Though we fear it, we must all face it. Though we hate it, we must all meet it. Though we dread it, we cannot avoid it. It is, of course, death. In this broken and battered world, death always looms over life, death always stands hauntingly in the distance.

Death is the subject of a new book by Guy Prentiss Waters. Facing the Last Enemy is meant to acquaint Christians with death so they might think about it rightly and face it courageously. “We all have questions about death,” he says. “’What is death? Why do we die? Why do we all die? Why is death so scary? Why did Christ die? Why do Christians have to die? How can I face the death of someone I love? How can I prepare for death? How can I help others prepare for death? What happens after death?’” To gain compelling, truthful, and reliable answers to such questions we must turn to the Bible, to God’s revelation of himself, for here we will learn how death entered the world, why we must all face it, and how it will itself someday die.
The book is divided into three roughly equal sections. In the first section Waters defines death. He explains what it is, where it came from, and what happens when we die (whether we are Christians or non-Christians). He explains why Christ had to die and why Christians still need to die, even though Christ died on our behalf. This is, essentially, a brief theology of death and one that provides a solid foundation for what follows. He is careful not to make death more intimidating than it needs to be for the Christian, but also not to romanticize it, saying “while death is not good in itself, for those who are in Christ, death will be for our good. For His people, Christ brings an end not to the experience of death but to the fear of death. … As we approach death, we need to see it through the spectacles of the finished work of Christ. The gospel tells us that Christ has conquered and subdued death. That is the only way that we can face death with hope or confidence.”
In the second section he writes about encountering death. He provides counsel on facing the deaths of other people, on helping those who are dying or grieving, and on preparing ourselves for the inevitable end of our lives. Here it is clear that he writes as both a theologian and a pastor, as someone who knows doctrinal truths but who has also had to apply them in the most tragic and heartbreaking of circumstances. He gets quite practical here, going so far as to encourage Christians to show love to others by considering their estate planning and even planning their own death and burial. But primarily, of course, he encourages Christians to prepare themselves spiritually to meet their Maker.
The final section looks beyond death to the resurrection, the final judgment, and heaven and hell. He shows how each of these truths ought to compel us to live worthy lives on this side of the grave. For example, “Our bodies are precious because Christ bought them with His own blood. We will inhabit our bodies forever, and they have a glorious destiny. Our bodies are prized in God’s sight. We should not neglect our bodies but care for them. We should not allow our bodies to participate in sin but should ‘present [ourselves] to God as those who have been brought from death to life’ (Rom. 6:13a). How does the way that you treat and use your body reflect the truth of the resurrection?”
Death is inevitable in this world. It is inevitable that we will need to endure the deaths of people we love and inevitable that we ourselves will die. For that reason alone we ought to familiarize ourselves with death—to know what it is, why it exists, how we can face it well, and how we can have great hope beyond it. This book is an excellent resource that will help accomplish all of that. It is rich in its teaching, compassionate in its tone, and saturated with Scripture. I highly recommend it (and the optional video teaching series that accompanies it).
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We are still in Unalaska. Yesterday’s flight was canceled due to volcanic ash in the air along the route. That’s a first for me!

