I just finished this book yesterday. This is certainly not some high academic, grit-your-teeth-through-it book. It is written at the average person’s level, very easy to read (I read it in three days without much dedication), and very enjoyable.
The book is about evangelism, but more so, as Mark Dever says in the book’s foreward, “Mack puts the evangel [the Gospel] back in evangelism.” In other words, the main thrust of the book is not directly the idea of sharing the Gospel but understanding the Gospel and then seeing how a precise understanding of the Gospel affects the way you share it. It is an excellent book and the truths within it are surely something, as Christians, we all need to hear and be reminded of constantly. If we think we know the Gospel, we don’t know ourselves. We are inclined to forget the Gospel, neglect the Gospel, de-emphasize the Gospel, add to the Gospel (which in reality subtracts from the Gospel), distort the Gospel, tone down the Gospel, etc. We need reminders such as this.
Here is an excerpt from the last chapter of the book. I believe this portion summarize the main themes rather well.
This is a paper I wrote as a requirement for a class on Isaiah I took my senior year (Fall semester) at Maranatha Baptist Bible College. The introduction to the paper is as follows:
If you were to survey a wide variety of Christians as two which Bible translation they used or which translation they preferred, I am convinced the high majority of the answers you would get would be limited to the King James Version (KJV; also known as the Authorized Version, AV), the New King James Version (NKJV), the NIV (New International Version), the ESV (English Standard Version), the NASB (New American Standard Bible), the New Living Translation (NLT), or even possible the Revised Standard Bible (RSV) or the Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB). But one translation that has seemed to slip through the cracks is the American Standard Version (ASV). Interestingly enough, the ASV is actually the basis of three rather well known translations–the RSV (1971), Amplified Bible (1965), and the NASB (1995).
This is a video of what I am assuming is an excerpt from a sermon by John Piper. In this excerpt Piper explains in very understandable language what is in many senses the essential difference between limited atonement (the Calvinistic view) and unlimited/universal atonement (the Arminian view)–two dominant views on the extent of the atonement. He clarifies what, in my opinion, are rather inappropriate terms (limited, unlimited, universal, etc.).
Kirk E. Miller 