A gospel primer for Christians

Preaching to ourselves

A GOSPEL PRIMER FOR CHRISTIANS
Learning to See the Glories of God’s Love
By Milton Vincent
Focus Publishing. 98 pages.
ISBN 978-1-885904-67-6

This book was written as ‘a handy guide to help Christians experience the gospel more fully by preaching it to themselves every day’. The author continues: ‘Over the course of time, preaching the gospel to myself every day has made more of a difference in my life than any other discipline I have practised’.

In this small book there are four chapters, or parts, divided into small sections of a paragraph or two, commencing with ‘Reasons to Rehearse the Gospel Daily’ to ‘A Gospel Narrative’ (two sections of Prose Version and Poetic Version) to ‘Surprised by the Gospel’. Each paragraph is biblically based with the Bible quotations (from New American Standard/Amplified Bible/NKJV) being given in full as a footer on each page.

The entire gospel is dealt with in useful sections that can be read and meditated upon throughout the day. The second chapter clearly covers The Glory of God, My Sin Against God, God Works on My Behalf, and My Salvation, and all points are listed numerically. For any Christian wishing to have an overview of what God has done for him in salvation, this chapter would certainly help and lead to a glorifying of God.

This book is published in America and, personally, I think the dull cover would put the average Christian off picking the book up. Certainly the second part was helpful to me, but I find the gospel in poetry not to my taste. In other places I could not entirely get on with the author’s ‘Americanism’!

It is good to be reminded of the glories of the gospel and of God’s love to us but I am not sure whether this would be a long-term book for one’s bookshelf.

Wendy Sheehan,
Welwyn Evangelical Church, Hertfordshire

© Evangelicals Now - February 2009
Please consider supporting this ministry by subscribing.

• Request Free Sample

Main Articles

• Training: who pays?
• The Commentary
  Back to Bongo Bongo land?
• Arthur Stone, 1924-2008
  Obituary
• Faith in action
  Interview with Philippa Stroud
• Pastor Cool
• What you missed in church
  A report to an absent friend
• Carbon-free Christianity?
  A response to Paul Helm's article on climate change
• No conflict
  Why Melvin Tinker thinks evangelicals can differ over their approach to creation
• The semantics of inerrancy
• Monthly arts and media column
  Can a non-Christian lead a church?
• Letter from America
  When everyone does as they see fit
• Monthly youth leaders column
  Beyond the fringe
• The Music Exchange
  Best practice in rehearsals
• The Third Degree
  New year, same gospel
• Darwin's 'Black Box'
  Some more questions for Darwin in thi aniversary year
• When your partner isn't a Christian

Other articles

• Such a great salvation - The collected essays of Alan Stibbs
• Together for the Gospel Live
• Australia
• Finally alive - An extract from a new book by John Piper
• Simplest diet ever
• The shack
• A gospel primer for Christians
• Fearless pilgrim - The life and times of John Bunyan
• Building bigger people - Success is more than numbers
• Love rules - The Ten Commandments for the 21st century
• Christ walks where evil reigned - Responding to the Rwanda genocide
• Quitting church
• Becoming a contagious church
• Great revivalists - 1700 to the present day
• Praying through the Scriptures
• You can change
• From guru to God - An experience of the ultimate truth
• Environment
• Did I hear the voice of God?
• A friendly dialogue between an atheist and a Christian
• Love one another - Becoming the church Jesus longs for
• The Baptists - Volume Three, The Modern Era
• The Prodigal God
• Metavista