Christian Theology by Adam Harwood: Overall Book Review

foreign [Music] somebody give me a sticker and then hand me a participation trophy I read Christian theology biblical historical and systematic by Adam Harwood this book is clocking in at 796 pages in The Print version if I get an I voted sticker for checking some boxes on Election Day I better get a sticker for reading this book but here's the thing I planned on reading maybe four to five hundred pages of this book but as I was going through it I just kept reading and reading I I would intend to skip a part of the book but then I got there and I'd be like no no I gotta see what Harwood says about that uh how can I not cover that or or I'd end up saying I flew through the last chapter so fast I might as well read the next one so so I start off by saying Christian theology this book was so good and it was so easy to read that it led me to read about 300 more pages of it than I planned on reading so that's impressive in my book and there's just so much to Love in This systematic it's not perfect but none of them are and and who am I to judge anyway I'm just Sean Wilson that's what I'm gonna do I'm gonna give you my judgments on Adam harwood's substantial and important Systematic Theology so let me give you an overview of this book let me tell you about what I love and didn't love about Christian theology biblical historical and systematic welcome to rev reads your home for book reviews from the perspective of a pastor if you're new to the channel and want to discover more books that'll help you have a better grasp on your own faith and your own understanding of Christian doctrine please subscribe to the channel to stay up to date with the most current reviews and if you're a regular to the Channel please like this video share it with other people because that is immensely important to help other people know about the immensely important work of Adam Harwood so I want to start by saying this review will be multiple videos I don't want to do a really long review I want to keep them at my standard length of about 10 maybe 10 to 15 minutes so I'm going to be breaking them up in this first video it's going to be a basic overview of the book and then I'm going to cover individual sections of the book so by the time it's over it'll probably be four or five videos in total along with an interview with Dr Adam Harwood himself now the outline of this book is very basic he covers eight areas of Christian theology they are revelation God Humanity Christ the Holy Spirit salvation the church and the last thing and then each of those areas those divisions of theology he covers he breaks up into two to six chapters for each of the subjects the only thing that I would change is that I would add a ninth division that is Israel and I'll talk about why toward the end of this review but I gotta say if you are a diligent student of the word of God or you're a pastor or a teacher and you're looking for a Systematic Theology to help you yourself learn and also to come alongside you as you teach others I don't know if you're going to find a better one volume systematic than this one first My overall Impressions uh what's great about the book is the format the quality of the writing as well as the tone of the work the format is wonderful the subtitle says that this book is biblical historical and systematic and this work truly is all three of those Harwood does an excellent job balancing a coverage of the biblical material and then hitting on how it has been covered throughout church history and then tying all of that together as you would expect in a systematic at the end of each chapter and what I loved about this format is that this format really helps encourage the reader to continue reading this work I never felt bogged down or if this book was just dragging along he really helps the reader move along just like a good fiction writer is intending to keep the reader going Harwood does the same with this theological book and what's awesome about it is that all throughout it is so biblically based and that's what I loved about it the most some systematics from my perspective stray so far from scripture that I wonder how they can be considered Christian theology it's more like their philosophical theology or they spend so much on historical views I am curious did the author take any time to examine what the Bible itself actually said on this topic Harwood though does an excellent job of keeping himself and the reader grounded into scripture the entire time even while he's covering the past views of an issue in church history I never felt for a moment that I thought why am I reading this this doesn't even really relate to what we see in the Bible so this book was very well written from one perspective simply because it so closely aligned from the scripture and came from the pages of the Bible itself and this meant that even in those spots where I disagreed with Harwood I still understood his perspective his reasoning and how he came about it from the scripture itself elf harwood's tone was also very much appreciated for a work such as this I never felt like he had an ax to grind throughout because of his writing style now because of the topics that he picked I think you could lead to that conclusion but that never came about in the way in which he wrote I always felt like he was respectful he stuck to the facts he clearly