Salvation Belongs to the Lord

I've finished reading John Frame's Salvation Belongs to the Lord. On some levels it wasn't a book that caused a paradigm-shift in my thinking, but it is very, very good at what it does - summarising and explaining Reformed doctrine clearly and insightfully. It's biblical, it's refreshing, it's always applied, and it's irenic and generous on secondary matters. I enclose below the review I wrote for our church bulletin (coming soon, St Helen's people), because, well, it's easier than reproducing my thoughts on why it is a useful book (and why you should read it).

The words, ‘An Introduction to Systematic Theology’, the subtitle to this book by John Frame, I suspect are enough most of the time to cause casual browsers at the Book Stall to hurriedly replace it on the shelf as if it were a hot coal. Let’s face it, when we are at the bookstall, most of us are searching for slim, practical books like ‘How to have the right answers at RML without having read the passage beforehand’ and ‘101 Evangelistic Techniques: Pain-free, Success guaranteed’. Systematic and theology are two words that warn us loud and clear: ‘Danger! Boring! Effort required!’

OK, that may be a caricature. But perhaps it is worth asking ourselves the question, as a colleague put it to me the other day, ‘how much are we seeking to love God with our minds?’ We want spiritual growth, we want to understand our God better, that we might love him and serve him better – but how much mental effort are we willing to put into that endeavour?

Salvation Belongs to the Lord is up front in the introduction about its aim to ‘challenge you to think hard...to ask tough questions… and to dig deeply into the Word of God’ – and this it certainly achieves. The book goes through many of the major topics that Christians have wrestled with over the centuries: Who God is and What he Does, The Word of God, Sin and Evil, The Person of Jesus, The Church, Heaven and Hell, Justification, and even What is Theology? Despite that being a lot to cover in a small space, Frame manages to explain clearly the key terms that have been used in discussing each doctrine, and extremely clearly and helpfully spell out what the Bible has to say about them.

One of the most helpful things about John Frame’s writings is that he himself is convinced that we have not really understood Scripture until we have applied it – understanding the Word is applying it to situations. Consequently he is concerned to stimulate us as readers to think carefully about the way the truths we are learning apply to our churches and our lives. This kind of knowledge, argues Frame, is not simply a bonus thing to the Christian life. Knowing our God better through his Word is a huge part of our duty as his people, and to fail to engage in this endeavour, to love God with our minds, is to fail to honour him as we ought.

In fact, as it says in the summary, God wants his Word to be ‘so intimately fixed in our inmost being that God’s desires are our desires, that his commands are our wishes, that we deeply want to be what he wants us to be.’ Not only does Salvation Belongs to the Lord teach a great deal of challenging, applied Biblical truth, but it is a tantalising glimpse into a deeper, richer ocean of thinking and meditating on God’s Word. Pick up a copy, take up the challenge – you just might be tempted to take the plunge.