Review of Matt Chandler, "The Explicit Gospel"

On the Credo Blog, Dave Jenkins reviews Matt Chandler's The Explicit Gospel. He writes:

Pastor Chandler ministers in an area of the country where many people understand Christianity as a cultural identity but do not know the gospel explicitly. He writes that in ministering to twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings, “the gospel had been merely assumed, not taught or proclaimed as central, and hadn’t been explicit” (13). The gospel on the ground, helps one see “clearly the work of the cross in our lives and the lives of those around us, capturing and resurrecting of dead hearts; we see the gospel extended in this way when Jesus and his prophets call individuals to repent and believe” (16). The gospel on the ground is at the micro level while the gospel in the air is the story. In the gospel in the air we “find a tour de force story of creation, fall, reconciliation, consummation—a grand display in his overarching purpose of subjecting all things to the supremacy of Christ” (16).

Chandler, like any good pastor, warns his readers of becoming to individualistic and syncretic by calling Christians to know the gospel explicitly and to unite the church on the amazing grounds of the good news of Jesus Christ. This book is one of the finest and fullest treatments on the gospel that I have ever read. While dozens of books make the New York Times best-sellers list every year, I sincerely pray that this book will make that list, because it will shock and offend people with the truth, but always lead them back to the fount of all blessing in Jesus Christ by revealing to its readers the glory of God and the beauty of Jesus.

Read the rest here.

But the book on-sale here.

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