Book Notices (August 2025)

Bryant Rueda, Dear Preacher, Letters on Preaching (Kindle Direct Publishing, 2025)

A creative series of fifty short letters in the style of C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters. These letters are short enough to read in one sitting or as devotional meditations to remind and stir the preacher. I was particularly drawn to two of them.

“Preaching as Catechetical” has a wonderful reminder of the reality of our listeners: “Your people need theological categories” (75). As a preacher in the Dutch Reformed tradition, I am required to engage in formal catechetical or doctrinal preaching. Yet, regardless of the tradition, every pastor/preacher needs to instruct a congregation.

“Preaching as Legacy” hit me square in the face: “Although you will be forgotten, your preaching will live on in the lives of those you ministered to” (155). Having just celebrated my congregation’s twenty-fifth anniversary, all of which I’ve served as its pastor, this was an impactful line. I’ve spent half of my life with this congregation. I don’t know how much more time the Lord will give me, but my teaching will endure.

Tolle lege! Take up and read!

William Whitaker, A Disputation on Holy Scripture, ed. Josiah Leinbach, 2 vols. (Prolego Press, 2025)

Thanks to Josiah Leinbach and Prolego Press, the sixteenth-century English Reformed theologian, William Whitaker, is in-print in an attractive two-volume set with a Foreword by Carl Trueman.

Whitaker was the preeminent Reformed Catholic apologist on the doctrine of Scripture verses the Roman Catholic Robert Bellarmine. In six lengthy “questions” (chapters), Whitaker dealt with issues of the canon, original languages, authority, perspicuity (clarity), interpretation, and perfection (sufficiency). Don’t let the online Romanist pop-apologists fool you. We are the catholics.

Tolle lege! Take up and read!.

Campegius Vitringa Sr., The Fundamentals of Sacred Theology, trans. Levi Berntson (Reformation Heritage Books, 2004)

One thousand aphorisms (aphorismi) or succinct statements of doctrine by one of the preeminent Dutch Reformed theologians of the late 17th–early 18th centuries.

Vitringa Sr. takes us through all the loci or topics of theology: God to consummation. These were the basis of his lectures to his students, and later became a massive 9-volume Doctrina. For example, check out his brief comments on the six days of creation being accommodated to our capacity (#209–212). Listen in to his statements on the birth and childhood of Jesus (#643–649). Read his powerful words on justification by faith (#751–781).

Tolle lege! Take up and read!!