Book Recommendation: Raiding the Lost Ark

by Liam Goligher January 15, 2014

Italicized below is a description of a new book Raiding the Lost Ark by Jonty Rhodes. Liam Goligher was asked by the publisher for a recommendation, and it's his recomendation that follows the italicized description.

The Bible is a story; the gospel is a message. But how does one lead to the other? Raiding the Lost Ark [by Jonty Rhodes] shows how covenants hold the key, and demonstrates how the gospel of salvation by grace alone grows naturally out of the story God tells. At the centre of Israel's worship was the tabernacle. At the centre of the tabernacle was a box: the Ark of the Covenant. Within the box was a covenant.  Covenant dominates the Bible's story from start to finish, shaping the gospel, the church and the day-to-day experience of God's people.  But for many of us, covenant is a lost concept. Raiding the Lost Ark seeks to recover the great news of Jesus Christ as Covenant King, demonstrating the natural flow from the story God tells to the gospel of grace. Along the way, it addresses hot topics, such as baptism in the Spirit, predestination and water baptism, showing how they all fit together in one covenant story to bring God's people into fullness of life under the Covenant King.

"With all sorts of proposals about the 'big idea' of Scripture floating about, Jonty Rhodes does us the favour of pointing to the Bible's own answer to that question. He carefully demonstrates that at the heart of God's revelation of himself to humanity is a well-defined relationship which is given a name in Scripture: covenant relationship. The idea of the covenant shapes the whole of Scripture from the garden to the upper room, and it points us to the significance of the two main characters in the human story – Adam, the first, who was a covenant breaker and Adam, the last (Christ), who was the covenant keeper. Born under the curse brought on us by the disobedience of the former, we are freed from the curse by the obedience of the latter. Jonty's work is clear-headed and heart-warming, satisfyingly biblical and Christ-exalting. I warmly commend it."—Liam Goligher, Senior Minister, Tenth Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia

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