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Grace & Truth: Theological Essays for the Edification of the Saints
This book of essays is designed to offer encouragement
on a wide variety of issues. Articles of simple devotion, textual exposition, and theological interest all sit together comfortably and present the reader with a wide variety of topics to challenge and encourage us in our walk with Christ.
The balance of these essays, it is hoped, will not only have something to offer every believer, but also to help every believer grow to gain a broader understanding of what it means to walk with Jesus Christ. The exacting theology hound must benefit from the simpler works of pure devotion. The person only interested in practical concerns will benefit from expanding their understanding to see the great importance of deeper consideration of the revelation of God’s word.
This is how Christians by listening to what other believers have learned and brought back to share. This is teaching. This is what this book of essays is about.
on a wide variety of issues. Articles of simple devotion, textual exposition, and theological interest all sit together comfortably and present the reader with a wide variety of topics to challenge and encourage us in our walk with Christ.
The balance of these essays, it is hoped, will not only have something to offer every believer, but also to help every believer grow to gain a broader understanding of what it means to walk with Jesus Christ. The exacting theology hound must benefit from the simpler works of pure devotion. The person only interested in practical concerns will benefit from expanding their understanding to see the great importance of deeper consideration of the revelation of God’s word.
This is how Christians by listening to what other believers have learned and brought back to share. This is teaching. This is what this book of essays is about.
258 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 12, 2024
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August 10, 2023
This is an interesting book to review for a couple of reasons. Bradley Maston and Dane Rogers present us with a book that is collection of essays for the edification of the saints. Or that is intended to help believers in Christ grow in their faith and walk with our Lord.
If what I have heard and what I think is right, Grace and Truth is the trial balloon for a new Free Grace Publisher which will go by the name – True Grace Books fitting that their first book is called Grace and Truth. Now I am assuming that their collection of contributors, starting with the editors Maston and Rogers but also including Jacob Heaton, Donald Thomas, Randy Peterman, J Morgan Arnold, Daniel Woodhead, and Ben Coleman – these will be the future authors writing books under the True Grace name.
So we get a sneak peak into a new publisher. But it is also interesting because I don’t know if I have seen a more diverse collection of topics in a single book before. There is a chapter on the temple from the tabernacle to the Millennial Kingdom. A chapter on Calvinism. A chapter on Abiding in Christ and a walk through Isaiah 53, so a little something for everyone. This is kind of like a Baptist Church potluck put into a book.
Which makes it almost impossible to review. But I’ll persevere and do my best because that’s what you came for. That or you just want to look at the books on my bookshelf behind me.
Welcome to Rev Reads, if you want to discover more books to help you in your Christian walk as we await the return of the Lord, please subscribe to the channel to stay up with the most current reviews. Like and share this video to help others know about what about True Grace books.
So I can’t really give an overall review of this because as I said it varied so, so much. Instead what I am going to do is let you know what my favorite chapters are and what to expect in those because I love ranking things. My wife says I have a problem.
And then end with a couple of pieces of advice for the True Grace guys moving forward based on reading Grace and Truth.
Here are my top 4 chapters. #4 is Joseph’s Tasks in Egypt by Donald Thomas. Very well written, compact, engaging, and I love how he structured it with his What can be gleaned? bullet points. It was a really great telling of Joseph’s story in a shockingly small amount of space for how good it was and I just loved what I was able to take out of it.
#3 was J Morgan Arnold’s Allies Unaware: A Comparison of Free Grace and Traditional Baptist Soteriology. This was great for me because I have some southern Baptists that I love. Dr. Steve Lemke of New Orleans Baptist Seminary reviews the occasional book with me and David Allen and Leighton Flowers have been supportive of the work I am doing at Rev Reads even coming on the channel a couple of times. So I like the leaders of the Traditional Baptist Soteriology, the Whosoever will guys.
And I found Arnold’s examination of their beliefs set next to Free Grace beliefs to be very helpful. I enjoyed reading through a well structed treatment on where we align and where we don’t.
His conclusion there are definite points of soteriological contention between Free Grace and Traditionalism. Thankfully, the doctrinal similarities outnumber the differences. It helps to show that we, that is those who are free grace, can reach out and work together on many issues while at the same time being honest and respectful that we have genuine differences when it comes to Lordship, Repentance, and Apostasy. Another important thing to remember is that they also have a wide range of views on those issues among themselves.
It was a good, open and honest call for friendly engagement but doing so without sacrificing what makes Free Grace, Free Grace. Really good chapter Arnold, I appreciated it immensely.
My second favorite chapter was generous living: generosity within the church by Randy Peterman. Really helpful and instructive chapter on giving. I am pretty sure I will let other borrow my copy of this book to others in the future just to have them read Peterman’s chapter on giving. It was biblical, well thought out and for those who struggle with tithing and giving to the poor vs giving to the church – he has so much helpful instruction that comes right from Scripture and does it in a way that is gracious and easy to understand.
