Resources

For Your Library

Conversion, E. Stanley Jones, Abingdon Press, Nash­ville, Tennessee, 253 pages, $3.25.

The author, always a vivid speaker and writer, is not here concerned with the theological back­ground of conversion or with Biblical proof texts. He deals wholly with the experiential, which to him is the imperative thing if life is not to end in shipwreck.

Seldom is a book so packed with apt and power­ful anecdotes. In many places the author strings his paragraphs together, each with a grippingly new experience. He swings with skilled touch from India to Japan to China, from place to place in the New World. Then we meet the electrifying transformation of conversion in the high, the low, in rulers, statesmen, scientists, philosophers, stu­dents, soldiers, beggars. Some are positively astound­ing, and preachers will use many of these incidents to illustrate their own ideas and sermons.

This book is easy to read. More references for outstanding statements and an index would have been preferable, but the absence of these will not worry the preacher who is searching for ideas and illustrative material, which are here in abundance.

H. W. Lowe

Great Women of the Christian Faith, Edith Deen, Harper and Brothers, New York, 1959, 428 pages.

Edith Deen, author of All the Women of the Bible, has presented within the covers of the above book a regiment of Christian women who have bent their talents and their energies to the task of bringing to their fellow men some deeper knowl­edge of God's love.

With accurate yet sympathetic strokes she has painted quick biographies of 123 women whose lives have molded the course of mankind to lesser or greater extent. Her honor roll reaches back to the second century after Christ and continues through to the twentieth century, including in its number the name of Ellen G. White.

Of Mrs. White the author writes: "Penniless but filled with faith, Ellen G. White helped to found the Seventh-day Adventist Church, which has established itself in 185 of the world's 205 coun­tries. . . . For her public ministry, her personal labor for souls and her solicitous care of the church, Ellen White has become one of its best-loved figures." Seven pages fill out a portrait of this Ad­ventist pioneer that is complimentary both to her and to her church.

Edith Deen has placed her women extraordinaire in six categories: (T) Women of the Early Cen­turies; (2) Women of the Middle Centuries; (3) Women of a Time of Awakening; (4) Women Who Pioneered; (5) Women Who Built; and (6) Women Who Advanced.

Vibia Perpetua, an early Christian martyr of about 181-203, holds the lead position in the book. 'Her blood became the seed of the church," the author writes. "Vibia Perpetua was in her early twenties when, singing a psalm, she went forth with joyful, radiant countenance to a martyr's death." How she lived and how she died for Christ is a story that grips the reader from the opening sentence onward.

Catherine Booth, Mary Moffatt Livingstone, Ann Judson, Elizabeth Fry, Susanna Wesley, Anne Hutch­inson, Margaret Fell Fox, Katherine Von Bora— these are only a few of the people whose lives move briefly across the pages of Great Women of the Christian Faith.

Miss Deen and Harpers have done an outstanding job of gathering facts about these outstanding people and presenting them in a manner that both thrills and inspires the reader to raise his sights above the things of mere earthly value.

M. Carol Hetzell

Try Giving Yourself Away, David Dunn, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, revised and enlarged edition 1959, 128 pages, $2.95.

More than twenty years ago David Dunn wrote an article with the above title for Forbes magazine, which was reprinted in condensed form in the Reader's Digest in 1945 and reprinted again by request in August, 1959. Between those years this article was expanded into the present book, which presents a philosophy and workable suggestions for happiness for oneself through enrichment of the lives of others. Not by monetary means, but through "little sparks of appreciation," obeying "warm­hearted impulses," "citizenship giving," "the invest­ment of influences," "the second thanks," "the habit of noticing," the giving of tolerance and loyalty to friends, et cetera.

Pastors would do well to have copies of this book in their church libraries, recommending it for missionary workers in visitation, Share Your Faith, and Dorcas Welfare contacts. Many of the illus­trations portray true Christianity in action even though it is not written as a religious book.

A few excerpts from the book presented to the congregation may lead those who are completely wrapped up in themselves to find pleasure in the cultivation of kindliness, considerateness, thought-fulness, tolerance, and good nature.

The pastoral family will gain many valuable ideas for good neighborliness in community and city by reading this book. Bertha W. Fearing

The Cross-Reference Bible, edited by Harold E. Monser, Baker Book House, Grand Rapids 6, Michigan, 1959, $14.95.

After carefully examining The Cross-Reference Bible we agree with the publisher that "this is one of the most complete analyses of the Bible ever produced in a single volume. It was prepared with just one thought in mind: What does the Bible teach?"

Originally printed in the year 1910, Baker Book House has produced a 1959 reprint of excellent craftsmanship. Since this work is highly recom­mended by ministers and teachers who for several decades have become conversant with its well-organ­ized sections and student features, we merely draw attention to its main helps:

1. A footnote arrangement of the entire teaching of the Bible on practically all the important sub­jects.

2. Marginal references, which guide the user to the page on which is found a complete analysis of other subjects of significance.

3. Variorum readings, which are helpful to an understanding of words, phrases, or entire verses of Scripture.

4. An analytical outline of each book of the Bible.

5. A cumulative index to the hundreds of sub­jects analyzed within its pages.

The text is that of the American Standard Ver­sion of the Bible. Cooperating in the preparation of this tremendous work we find listed some of the outstanding Bible students of the century. The needs of the pastor in the preparation of sermons, and those of the average Bible student as well as the layman, are here met in a satisfactory way. The size of the volume is 6 by 9.25 inches. College librarians, please take notice. l. c. k.

History of the Jewish Nation, Alfred Edersheim, Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1954 reprint, 553 pages, $4.20.

The author is a well-recognized authority on the history of the Jewish nation, and here covers the period after the destruction of Jerusalem under Titus. This book is worthy of an honored place on the reference shelf and as a textbook. Alfred Eder-sheim's conversion to Christianity from Judaism helped him to see the history of his own race in proper perspective. His presentation of fact and his lucidity in expression make this work valuable and most interesting reading. If sheds light on the Gos­pels and the book of Acts, and on subsequent church history. The author describes the state of society, of trade and commerce, agriculture, arts, sciences, and theology during the first years of the Chris­tian Era.

Teachers of poetry, music, and science will want to become well acquainted with Edersheim, and every minister and Bible instructor should- be con­versant with this historian. The book is included in the Baker Book House Co-operative Reprint Li­brary, which is designed to save you money.

The Miracles and Parables of the Old Testament. by "A London Minister," Baker Book House, Grand Rapids 6, Michigan, 1959 reprint, 427 pages, $3.95.

"This book abounds in seed for sermons." The publishers' catchy statement is not overdrawn, for a perusal of the book immediately satisfies the reader that it has value. Supplementary material from sermon masters of the past include illuminat­ing selections from Matthew Henry, Charles Sim­eon, Krummacher, Lange, Erskine, Fatrbairn, John Owen, Bishop Hall, and many others. We were surprised to count more than a hundred mira­cles and parables of the Old Testament, and in the main these are given a sound spiritual interpreta­tion.

The preface suggests that before this work appeared in 1890, according to the best authorities no book had ever been published on the miracles and parables of the Old Testament "answering to the large number of works on those of the New Testament," The foregoing is an interesting state­ment in the light of the fact that it was made to­ward the close of the nineteenth century. For the studious minister these homiletic sermon outlines will do more than "prime the pump." (Overseas workers kindly take notice.) l. c. k.

All the Men of the Bible, Herbert Lockyer, Zonder-van Publishing House, Grand Rapids 6, Michi­gan, 1958, 381 pages, $4.95.

Nowhere in the world do we have a more superb portrait gallery of human nature than in the Bible. What a mixture of personalities from all walks of life are there—"Kings and knaves, princes and paupers, the tenderhearted and the traitorous, saints and sinners, the courageous and the cowardly." God in His wisdom has allowed inspiration to re­veal, like a clear mirror, the sacred record of hu­man character.

All the Men of the Bible is a unique source book and reference library of more than three thousand Bible characters. This volume is a cyclopedic work packed with sermonic material. Some of the attrac­tive, thought-provoking titles used for the headings of the various Bible characters will suggest intrigu­ing sermon subject titles. This work reveals careful research. It will be of practical value to ministers who need interesting information concerning Bible characters at their finger tips, a. c. f.


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February 1960

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More Articles In This Issue

"What Hath God Wrought!"

In soliciting this article we felt that many of our workers would be helped if they understood more clearly the method of our denominational finance.

The Development of a Dynamic Fundamentalism

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The Bible Without Comment

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A religious movement, regardless of the ur­gency of its message, has to live in a world where there are other religions. Protestant de­nominations as well as Catholicism are here to stay, and all of them cherish their particular denominational emphasis. But the inevitable clash of ideologists has contributed to the con­fusion in the thinking of the masses.

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WHEN did Christ begin His priestly ministry? Did He enter it before His ascension to heaven?

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An Introduction to Paul's Teaching on the Holy Spirit (concluded)

AS A Christian - Christ's child - I may have an essential, vital relation with the Holy Spirit. I must be fully cognizant of that relation in spiritual matters in order that He may control me in a sanctified life.

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