By Stephen Dray
Christian Focus Publications. 160 pages
ISBN 185792323 5
To be brutally honest, I began by expecting the worst. An evangelical commentary on Judges and Ruth, I thought, at a popular level? That will mean a lot of 'instructive' parallels between the people of God then and now - and not a lot else.
Most people will recognise this approach, if not from books, then from sermons and talks. You ask questions like these: where did the people of God go wrong? What were their strengths and can we imitate them? What general spiritual laws do we see? And so on. I expected this approach but, again and again, this book took me by surprise. The treatment of Samson, going back to the promise of Genesis 3 to restore paradise through a deliverer, and then forward through Samson and the Kings to Christ, is thrilling. Dray similarly takes the hint of the 'kinsman-redeemer' in Ruth 3 to show us Christ the redeemer. I longed for more.
