Familiar made fresh

A RANSOM FOR MANY
The Gospel of Mark simply explained
By Steve Wilmshurst. EP books. 320 pages. £13.99
ISBN 978 0 852 347 447

Of all the gospels, Mark is probably one of the best known. Many of us might know it through attending or running a Christianity Explored course. Perhaps your pastor has preached through it — after all, it is the shortest of all the gospels. So, much of the book may well be familiar territory. That was certainly how I was thinking as I picked up Steve Wilmshurst’s new Mark commentary in the Welwyn series from Evangelical Press.

Any commentary series is going to be mixed, but Steve's volume on Revelation is one of the strongest in the Welwyn series: the bar was set high for this one on Mark and I was not disappointed. This is another strong commentary. It is not a technical verse-by-verse analysis. Rather, it is a devotional book based on sermons Steve preached at Kensington Baptist Church in Bristol. So it may not answer every detailed question you have about every verse (though Steve is not afraid to grapple with some difficult issues).