Kelly Kapic is one of the best theological writers of our day. He gears his writings a bit toward scholars, but don’t let that stop you. Accept the challenge of this book and you won’t be sorry. The title of the series (“New Studies in Dogmatics”) might scare off some readers, but don’t allow that to camouflage a great read. Yes, scholars will likely eat it up as a book that shows an artisan at work in their trade, but I say pastors and thoughtful Bible students ought to claim this one as their own.

The only part that might appeal more to scholars than the rest of us is how he loves to delve into some historical personage or creed to illustrate his point. That is only an issue because sometimes that takes more explanation than the point at large he is making. I doubt he can help it. He seems like a walking encyclopedia; a passionate one to be sure, but it is amazing the scope at which he views his subject.

His clearly stated thesis is that “Christian life is a response to the love of God”. Not only does that make sense, especially as he develops it, but it also gave him free reign to write across most of the systematic theology corpus as he desired. That could easily degenerate in a muddled mess that said little, but in his skilled hands it became something really special. In fact, the first chapter on why we need a theology of Christian life shows his clear vision of the argument of this book. For the record, I was bought in part way through that first chapter.

Part Two with its three chapters fills in “the love of God” part of his thesis. He approaches it as love, grace and fellowship. Those three are often thrown about with a perverse shallowness. Not here. It seems that the depths of the heinousness of sin that he so astutely explains is the key to bringing those three out in all their resplendent glory. Here they sparkle.

Next, he has a section that he called an “interlude” on the Law-Gospel distinction. His Reformed orientation comes out strongest here and this section is likely to be the most controversial. In fact, even some Reformed thinkers might quibble with him.

From there, he develops the “response to” part of his thesis. This last section covers Messiah, ego and ecclesia to great effect. That our Messiah is the key is painted with the right significance. The chapter on ego was profoundly done. I thought he brought in current thinking on ego and held it up to Scripture and came up with clear thinking in the process. The two chapters on ecclesia surprised me. I was sure that he was going to champion a certain strain of liturgy, but actually he explained that every worship style is a liturgy. It was convincing to me.

I nominate this book as the theological title of the year. It is that good.

I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.

What I thought about the first edition still holds true. Christopher J. H. Wright is an author who never disappoints. Though he has written commentaries, theological works, and Bible studies, this book on the mission of God now available in paperback is likely his most influential. In fact, his specialty on the mission of God elevates all those other books that he has written, but this one is where he makes his grand case that the narrative of the Bible has mission as its overarching theme. You will likely agree when you take in what he has said.

This book succeeds on so many levels that you might debate where to put it on your shelves. There’s the obvious choice of your mission section, but then you may wonder if it should be among your Bible theology or even Bible survey sections. Finally, it could hold its head high among titles in your deeper theology section too. That is not to say the book is unfocused, but that its explanation of the broad sweep of the Bible gets the job done from all those various vantage points.

The book is divided into four parts: the Bible and mission, the God of mission, the people of mission, and the arena of mission. As you can see, that begins in championing mission as the proper hermeneutic, continues to see God’s hand in mission, followed by the final two parts looking at the Bible from beginning to end and seeing how it sticks without wavering to God on mission. At over 560 pages, it is never shallow nor possessing omissions while never bogging into minutia either.

I’ve always felt that Wright could hold his own with any scholar while outpacing most of them on spirituality. You will see that here. This book will be the top of its class on this subject for decades to come and no Bible student should be without it.

What do we have in the 60 extra pages of this edition? Well, it’s not his overall thinking on the subject for sure. It seems he took seriously what some reviewers and colleagues criticized in the first edition. In many cases, the clarifications strengthen the original work. Perhaps the criticisms both of his “holistic” view of mission and on the “linear” nature of his work are overblown, rendering his response something along the line of shooing a fly. Isn’t that broad view the essence of good biblical theology? I say that as one who doesn’t even hold to supersessionism myself. You don’t have to hold to every detail Wright gives to find the book superlative.

You can’t think of the mission of God without this book. There are several points I disagree with, yet I must rate this book as particularly important.

I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.