This is easily the most applicable chapter in the whole book as it provides a really helpful instruction on questions we all wrestle with on topic of giving our finances. His section on Abram’s giving to Melchizedek in Genesis was especially helpful to show why we should not use it as a pattern for regular giving. Good stuff.
My favorite chapter was Dane Roger’s chapter Dominion: A Survey of the Mediatorial Kingdom – I loved Andy Wood’s much larger The Coming Kingdom and this was a great bite sized version by looking at this topic from a slightly different perspective. Looking at God’s Kingdom or Rule on the physical earth through man who was made to rule on earth. Dane provides us with a good coverage on the vocabulary used when talking about God’s Kingdom rule and then walk us through the Mediatoral Kingdom starting with Eden in the Old Testament and going all the way to the inauguration of the Millennial Kingdom at Christ’s return.
I have becoming more and more convinced over the last couple of years of the importance of rejecting a dualistic view of history where we spiritualize so much of the kingdom in the NT and view eternity as basically standing in heaven and singing unending choruses on the clouds. But to see the importance of the earthly nature of God’s Kingdom and Dane’s work just walks us through the Bible from beginning to end to drive home this reality.
One of my favorite lines in the book was his statement on the mystery nature of the church in relation to the Kingdom. The church is a mystery, not because it is a spiritual fulfillment of the kingdom, but because it had not been revealed in the Old Testament, making it impossible for it to be the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy.
There are my top 4 chapters. Not to say anything negative in the other, I just want to keep my reviews in a certain time range and with the nature of this book, it felt like this was my best option.
Here’s my advice for True Grace based on this book.
You need more stories. More narratives. The book is on edification and if we want to live it out, it so helpful to use illustrations and concrete applications. This book was very light on personal stories or biblical narratives and there were some places were the book was begging for a good story to help explain or bring the point home but it lacked them overall.
If True Grace wants to deliver grace that touches lives and changes lives, it would help to includes more narratives like Jesus and the prophets did in their teaching through parables and stories --- lets’s help bring the instruction home. The essays in this book could have provided a much deeper impact with 20-40 pages of stories spread throughout the chapters. So include more narratives in your edification in the future.
Second, don’t make many books like this with multiple authors. They have their place but instead major in whole books by Maston or Rogers or Arnold. By and large books by a single author are a better end product, more cohesive with less repetition.
Finally, be more focused on the purpose of your book. This book was interesting as it hit on such a wide variety of topics but the danger in going so broad is that you’ll end up appealing to none. I think you would have been better served with a book that was collection of instructional essays such as Calvinism, Dominion, and Traditional Soteriology. And then a second book was devotional or Christian walk writings that were each of equal length and about 30-60 days of encouragement. Be more target in your audience.
I know you wrote about your desire to introduce Christians to styles of writings they normally might ignore but you run the danger of people on both sides ignoring your book altogether.
I encourage all the viewers to give Grace and Truth a try. I think these True Grace guys are going to produce some excellent material to help the church and you should want to be there at the ground floor with some very helpful teaching for the saints.
You can watch my review on YouTube by searching for Rev Reads.
If what I have heard and what I think is right, Grace and Truth is the trial balloon for a new Free Grace Publisher which will go by the name – True Grace Books fitting that their first book is called Grace and Truth. Now I am assuming that their collection of contributors, starting with the editors Maston and Rogers but also including Jacob Heaton, Donald Thomas, Randy Peterman, J Morgan Arnold, Daniel Woodhead, and Ben Coleman – these will be the future authors writing books under the True Grace name.
So we get a sneak peak into a new publisher. But it is also interesting because I don’t know if I have seen a more diverse collection of topics in a single book before. There is a chapter on the temple from the tabernacle to the Millennial Kingdom. A chapter on Calvinism. A chapter on Abiding in Christ and a walk through Isaiah 53, so a little something for everyone. This is kind of like a Baptist Church potluck put into a book.
Which makes it almost impossible to review. But I’ll persevere and do my best because that’s what you came for. That or you just want to look at the books on my bookshelf behind me.
Welcome to Rev Reads, if you want to discover more books to help you in your Christian walk as we await the return of the Lord, please subscribe to the channel to stay up with the most current reviews. Like and share this video to help others know about what about True Grace books.
So I can’t really give an overall review of this because as I said it varied so, so much. Instead what I am going to do is let you know what my favorite chapters are and what to expect in those because I love ranking things. My wife says I have a problem.
And then end with a couple of pieces of advice for the True Grace guys moving forward based on reading Grace and Truth.
Here are my top 4 chapters. #4 is Joseph’s Tasks in Egypt by Donald Thomas. Very well written, compact, engaging, and I love how he structured it with his What can be gleaned? bullet points. It was a really great telling of Joseph’s story in a shockingly small amount of space for how good it was and I just loved what I was able to take out of it.