represented opposing views in the places where I was on the other side of Harwood on an issue I think throughout the entire systematic I only felt misrepresented once and it was a position that I hold that is very commonly misrepresented and I'll talk about that later in the review I do covering eschatology but I never felt as if he was describing anyone's view in a manner of making a straw man just simply to discredit them I thought the way that he handled opposing views was superb and I would love to get a calvinist take on that point especially so if you're watching this review and you are one of calvinist and two you actually read this book I would love for you to comment and let me know how he represented you was he honest was he fair I believe he was but I would be curious to hear if a calvinist would feel the same way now here's my complaint for the book overall I think it is too driven Along by issues in the reformed or calvinistic Community with their theology there are some areas that are covered too much in this book they're given too much ink too many pages and I believe part of the reason that so much space is given to these issues is to confront and argue against common doctrines in Calvinism which I'm all about I'm thankful that he did it but I think too much space was given in a book like this to confront Calvinism Harwood writes at the beginning about the importance of theological proportion in a work such as Christian theology he writes matters given more attention in scripture and in the history of the church should be given more attention in systematic theology conversely the sub themes and Minor Prophets in the biblical storyline and Views emphasized by some Christian groups should be given minor rather than major attention in Systematic Theology now I applaud that that is a great goal but then Harwood goes and devotes an entire chapter to original sin that was a very well written chapter it was one of the best in the entire book but I think if we're honest and looking at the amount of space that the Bible gives to that topic of original sin it should probably be a footnote but this is crucial to establish the calvinistic world view it's taught so heavily by reformers and so Harwood spends a good deal of space covering original sin the hard part about this criticism is that this stuff that I'm talking about that should have been cut out of the book because it's not a major emphasis in scripture it's still really good stuff in this book it just shouldn't have been given even so much space in an 800 page Systematic Theology the same goes for his work on predestination which again was so welcomed excellent it was a great reprieve from what we normally hear about predestination but going through all six uses of that term in the Bible while I appreciated it I don't think something like that should be in a work like this so what should be in this work instead I would have loved to see a chapter on Israel a whole chapter go through their history the significance of the Tabernacle the feasts and the law what's weird is that and this is one of the places where I disagreed with him Harwood wrote that the church began with Abraham and if that's true in a Christian theology shouldn't you cover that early portion of how the church or Israel related to God through sacrifices priests and Covenants I think a map of the layout of the Tabernacle which might seem juvenile to some people should be in a work like this simply due to the amount of time given to the Tabernacle and the temples to follow in the Bible I think a more balanced presentation would have had less confrontation with calvinistic strongholds and more time spent on areas that are given great space in the Bible yet are rarely mentioned in many Systematic Theology Works throughout church history so I know that was negative but I do know want this review to end on a negative note I don't want people to think oh Sean thought that this book was seriously flawed no far far from the truth this book is getting 5 out of 5 stars for me on Goodreads for the rating um I'm gonna be shocked if this book isn't in my top 10 list for this year at the end of the year I mean when I get some more time to chew on it this might even make my all-time top 10 list and that would be tough to do because that's a lot of books and here's one of the reasons that it's got to be up toward the top and that is even those areas where I criticized it because I wish he didn't spend so much time on that subject even those chapters were so good I would have hated trying to be an editor on this work because I assume that the editors would have been cutting out a lot of excellent stuff in the process so my overall impression for Christian theology biblical historical and systematic this book is outstanding I feel like I can't speak highly enough of this work if you can only purchase one one volume systematic theology I think this one has to be right at the top of your wish list

Channel: Rev Reads

Views: 2,084

Keywords: Rev Reads, Christian Book Reviews, Theological Book Reviews, Shawn Willson, Christian Theology, Adam Harwood, Systematic Theology, Non-Calvinist Systematic, Predestination, Original Sin, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, One Volume Systematic Theology, Lexham Press, Lexham Academic, Calvinism Critique

Id: 66FRmnkGikU

Length: 12min 14sec (734 seconds)

Published: Mon May 29 2023