live in when authors like Greidanus are available.
Here is Ecclesiastes (in all its variety and fascination) treated (not as Barton’s dead prey but) as the Word of God and as a message for today. In 15 chapters Greidanus works his way from Ecclesiastes 1.1-12.14, each chapter dealing with content, structure, interpretation, how to preach Christ, the movement from Old to New Testaments, and expository notes for possible sermon(s). The combination of this coverage with a rich crop of footnotes makes the whole a veritable goldmine on Ecclesiastes. Greidanus is too wise to attempt to provide sermon outlines. We who preach are a wild lot and know we must find our individual modus operandi, but what spadework has been done for us! What possibilities are opened for us! What illumination! Recent experience in the church where we are rear-seat ornaments (St. George, Poynton) has shown how compelling and relevant church members find the message of Ecclesiastes. With Greidanus alongside, your church can have an even richer experience of this part of God’s Word.
And me — I am looking forward to the next six months of Ecclesiastes’ fascinating Hebrew, led by this most competent of instructors.
Alec Motyer,
Anglican by birth, non-denominational by temperament, biblical by conviction, saved by grace
