Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 156:624 (Oct 1999)
Article: Book Reviews
Author: Anonymous

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BSac 156:624 (Oct 99) p. 492

Book Reviews

By the Faculty of Dallas Theological Seminary

God. By J. Carl Laney. Swindoll Leadership Library. Nashville: Word Publishing, 1999. 300 pp. $24.99.

In this practical and intensely biblical book on the doctrine of God, Laney, professor of biblical literature at Western Seminary, Portland, Oregon, seeks to help readers recognize that though God is profound in His nature and ways, people can know Him. He discusses God’s attributes under the two categories of “The Greatness of God” and “The Goodness of God.”

In some sections of the book the author discusses his subject from the perspective of biblical theology (e.g., “What the Pentateuch Teaches about God”), while in most of the work he discusses the subject from the vantage point of systematic theology. This makes a good combination.

The book is easy to read and well documented. Several chapters will be of great help to those seeking to know God better. These include “Being a Friend of God,” “Believing in God,” “Responding to God,” “Dealing with Your Doubts,” “Knowing the Will of God,” and “Communicating with God.” Laney also includes a very helpful chapter in which he answers tough questions about God, and another helpful chapter on God and the presence of evil. All Christian workers will find this book a helpful tool as they seek to serve God and to know Him better.

Robert P. Lightner

The Church: The Body of Christ in the World of Today. By Ed Hayes. Swindoll Leadership Library. Nashville: Word Publishing, 1999. 311 pp. $24.99.

At the foundation of his discussion of the church, as the subtitle of the volume states, Hayes, president emeritus of Denver Seminary, presents the church as the “body of Christ,” of which He is the organic, directing, living, spiritual Head. This truth Hayes develops particularly in chapter 3. It is also a “community of the redeemed” or, as Swindoll states in his foreword, “a family; in fact. .. a family of families” (p. x). This truth is developed in chapter 1.

In an introduction and thirteen chapters Hayes examines the church as a spiritual entity and its organizational expression in local congregations as well as worldwide. This is done historically (chap. 2) and contemporaneously. In the latter discussion Hayes confronts and

BSac 156:624 (Oct 99) p. 493

deals with the problems of the contemporary church in relation to the Bible (chap. 4), the Holy Spirit (chap. 5), worship (chap. 8), ministry (chap. 7), the gospel (chap. 9), and the world (chap. 10). He also discusses the church and suffering (chap. 11), the c...

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