Preaching the Word Upgrade 2 (3 vols.)

Focused on the Old Testament book of Leviticus, this volume in the acclaimed Preaching the Word series explores how a holy God has made enduring provision for his people to live set-apart lives and worship him. It is the message that God spoke to his people through Moses as they prepared to depart for the Promised Land. It details regulations for holy living and sacrificial worship in Old Testament Israel. But does Leviticus have anything to say to Christians today?

Knowing that readers of the Bible often get hung up on the seeming irrelevance of Leviticus, Kenneth Mathews counters with this insightful Preaching the Word commentary. His chapter-by-chapter analysis reveals much about not only the demands of a holy God but about the kind of relationship he wants with his people and his standards for worship in any age. As Mathews illuminates the significance of Israel’s sacrificial system and symbols, he draws parallel after parallel to Jesus as their perfect fulfillment. His commentary will train pastors, teachers, and serious readers in how Leviticus foreshadows the saving work of Jesus, and the many ways God made accommodation for human sin through Christ.

The book of Ecclesiastes is "about life, the way it really is," writes commentator Philip Ryken. Readers throughout the ages have been drawn to the way it honestly wrestles with the tedium of work, injustices in this life, the ravages of age, and the inevitability of death. But its wisdom, according to Ryken, is in teaching people to trust God with life's questions even in the midst of struggles. Pastors, writers, speakers, and students will find this Preaching the Word commentary to be a helpful resource in their teaching and studies. Ryken explores what will happen if we choose the world's offerings instead of God's and teaches valuable lessons about what it means to have a God-centered worldview.

This is the twenty-sixth volume of the Preaching the Word series—noted for its clear exposition, readability, practical application, and unqualified commitment to biblical authority. Ryken's commentary will not only enrich any individual study of Ecclesiastes but will equip Christian leaders in communicating its universal application to a wide audience.

What kind of leaders should we follow? What kind of leaders should we be? And what does God have to do with it? These are some of the questions inherent in 1 Samuel, with its portrait of divine response to ancient Israel’s leadership crisis. That crisis was met through three men—Samuel, Saul, and David—in ways that forever changed the character of Israel’s leadership and clarified what God requires of his people and their leaders.

As John Woodhouse demonstrates, 1 Samuel’s biblical context provides serious reflection on our need for leadership and the failure of human leaders. But it also reveals God’s answer for Israel, which turns out to be his answer for the whole world and for each of us individually. This perceptive commentary not only illumines Old Testament history but brilliantly points to the New Testament promise that was fulfilled in Jesus, our sovereign leader and Savior.