If you have the free ONE Audiobooks app, you’ll be able to listen to Stephen McAlpine’s excellent Being the Bad Guys this month (for free).
Meanwhile Westminster Books has the new Dictionary of the New Testament Use of the Old Testament on sale this week. Do you need it? Probably not. Will it look amazing on your bookshelf? Definitely. (Also take a look at their Reformation Day sale.)
The Future of Manufactured Children
Carl Trueman considers the concerning future of manufactured children. “Krisiloff and his team are working on producing human embryos from genetic material that is not connected in origin to an egg or a sperm. Indeed, the article begins with a quotation from a Japanese biologist, Katsuhiko Hayashi, who believes that it will be possible to make human eggs from skin cells within a decade.”
Beginning to think about Generative AI
While Trueman is thinking about reproductive technology, T.M. Suffield is thinking about artificial intelligence. “As I write, Christianity Today have just published an article extolling the use of ChatGPT for Pastors in their preparation for preaching and Bible studies. It has gone viral for all of the wrong reasons.”
Book Offer: What Is Reformed Theology?
Many people today say theology doesn’t matter. But theology is the knowledge of God, and nothing could be more important in life. That’s why R.C. Sproul founded Ligonier Ministries: to make theology accessible for everyone. If you’ve never contacted Ligonier before, they’d love for you to request a free paperback copy of What Is Reformed Theology? by Dr. Sproul. (Sponsored Link)
Is My Dad One of the Characters Mentioned in Billy Joel’s “Piano Man”?
Shane Rosenthal goes in search of an answer to an unusual question.
Leadership in the Church: Managers, Midian, and Moses
Joe Holland: “For better or worse (probably worse), we do live in a managerial culture. This has a hammer-and-nail effect on pastoral leadership: when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. When you’re expected to be a manager, everything looks like…”
Total consistency is impossible – Jesus says so!
“I am quite big on consistency. I like to believe that I think both logically and consistently (no doubt other opinions on how I think are available). Consistency really does matter to me and I find it hard to settle when there are nagging points of inconsistency in my frame of understanding.” Yet what if total consistency isn’t possible?
Can We Limit God By Our Free Will?
Can we limit God by our free will? Many people say we can…
Flashback: Do You Have the Faith to be Faithful?
Fill yourself with the Word. Be a man or woman of the Word. Devote yourself to Scripture. As you do this, your faith will grow, and as your faith grows, so too will your faithfulness.

What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. —A.W. Tozer

There’s no doubt that, at least within Reformed churches, this is an age of expository preaching—of preaching sequentially through books of the Bible while always ensuring that the point of the text is the point of the sermon. Yet you do not need to look far into history to find that it was not always so and that in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries such preaching was rare. I was intrigued by Bob Fyall’s explanation of how expository preaching became not only accepted but expected. Because he writes from an English and Scottish perspective he focuses on that side of the Atlantic, but it does not take a lot of work to fill in the details for North America. (I share this excerpt from Why Are We Often So Boring? with the publisher’s permission.)

