Ruth - A Tale of Love and Redemption by John Williams; published by and available from John Ritchie Ltd; 83 pages. Price £8.99. (9781910513149)
Among the shorter books of the Bible, there are few that appeal to all generations as does the book of Ruth. It is a reminder to us of the sovereignty of God as it affects individuals of all ages. In the book, death, famine and sickness visit two generations of a family. From the beginning of the book, two strong women emerge as the likely heroines of the story, who will compete for precedence, but not in the book of Ruth. They emerge together from the range of problems that visited them, and from those that were the results of their own decisions, to be of mutual support to each other. Out of such a background, unexpectedly, God works to do more than they could have expected: the land they had lost, as a result of the famine, is redeemed; and the child that born into the family of Boaz the Redeemer and Ruth the foreigner is identified as one in Messiah's lineage.
John Williams' brief 83-page work on the book of Ruth is a readable introduction to any who have not yet studied this fascinating book. It is structured to assist the new reader of Ruth, irrespective of the reader's age. Ruth – A Tale of Love and Redemption comprises ten chapters and four appendices. Accompanying each of the four chapters dealing with the four chapters in the book of Ruth is a Question Page. Some of the questions are quite searching; indeed they may require the reader to seek guidance from someone with an in-depth knowledge of the book of Ruth and its context.
Like the book on which the author has written, Ruth – A Tale of Love and Redemption will appeal to all ages. In particular, those teaching Bible Classes will find help from the author's outline of Ruth. Others will value the four character studies of Elimelech, Naomi, Ruth and Boaz in Chapter 10.
TW
Sanctify Them Through Thy Truth by Mark Sweetnam; published by and available from John Ritchie Ltd; price £6.99. (9781907731730)
The Publisher commends this 119-page work in a brief paragraph, one sentence of which aptly summarises its content: "This book tells the fascinating story of how the Scriptures were inspired, preserved and transmitted". Within its twenty-four chapters, the author deals with inspiration, preservation and transmission but also with other important issues that are not always addressed in published materials about the Bible.
Among those matters not always addressed is the canon of Scripture. The word canon, as the author notes, comes into our language from the Greek word for a measuring rod. In a rather technical sense, it is used for the Scriptures as "the rule of faith and of practice." The canon is the list of Books in the two Testaments reckoned as Holy Scripture. The author traces the role of men and councils like the Council of Carthage and rightly concludes that they did not create "the Bible from scratch … [but] were … giving their seal of approval, to books that Christians had long recognised as Scripture". That the attacks of Marcion and his followers failed to undermine the canon of Scripture that Christians recognised, is an evidence of the preserving hand of God.
A valuable historical line runs through Sanctify Them Through Thy Truth. That line runs from Old Testament times to beyond the apostolic era. Key figures like Luther and Calvin, William Tyndale, and James Sixth of Scotland and First of England are encountered, as well as notable leaders of revival like the Wesleys and George Whitefield. Noted too are J N Darby and those who met in Dublin in the 1820s exercised to recover and practise truth that had been neglected for centuries. In all cases, their understanding of the nature and authority of Scripture shaped their thinking.
Sanctify Them Through Thy Truth sets out in concise terms a range of issues with relevance to more than those interested in the chequered careers of defenders of the Bible in past centuries. Many in our day attempt to set aside as irrelevant much of the Bible, while others – the Montanuses of today - seek to place their private "revelations" on the same level as Holy Scripture. Christians of all ages will find helpful Sanctify Them Through Thy Truth. TW