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A Review of The Doctrine of Scripture: An Introduction by Mark Thompson Andrew Leslie / Head of Theology, Philosophy and Ethics, Christian Doctrine IT CAN BE A LITTLE AWKWARD WHEN ASKED TO REVIEW A BOOK WRITTEN BY A FRIEND, ESPECIALLY IF THAT FRIEND ALSO HAPPENS TO BE YOUR BOSS. YOU WONDER IF YOU WILL HAVE TO PERJURE YOURSELF FOR THE SAKE OF PRESERVING THE RELATIONSHIP!
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ortunately, in the case of Mark Thompson’s recently released book, The Doctrine of Scripture: An Introduction, any anxiety has proven to be entirely needless. This book, which is the latest contribution to Crossway’s Short Studies in Systematic Theology, is, in my opinion, the finest succinct study of this most wonderful gift of divine revelation that I have come across. With his trademark clarity, Thompson has delivered a rich, well-documented study of this doctrine that is remarkably comprehensive for all its relative brevity. I expect it will be a stimulating, informative, and spiritually enriching resource for the full gamut of God’s people: specialist, student, pastor, and layperson alike. What I most appreciate about this book is how it explores the theological reality of Scripture by recognising its distinctive place within all of God’s acts. Textbook discussions of the doctrine of Scripture have typically been arranged around a set of ‘properties’: its authority, truthfulness, inspiration, clarity, sufficiency, and so on. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that, but it can sometimes feel like you are in a lab describing an inert lump of something staring back at you in a test tube. In Thompson’s book, all these important matters are skilfully addressed, but the entire discussion is structured and animated by a conviction that flows out of our faith itself: that Scripture is the instrument
God has chosen to awaken us from our sinful rebellion and draw us into a personal relationship with himself. There is deliberately no chapter on the authority of Scripture, for instance, as if it can merely sit as one isolated attribute among many. Rather, the whole book aims to come to terms with the fact that Scripture is no less than the mighty ‘arm’ of the sovereign Lord himself, or in the expression Hebrews gives us, ‘the living and active word of God’ (Heb. 4:12). If this central conviction is one that Thompson deftly illustrates with the able assistance of great theologians from the past like John Calvin and Martin Luther, or more recent voices like John Webster and Kevin Vanhoozer, he is much more eager to take us straight to the testimony of the one who is at the heart of our faith itself, Jesus Christ. And that’s where the book begins (chapter 1). In beginning with Jesus’s own testimony about Scripture—a testimony which of course is contained within Scripture itself—Thompson is not saying these words are somehow more authoritative than any other statement within the Bible. The ‘verbal’ and ‘plenary’ inspiration of Scripture, where every word is equally affirmed to be the Word of God, is a key claim Thompson wishes to uphold. Instead, the point is simply this: if Jesus is uniquely the eternal Word of God