#3 was J Morgan Arnold’s Allies Unaware: A Comparison of Free Grace and Traditional Baptist Soteriology. This was great for me because I have some southern Baptists that I love. Dr. Steve Lemke of New Orleans Baptist Seminary reviews the occasional book with me and David Allen and Leighton Flowers have been supportive of the work I am doing at Rev Reads even coming on the channel a couple of times. So I like the leaders of the Traditional Baptist Soteriology, the Whosoever will guys.
And I found Arnold’s examination of their beliefs set next to Free Grace beliefs to be very helpful. I enjoyed reading through a well structed treatment on where we align and where we don’t.
His conclusion there are definite points of soteriological contention between Free Grace and Traditionalism. Thankfully, the doctrinal similarities outnumber the differences. It helps to show that we, that is those who are free grace, can reach out and work together on many issues while at the same time being honest and respectful that we have genuine differences when it comes to Lordship, Repentance, and Apostasy. Another important thing to remember is that they also have a wide range of views on those issues among themselves.
It was a good, open and honest call for friendly engagement but doing so without sacrificing what makes Free Grace, Free Grace. Really good chapter Arnold, I appreciated it immensely.
My second favorite chapter was generous living: generosity within the church by Randy Peterman. Really helpful and instructive chapter on giving. I am pretty sure I will let other borrow my copy of this book to others in the future just to have them read Peterman’s chapter on giving. It was biblical, well thought out and for those who struggle with tithing and giving to the poor vs giving to the church – he has so much helpful instruction that comes right from Scripture and does it in a way that is gracious and easy to understand.
This is easily the most applicable chapter in the whole book as it provides a really helpful instruction on questions we all wrestle with on topic of giving our finances. His section on Abram’s giving to Melchizedek in Genesis was especially helpful to show why we should not use it as a pattern for regular giving. Good stuff.
My favorite chapter was Dane Roger’s chapter Dominion: A Survey of the Mediatorial Kingdom – I loved Andy Wood’s much larger The Coming Kingdom and this was a great bite sized version by looking at this topic from a slightly different perspective. Looking at God’s Kingdom or Rule on the physical earth through man who was made to rule on earth. Dane provides us with a good coverage on the vocabulary used when talking about God’s Kingdom rule and then walk us through the Mediatoral Kingdom starting with Eden in the Old Testament and going all the way to the inauguration of the Millennial Kingdom at Christ’s return.
I have becoming more and more convinced over the last couple of years of the importance of rejecting a dualistic view of history where we spiritualize so much of the kingdom in the NT and view eternity as basically standing in heaven and singing unending choruses on the clouds. But to see the importance of the earthly nature of God’s Kingdom and Dane’s work just walks us through the Bible from beginning to end to drive home this reality.
One of my favorite lines in the book was his statement on the mystery nature of the church in relation to the Kingdom. The church is a mystery, not because it is a spiritual fulfillment of the kingdom, but because it had not been revealed in the Old Testament, making it impossible for it to be the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy.
There are my top 4 chapters. Not to say anything negative in the other, I just want to keep my reviews in a certain time range and with the nature of this book, it felt like this was my best option.
Here’s my advice for True Grace based on this book.
You need more stories. More narratives. The book is on edification and if we want to live it out, it so helpful to use illustrations and concrete applications. This book was very light on personal stories or biblical narratives and there were some places were the book was begging for a good story to help explain or bring the point home but it lacked them overall.
If True Grace wants to deliver grace that touches lives and changes lives, it would help to includes more narratives like Jesus and the prophets did in their teaching through parables and stories --- lets’s help bring the instruction home. The essays in this book could have provided a much deeper impact with 20-40 pages of stories spread throughout the chapters. So include more narratives in your edification in the future.
Second, don’t make many books like this with multiple authors. They have their place but instead major in whole books by Maston or Rogers or Arnold. By and large books by a single author are a better end product, more cohesive with less repetition.
Finally, be more focused on the purpose of your book. This book was interesting as it hit on such a wide variety of topics but the danger in going so broad is that you’ll end up appealing to none. I think you would have been better served with a book that was collection of instructional essays such as Calvinism, Dominion, and Traditional Soteriology. And then a second book was devotional or Christian walk writings that were each of equal length and about 30-60 days of encouragement. Be more target in your audience.
I know you wrote about your desire to introduce Christians to styles of writings they normally might ignore but you run the danger of people on both sides ignoring your book altogether.
I encourage all the viewers to give Grace and Truth a try. I think these True Grace guys are going to produce some excellent material to help the church and you should want to be there at the ground floor with some very helpful teaching for the saints.
You can watch my review on YouTube by searching for Rev Reads.
July 31, 2023
Love it
This is a wonderful collection of authors that I love and admire. I recommend it to anyone who wants to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.
This is a wonderful collection of authors that I love and admire. I recommend it to anyone who wants to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews