Review of Echoes of Exodus: Tracing Themes of Redemption through Scripture

                                                          by
Alastair Roberts and Andrew Wilson                                                                                                                        Crossway, 2018

This is a fine and helpful book on several fronts. First, the authors offer a lucid and compelling model of scripture as a musical composition. Going into a fair amount of detail (which helped this author to understand because I am musically illiterate), a rich and textured approach to the Bible emerges from their exposition. This model is especially helpful in that handles both the unity of the biblical story and the many different ways that story is told that both unify and at times offer discordant or alternative points of view on aspects of the story.

The bulk of the book traces the Exodus theme, the major biblical symbol of redemption through the length and breadth of scripture. I believe the pattern of Exodus to Exile is a macro structuring device that determines the shape of the larger story as well as many of its parts. Roberts and Wilson are judicious in their selection of material in this section so that even if here or there one is not convinced by their explanation, I suspect that most of their explanations here will carry conviction. And offer much grist for a preacher or counselor to make use of in their respective work.

A final virtue particularly important to me was the Coda. In this final reflection of the book the authors frame living and echoing the exodus in our lives in terms of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. I have maintained for a number of years now a vision of Christian existence in terms of “Living Between the Font and the Table.” I found much material in the exposition to support such a view and for that I am particularly grateful.


In touch with the relevant scholarship but with a light touch, Echoes of Exodus would serve well for individual or group study for almost any level of bible reader.  Bravo!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Parable of the Talents – A View from the Other Side

Spikenard Sunday/Palm Sunday by Kurt Vonnegut

Am I A Conservative?