Today I heard that the New Testament volume of The Branch Exposition of the Bible by Michael Eaton arrived in our Carlisle warehouse. This book has a long history of some 35 years and it is sad that the author, who went to be with the Lord in June 2017, could not see this day.
Seeing this book arrive loosed all kind of emotions in me. I remembered that first time I met Michael. He came into the Christian bookshop I ran in Pretoria and we had our first long discussion on the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. He came more often and we had discussed the whole of his Master’s thesis on Lloyd Jones and the Spirit (published by IVP UK) and his doctoral thesis under Adrio König on a Theology of Encouragement, which was published by Piquant and IVP USA. Michael was such an inspiration and so very knowledgeable about the Bible. A true scholar-practitioner, who spent most of his time in the study, the pulpit, and talking to people like me…
This major exposition is a revised edition of all his ‘preaching through the Bible’ books, most of them published as individual volumes over the years by Sovereign World Publishing. I remember that when I joined ELT/Langham in 1999, my predecessors often selected Michael’s books for Langham Preaching – 20,000 to 30,000 at a time! We had many positive comments from preachers at that time.
Whenever I am asked to preach now, I never fail to see what Michael has to say and I never come away disappointed. Always challenging, always spiritually alert, always inspirational, always leading me to worship the God he loved so much and served so well.
So, for me, today is one of those days the Lord made, to see the launch of this amazing new book for the blessing of a whole new generation of preachers. Pray with me that this New Testament Commentary will be a blessing to them all as it enables them to read the Bible well.
The Branch Exposition of the Bible, Volume 1: A Preacher’s Commentary of the New Testament is published on August 31st, 2020 by Langham Global Library.
To pre-order, email literature@langham.org today.
