• NWA: serving local churches
• The Commentary
  Britain's blind side
• Witnessing to nominal Christians
• Bring me my books!
• The Lighthouse Group
  An interview
• Why the cross?
  An interview with John Blanchard
• Challenging complacency
  David Skull opens up Amos 6
• Broken homes, battered children
• Monthly arts and media column
  Chocolate gospel
• Unapologetic Christianity
  Blind men and the elephant
• The Music Exchange
  Music can split a church in two?
• Letter from America
  Moody and magnificent!
• The Third Degree
  Spring CU missions
• Monthly youth leaders column
  The number game...
• The church and groupthink

other articles

• True grit
• The Lord's Day, a medical point of view
• The unheeded Christ
• Shackleton - Shelf life: Looking at secular books
• Calvin, Geneva and revival
• The Message of Ezra & Haggai - Building for God
• Code Red - A young Christian surgeon finds Job helps him face death
• Life ascending - The ten great inventions of evolution
• God's secret listener
• Our witchdoctors are too weak - The rebirth of an Amazon tribe
• Exploring the fascinating life of Jesus
• Is God a moral monster? - Making sense of the Old Testament
• A time to care - Loving your elderly parents
• The Authentic Gospels (DVD) - New evidence
• The Jesus Accounts (DVD) - Fact of fiction
• Operation World (seventh ed.)

Biblical brevity

EXPLORING THE FASCINATING LIFE OF JESUS
From Matthew to John in ten minutes a day
By Roger Ellsworth
Evangelical Press. 288 pages. £10.99
ISBN 978-0-85234-720-1

In 46 short chapters, the reader is taken from Jesus’s birth to his ascension, using gospel passages. Each chapter takes about ten minutes to read with the idea that it could form a part of your daily Bible reading. The author’s aims are to ‘refresh cooled hearts towards Jesus’ and to help unbelievers discover the truth about Jesus.

Background information for each passage is excellently summarised and explanations of the text are clear and concise. The chapters dig richly into the passage, addressing key truths and doctrines. Dilemmas in understanding some of the texts alongside other Bible passages are addressed, which stretches your thinking, but could potentially confuse non-Christians.

Overall the language and style is more academic than usual daily reading material; there is a noticeable lack of illustrations and for some, a dictionary may be helpful for certain words (such as ‘syllogism’, ‘appropriating’ and ‘synoptic’). While this might limit the type of person who would enjoy the book, the level of insight in each chapter would be very beneficial to a keen reader who wanted to study God’s word in greater depth.

It isn’t the most engaging book to recommend to an unbeliever and the lack of personal application might mean that you need to work harder to make the drop from your head to your heart. However the brevity of each chapter and the great biblical content made it a helpful and refreshing part of my daily devotions.

Vikki Manson,
West Street Baptist Church and Christian Centre, Dunstable