Behold and Become, Jeremy M. Kimble. Grand Rapids: Kregel Academic, 2023.

Summary: A classic yet contemporary evangelical account of the doctrine of scripture and how God works transformation through scripture in salvation and Christian growth and what this means for one’s engagement with scripture and its use in the life and leadership of the church.

This book is a winsome, straightforward discussion of the classic evangelical doctrine of scripture. It is neither tendentious toward others with a different understanding nor does it temporize about the difficulties critical scholarship has raised to this classic doctrine. It is a book rooted in the Bible’s testimony about itself and assumes the veracity of its testimony. Some may find that off-putting, but I found it fit the book’s purpose–to argue that God works his transforming work in the believer through the scriptures and to encourage its humble yet confident use by both the individual believer and those who pastor and lead congregations in a scripture-centered ministry.

Jeremy Kimble begins with the self-revealing character of God who speaks in creation and acts to show his redemptive purposes. It is entirely consistent that such a God would reveal his glory and purposes in scripture as he has in the world and that we do well to saturate our lives with this self-revelation of glory. He then turns to a theology of scripture affirming its inspiration, inerrancy, infallibility, clarity, necessity, sufficiency, and authority. He both cites scripture’s own testimony and that of those in the Reformed tradition. Accepting these things as true, the believer devotes his or her energy to diligent attention to scripture, not as a textbook, but as the speech of God meant to reveal God, God’s saving ways, and how we might live in the enjoyment of that salvation.

Kimble then turns, in chapter 3 to look at scripture’s testimony to itself, the intertextual character of scripture in later references to earlier texts in the OId Testament, to the New Testament’s use of the Old, and the symbols and patterns that recur that reflect the writers of scripture’s knowledge of and development of what has come before. All of this in the first three chapters builds to the conclusion of chapter 4, the efficacious character of scripture in the transformation of the believer, both from death to life and in progressing in holiness. He offers a study of a number of texts in both testaments that affirm both that scripture is efficacious in our lives and how this works out in the life of the believer. For me, this was one of the highlights of the book. And the focus is not, first of all, on scripture as an instruction manual, but rather as the disclosure of the Triune God and God’s workings in creation and redemption.

At the end of this as well as in the following chapter, Kimble argues that this calls the believer into a scripture-saturated life, giving ourselves to the reading, study, hearing, memory, and meditation of scripture. He also believes this calls us into the correlation of scripture, moving from careful reading to determining the biblical theology evident across a book or multiple books, learning historical theology, as we see how others have correlated the teaching of scripture into doctrine, moving to systematic theology, where we synthesize our learning across the whole of scripture. This forms our worldview and shapes our lives. He discusses how scripture transforms as we behold and become, experiencing renewal of mind that eventuates in lived trust and obedience. He speaks trenchantly about how scripture roots out sin, brings repentance, and the putting on of righteousness. He also encourages the use of scripture in the family, sharing some of his own practice.

The last two chapters focus on the ministry of the scriptures in the church as a body formed by God through the gospel. He values the place of creeds and confessions as doctrinal guardrails. All this sets the context for applying ourselves diligently to listening to the scriptures read and preached, the scriptures taught in educative settings and studied in small groups and applied in discipleship, counseling, and evangelism. He then comes to the preacher, advocating text-driven teaching and preaching and then advises on the practices of study that allow one’s preaching to be driven by the text. Echoing John Piper, he describes preaching as exulting over the truth of the passage and exhortation to grace-empowered action. More briefly, he outlines his convictions about scripture-centeredness in the stewardship practiced by leaders. He concludes the work by summarizing his overall argument and then an appendix re-articulates this in a thesis and one sentence summary of each chapter.

Kimble does not deal with challenges to the doctrine of scripture, or problems that arise in its misuse or abuse in the context of the church. As I noted earlier, while these questions are not unimportant, they would have distracted from the purpose of this book. The idolization of politics and nationalism and the resort to ploys of power have persuaded me that broad swaths of the church have lost their confidence in the power of God, by his Spirit and centered in Christ to work through the ministry of the scriptures both for the transformation from death to life, and in the “breaking of the power of cancelled sin and the setting of sinners free.” We resort instead to gospels of sin management (e.g. purity culture) and self-help. I appreciated the winsomely portrayed vision of a scripture saturated life, devoted to reading and study instead of the 24/7 news cycle and scripture memory instead of social media memes. I long for the joyful confidence that comes, not from ourselves, but from soaking in and exulting in the story of scripture that Kemble portrays. What comes through is the rich joy of such a life, as we become enthralled and enchanted again with the character and work of God and swept into that work. That seems to me what it is to “behold and become.”

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.