Walter Kaiser’s new book, The Majesty of God in the Old Testament: A Guide for Preaching and Teaching, sets out to help reclaim the subject of the majesty of God in our churches. This book, as the subtitle indicates, is geared towards preachers and teachers, though I imagine it would be useful for small group discussion leaders, as well.
The book is broken down into 10 chapters, each covering a different passage focusing on
a different aspect of God’s majesty. Here’s the breakdown:1. Magnifying the Incomparability of Our God (Isaiah 40:9-31)
2. Magnifying the Greatness of Our God (Daniel 4:1-37)
3. Magnifying the Word of Our God (Numbers 20:1-13)
4. Magnifying the Wonderful Name of Our God (Jeremiah 31:1-44)
5. Magnifying the Pardoning Grace of Our God (Micah 7:11-20)
6. Magnifying the Holy Spirit from Our God (Zechariah 4:1-14)
7. Magnifying the Awesome Character of Our God (Psalm 139:1-18)
8. Magnifying the Glory of Our God (Ezekiel 1:1-28)
9. Magnifying the Grace of Giving from Our God (1 Chronicles 29:6-19)
10. Magnifying the Holiness of Our God (Isaiah 6:1-13)
Now, his actual sermon style and outline is not necessarily something you have to copy, though I suppose you could (but cite your source!). But his outlines, especially, are useful for understanding how a passage is shaped. For those of us who’ve heard Dr Kaiser preach (he was President at Gordon-Conwell when I was there), you can see him throughout the book, from the sense of humor (dealing with Num 20:3-5 he notes that the Israelites “now let their cattle ‘horn in’ on the argument”, p58) to his use of interrogatives and keywords.
What will probably be the most helpful aspect is his ability to bring various aspects of biblical studies into the sermon preparation. To give some examples, he uses archaeology to help us understand just how great Babylon was in the time of Nebuchadnezzar and how that helps us understand Daniel 4:1-37 better. I know I didn't realize how massive and beautiful Babylon must have been, it helped me better understand Nebuchadnezzar's pride. He shows how word studies can be useful, especially in discussing the importance of “name” (ch 4) and “word” (ch 3). His thoughts here can be invaluable and I highly recommend them.
There were a couple weaker points, though part of that is merely a matter of interpretation. But still, he tries to argue that the Holy Spirit indwelt believers in the OT, yet only proves that the Holy Spirit was active amongst God’s people prior to Pentecost, which isn’t really up for debate. He makes much out of Moses saying “must we bring water out of this rock?” (Num 20:10), arguing that Moses was including himself in God’s activity when he should not have been. Kaiser asks, “Who said anything about Moses and Aaron bringing water out of the rock?” (p60)
Um, actually God did, right there in v8: “You will bring water out of the rock....” Moses clearly did something wrong in this passage, but confusing his personal pronouns was not the problem.
But those points shouldn’t detract from an otherwise helpful book. In fact, the first chapter, on Isaiah 40, was terrific; I plan on utilizing it in the future. And I’m in complete agreement with Dr Kaiser that the majesty of God is an underdiscussed topic in our churches today. I’m grateful he has written this book to help us in that deficiency.
On a final note, here’s hoping Dr Kaiser has many more healthy years ahead of him. He has been such a strong encourager and servant of the church for so many years; I pray that the Lord continue to use him in his (semi)retirement.
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