Product Description

The New Testament is the story of how all the promises made by God in the Old Testament were kept—and what that means for us today. The nation of Israel had many hopes: hope for a deliverer, hope for restored fellowship with God, and hope for the world to be put right. The New Testament explains how those promises were kept and how, if we are Christians, they are kept in us as well.

Mark Dever surveys the historical context, organization, and theology of each New Testament book, in light of God’s Old Testament promises. His message is that of the New Testament itself, one of hope fulfilled.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #51971 in Books
• Published on: 2005-11-16
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 560 pages

Review
-Many Bible readers are familiar with individual trees while failing to see the forest. They are in great danger of misinterpreting the parts of the Bible they read because they do not see the entire structure of a Gospel like John or an epistle like Ephesians. Mark Dever fills a gaping need with his sermons on each of the individual books.- -Thomas R. Schreiner Teaching Pastor, Clifton Baptist Church, Professor of New Testament, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary -Mark Dever-s approach is thematic without ignoring the literary and theological structure of the books and is thus a stimulus to doctrinal preaching.- -Graeme Goldsworthy Moore Theological College, Sydney -Here is a vigorous, juicy, engaging, life-centered, God-honoring set of sermons, brilliantly overviewing the entire New Testament: a truly rich resource from which to benefit and borrow. Dr. Dever is a Puritan in twenty-first-century clothing, and it shows.- -J. I. Packer Professor of Theology, Regent College -Mark Dever knows that Christians cannot be powerfully influenced by the Bibles they do not know. So here is the antidote: a biblical flyover that reveals the contours and glories of the New Testament landscape so that it becomes familiar geography to the soul. This book will grace many lives.- -R. Kent Hughes Pastor, College Church, Wheaton, Illinois

About the Author
Mark Dever is Senior Pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., and Executive Director of 9Marks. Dr. Dever has written and contributed to several books on church health and church leadership, including Crossway’s Nine Marks of a Healthy Church and The Deliberate Church.

Customer Reviews

Great Book
"The Message of the New Testament" by Mark Dever is outstanding for three reasons. First, God has blessed Mark Dever with some amazing intellectual abilities. Educated at Duke and Cambridge, Dever has a brilliant mind. I've been told, for example, that when he was ten years old, Dever was reading Plato on his own volition - and I have no reason to doubt the truth of this story. Dever distinguishes himself from other gifted theologians, however, by the fact that he communicates his knowledge in a simple, direct and, many times, elegant fashion. Second, Dever sticks closely to the text of the Bible. The goal of this book is clear: To explain to the reader the overall message of the New Testament and the message of each of the books of the Bible. Dever takes the Bible seriously and it shows. Third, Dever strives to put the books into historical context. For instance: Who was Jesus Christ? What claims did he make? Who were his disciples? What was the church in (say) Rome like when Paul wrote a letter to them, and why was Paul writing this particular letter to them? It is exceedingly important to correclty answer basic questions such as these if one wants to know what the text meant to the people who first read it and Dever - who is trained as a historian - does a great job of answering them. Indeed, where I expect this particular skill to really shine is in the companion book - "The Message of the Old Testament".

I would recommend this book to any individual - Christian or non-Christian - who simply wants to understand the message of the Bible better. Indeed, non-Christians who know nothing of the Bible or Christ might find that they love this book even more than Christians. This book will provide you with the overview you need to understand the message of the New Testament as a whole as well as each individual book. I would also recommend this book to Christians who are in small group discussions. The chapters are a good size for busy people, and questions at the end of chapter should facilitate good discussions about the meaning of the Bible and how it applies to our lives today.

Big Picture Sermons
Do you like expository sermons, or do you associate them with boring explanations of every single phrase in a passage of scripture, with no detail too picayune for a long explanation? I happen to like the sort of expository preaching that moves phrase by phrase, or word by word (There is just nothing so trivial in text that I'm not interested!); but I know some of you are big picture sort of people, and if that's what you are, then The Message of the New Testament by Mark Dever contains your kind of expository sermons: Sermons that focus on the main themes--the big picture--of scripture.

There are twenty-eight sermons in this book--one overview of every book of the New Testament, and one introductory sermon overviewing the New Testament as a whole. Each sermon was originally preached by Mark Dever in his church--Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. Overview-type sermons are unusual (I haven't heard many, have you?), and I would guess that they are more difficult to prepare than the more usual sort of expository sermon. I can only begin to imagine how much work it was to produce this series of sermons, but I'm glad Mark Dever went to all the trouble. It's a fresh new way of looking at the New Testament and what it is teaching us.

The main portion of The Message of the New Testament is divided into three sections: [...] Jesus, containing the sermons on each of the gospels and Acts; Key Ideas for the Times, containing the sermons on all of Paul's epistles; and Living in the Real World, containing the rest--Hebrews through Revelation. Each sermon contains a main body, concluding applications, a prayer, and then a section of questions for reflection that build and extend upon what could be learned from the sermon.

This is a long book--547 pages--and as you might expect with sermons, the text is dense, although not difficult to understand. I started The Message of the New Testament in January and read some of it almost every day, but only finished it up this week. It's not the kind of book I could skim because I wanted to get every single bit of it, since there was so much to learn.

Don't let that it took me so long to make my way through this book scare you off. It was certainly worth the time and effort. I looked forward to each reading session, even if it was only a few stolen minutes while I waited in the car for my son to finish up one of his activities. If I hadn't received the companion to this book--The Message of the Old Testament--in the mail last week, I probably would have been a little sad to finish it up. But as things stand, I've got a new, 800+ page book to start.

And I'd be willing to bet that if you take the time to read it, you'll learn something, too. I might even promise you that.

Collection of sermons as a study resource
Mark Dever has written a companion volume to his forthcoming book The Message of the Old Testament: Promises Made. Both books serve as overviews of each Testament. Dever is the Senior Pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. In this book, he has compiled 27 of his sermons - where every chapter is described as an "expositional overview sermon" on each of the New Testament books. Dever explains in the introduction, "The sermons in this book are more expositional than topical, but they are expositional with a difference. Rather than looking at particular Scripture passages through a microscope, we are looking down from an airplane." (page 16)

What an amazing resource for believers, lay leaders, and pastors alike who are looking for a decidedly biblical, yet practical, overview of the New Testament. Since each chapter was originally a sermon, there is a very logical flow to the reading. The accompanying outlines, accessible writing style, and scholarly approach to the material makes for an invaluable teaching and study resource. Each chapter also concludes with some thought-provoking questions that are great for personal study or small group dynamics.

I wholeheartedly recommend this exceptional resource for its doctrinally sound, yet very understandable "Big Picture" treatment of the meaning of the New Testament. This will be a classic in personal and church libraries for many years to come. Buy one for yourself and get one for your pastor as an indispensable gift to enrich your pastor's pulpit. - Todd Burgett, Christian Book Previews.com