Review of Gospel Formed by J.A. Medders

Gospel Formed, by J.A. Medders, has become one of the most difficult books that I have reviewed. The difficulty, I am convinced, has more to do with my own journey and less to do with the book itself. But I believe an exploration of my difficult in reviewing actually will help provide a basis for the review itself.

My first difficulty is that I am utterly sick of books with the word “gospel” somewhere in the title. As I’ve noted previously, “We are becoming proficient at telling people gospel but not showing people gospel…What I mean is that we insert the word gospel here and there rather than showing the gospel.”

This makes reviewing a book entitled Gospel Formed difficult. I know that my own boredom with this genre will have an impact on the way that I read and review the book. And it is not fair to the author to give bad marks on his book just because he happened to write it later than other “Gospel” books.

And honestly this book does not deserve a bad review. If judged entirely on its own apart from any sort of gospel-speak movement the book is quite helpful.

In fact, I believe the author himself is a tad bored with the gospely drivel coming out of many of our publishing houses. He says this much when he notes his aim is to “not merely enjoy a parade of gospel-centered jargon” (13). And again when he says, “Pharisees can yack away with hyphenated gospel-talk, but we are after the spirit and truth of gospel-centeredness: worship.” (26)

So to review this book as if it falls in line with all of the other gospely gobbledygook would be a great disservice. But that leads me to my second problem. I know how to write a review as a gospel-centered sycophant and care little about doing that. And so I fear by giving high praise to this book with Gospel in its title I’ll be guilty of pimping known commodities—something I swore off awhile back.

Nonetheless, I will suggest this book as one worthy of your reading.

My Honest And Brief Review

With all of those difficulties before me I offer you an honest and brief review of the book.

If you read this book as J.A. Medders has intended I am convinced that it will help you to worship Jesus more. He writes in a fun and engaging way. Read on devotional per day and chew on the passages of Scripture like the author suggests. There are nuggets in here that will benefit you greatly.

There are a few occasions in which I believe the author edges towards a type of gospel-speak sanctification* but for the most part I believe this is the type of book that gospel-centered literature needs to resemble. He is not just telling us the gospel he is showing us the gospel. And for that reason I deeply appreciate the work put into this book.

So I would whole-heartedly recommend this book as a devotional to help us delight in Jesus more. I know there were sections in the book that stirred up delight in my own heart and for that I am grateful.

You can purchase the book here.

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What I mean by “gospel-speak sanctification” is the idea that if we just remind ourselves of grace and speak the gospel to ourselves then we will somehow become more like Christ. While I’m convinced of the need to preach the gospel to ourselves daily, I believe sanctification involves a little more than just remember the gospel. And I believe the author would agree with this, which is why I said he “edges toward” such a thing in a few places.