Jon Paul Gulledge

Clear. Clever. Compelling.

Simple. Shocking. Sobering.

Mission of God is one of the best books I've ever read. It is paradigm shifting. Read this book.

I've been using this book for a Wednesday auditorium class, and I have thoroughly enjoyed it. The biggest downside is that some of the information is a little outdated. This is especially true concerning numbers of manuscripts and information about new translations, but that is not a fault of the book, which was last updated nearly 20 years ago. I do wish there was more information about a wider variety of new translations in chapter 17. Lightfoot focuses mainly on the KJV, ASV, RSV, and NRSV. Everything else is relegated to the “Other Translations” subsection. Since the information in this chapter is outdated, anyone using this book in a church setting will need to do their homework on those other translations with additional sources anyway, so it all evens out.

It would be 5 stars, but his final chapters leave something to be desired. He uses David as his main biblical example of a non-anxious presence, which is good, but he doesn't make the connection to the true example of non-anxious presence par excellence: Jesus, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

Nonetheless, this book is more than worth a read for the cultural commentary alone.