Last week a friend of mine gave me an advanced copy of “Read the Bible for Life” by George H. Guthrie. This book looks like an excellent resource for teaching people how to read, understand, and apply the Bible. It is written in a very conversational way for broad readability. Here is a video introducing the project:
I would also recommend a book titled “40 Questions about Interpreting the Bible” by Robert L. Plummer. I agree with Justin Taylor‘s assessment.
Dr. Plummer has managed to produce something pretty unique here. I’d recommend it for virtually all Christians: laypeople, parents, pastors, and professors. If I were teaching a Sunday School, college, or even seminary class, I’d make this required reading (though obviously the higher the level of class the more supplemental reading would be required).
I can see a lot of folks using this as a one-stop introductory resource on questions of text, canon, translation, inerrancy, Christ-centered interpretation, application, genre, etc. Pastors in particular: this is a very good resource for producing concise, excellent answers for most of the questions people ask about matters of the Bible.
Quite simply, this is the best introductory book on biblical interpretation I’ve yet seen. I highly recommend it.
Take up and read!
DR. MATT CAPPS 