Tools for Preaching and Teaching the Bible, 2nd ed.

by Stewart Custer

Publisher:

Bob Jones University Press

, 1998

Overview

Too often we purchase a book with high hopes that it will be what we were looking for, only to be disappointed. Tools for Preaching and Teaching the Bible is an excellent resource providing Bible-believing Christians with sound and dependable advice for selecting the tools—books—that will help shape their ministry. These are books that Dr. Custer can wholeheartedly recommend, having compiled them as the result of many years of studying, teaching, and preaching God’s Word. This new edition keeps all the popular features of the first edition, such as introductory chapters on inspiration and the methods of Bible study, along with reference Bibles, Bible geography, Bible dictionaries and encyclopedias, and commentaries. The second edition has updated this information plus added new chapters on prophecy, the Holy Spirit, church history, cults, and more.

Contents

Top Highlights

“Interpret according to the simplest and clearest meaning.” (Page 49)

“The old saying is still true: Either the Bible will keep you from sin, or sin will keep you from the Bible.” (Page 16)

“If everything in the Bible were always simple and clear, there would be no need for interpreting it. Although many passages are clear and simple, there are some passages that even the biblical writers themselves admit are ‘hard to be understood’ (2 Pet. 3:16). Furthermore, the Bible is an infinite book with a profundity of meaning that no scholar can exhaust. The scholars call the study of how to understand the Scriptures hermeneutics: the branch of theology that determines rules for the interpretation of Scripture. If a person comes to the Bible with liberal presuppositions and a set of liberal hermeneutical principles, he will surely leave with a liberal theology and a very destructive interpretation of the Bible.” (Page 39)

“As the old expositor J. A. Bengel said, ‘Apply thyself wholly to the text; apply the text wholly to thyself.’” (Page 33)

“Interpret according to literary form. Do not interpret poetry as though it were prose” (Page 43)

Product Details

• Title: Tools for Preaching and Teaching the Bible
• Author: Stewart Custer
• Edition: Revised
• Publisher: EBJU Press
• Publication Date: 1998
• Pages: 400

About Stewart Custer

Stewart Custer received a BA and MA in Bible and a PhD in Greek text from Bob Jones University. He began teaching at BJU in 1955 as a graduate assistant in Greek. Besides teaching biblical theology, methods of bible exposition, and advanced Greek courses at BJU, Custer was the director of the university’s planetarium and produced programs for public viewing. He was chairman of the division of Bible and editor of Biblical Viewpoint, the journal of BJU’s School of Religion, until his retirement. Custer has been in demand as an expository preacher, visiting many churches to present a series of expositions on a single book of Scripture, or to speak on specific topics such as the fallacies of evolution or the inspiration of the Bible. He currently serves as the pastor emeritus of Trinity Bible Church in Greer, South Carolina.