The Revival of Expository Preaching
A feature of the Reformation was a flood of expository sermons with the likes of Calvin, Luther and Melanchthon preaching systematically through biblical books as well as writing commentaries. That tradition was somewhat lost in succeeding centuries. Not that there was no faithful preaching, but that figures such as Charles Spurgeon tended to preach on texts rather than unfolding books and sections of the Bible in continuous exposition. We’ll return to this point later.
The English Scene
A significant figure here was the former doctor, Martyn Lloyd Jones, particularly in his ministry at Westminster Chapel, London from 1939 to 1969, having earlier ministered in Wales. He preached truly massive series on Romans and Ephesians which were a veritable feast of biblical truth, but such length prevented him giving many other expositions of biblical books, particularly from the Old Testament. This was not altogether a helpful model for those of lesser gifts in very different situations.
Also in London there was the hugely influential ministry of John Stott. His ministry at All Souls established expository preaching as the regular practice. Later he developed a worldwide ministry which has continuing influence. He worked closely with Billy Graham and took part in countless student missions. His style was lucid, and he had particular gifts of biblical analysis shown in his commentaries as well as his sermons. A further legacy is his editing of the New Testament Bible Speaks Today series (Alec Motyer edited the Old Testament series) which continue to be of particular help to preachers. Alec Motyer continued his preaching and writing to the great benefit of the Church until his death in his nineties. Both men contributed some of the volumes themselves, as well as much else.
The dispute between Lloyd Jones and Stott in 1966 over whether evangelicals should leave mainline denominations is well known. This is not the place for yet another account of that meeting, except to say that it is a thousand pities they were not able to work more closely together.
A further hugely influential development took place in 1961 when Dick Lucas was called to St Helen’s Bishopsgate in the City of London. He immediately set about establishing expository preaching, not only in the Sunday services but also in the Tuesday lunchtime services, attended by many from the business community. The church grew and became increasingly influential. The Proclamation Trust was founded in 1986 to support and develop Dick Lucas’ ministry.
An important development was the founding of the Cornhill Training Course in 1991. Even good theological colleges were not providing extensive training in preaching and something which placed the emphasis on biblical exposition was badly needed. David Jackman, coming from a fruitful expository ministry in Southampton, was appointed Director. The influence of Cornhill has extended to other countries (later we’ll look at Cornhill Scotland), and many have gone from such training to exercise helpful and flourishing ministries in many places.
Doubtless, other names and situations could be mentioned but there is no attempt to be comprehensive here but rather to indicate the growth and development of expository preaching and give credit where credit is due.
The Scottish Scene
Meanwhile, in Scotland, parallel developments were taking place. The pioneer there was William Still (1911-1997) who spent his whole ministry at Gilcomston South Church in Aberdeen. Beginning with an aggressively evangelistic ministry, he turned to expository preaching not only to build up believers but as a more effective way of winning outsiders. This, at first, especially when he replaced Saturday night rallies with a prayer meeting, led to reduced numbers but that was temporary, and the ministry grew both numerically and in its wider influence.
One significant outcome of his ministry was the calling of many men to similar kinds of ministry throughout Scotland. The earliest of these was James Philip (1922-2009) who ministered first in the village of Gardenstown in the north of Scotland, a ministry which was marked by many conversions, and of others being called to Christian service. His later ministry in Holyrood Abbey in Edinburgh was one of the most significant of the later part of the twentieth century and its influence is still felt. James’ brother George had an influential ministry in Sandyford Henderson Church in Glasgow. One of the more notable preachers was Eric Alexander, first in Newmilns in Ayrshire, then at St George’s Tron in Glasgow. His ministry also reached widely, particularly though his many preaching tours in America. Other gifted preachers also ministered in most parts of the country, and this continues to the present day. This historical sketch makes no claim to be complete but rather to demonstrate how there was a significant revival of preaching and to indicate some of the major figures and developments.
The Flourishing of Evangelical Scholarship
This was another feature of the post-World War Two years. Again this is a sketch of some significant figures and developments. The work of evangelical scholars gave important impetus to the production of resources which encouraged the expository task and helped to give preachers confidence in the reliability of the Bible.
The Pioneers
Probably the most significant figure was F.F. Bruce (1910-1990), a Scot who spent most of his professional life in England. He was a man of enormous erudition who began his career lecturing in Greek first at Edinburgh University and then at Leeds University. He moved quickly to Biblical Studies, being Head of Department first at Sheffield University and later at Manchester University. He produced many books: commentaries on much of the New Testament as well as works on the canon and on the historicity of the New Testament. He was not a particularly scintillating speaker or writer, but his work was marked by great clarity and was free from jargon. His influence was worldwide and encouraged many others to pursue sound biblical scholarship. He was a scholar rather than a preacher, but as a lifelong member of the Christian Brethren he preached frequently.
In the Old Testament field, Donald Wiseman (1918-2010) was a significant influence. He was an Assyriologist and worked both at the University of London and the British Museum. Much of his work was in translating Assyrian texts and also field archaeology. However, he was also a committed biblical scholar, writing the Tyndale commentary on 1 and 2 Kings, as well as being a translator of the New International Version. He also wrote many books and articles defending the historicity and reliability of the Old Testament, including work on Daniel. Like Bruce he was widely respected by those who did not share his views.
Later Developments
One important consequence of the revival of evangelical biblical scholarship was the founding of Tyndale House in Cambridge in 1944. This was, and is, a residential library devoted to scholarship at the highest level. Many well-known scholars have studied and lectured there, and this continues to the present day. Bruce and Wiseman were involved early in this venture and much helpful material continues to be produced there. One figure who has been particularly associated with Tyndale House is the scholar/preacher Don Carson who still exercises an influential ministry.
(TC: That is an interesting though obviously brief account of something we may now take for granted. On this side of the Atlantic we would need to consider names like James Montgomery Boice, John MacArthur, R.C. Sproul, John Piper and many others who practiced and modeled such preaching. I am thankful for these pioneers in expository preaching and for the scholars who have prepared the lay-level resources that make it possible for those of us with lesser gifts and training.)