Here is a book that every pastor must read.  D. A. Carson of Trinity Evangelical Seminary describes it as a great book and it may very well be.  Doriani is a PCA teaching elder and Dean of the Faculty and professor of New Testament at Covenant Theological Seminary.  His earlier book Getting the Message: A Plan for Interpreting and Applying the Bible paved the way for Putting the Truth to Work.  Older generations were able to get away with ignoring biblical application but today’s generation will not. In this postmodern age people need to see as well as hear the truth.  The younger people are a “So what?” generation. We tend to bore this generation with the way we present the truth because we do not do it a way to which they relate. We assume that when we properly present the truth, the audience will automatically know what to do with it. In a lecture to pastors, D. A. Carson said that we must give as much as 50 percent of preparation to application.

Each chapter of Doriani’s book is a gold mine, even those dealing with the theoretical aspects of teaching, preaching, and interpreting. But chapters three through five alone justify purchasing and reading this book: “The Interpreter,” “The Seven Biblical Sources for Application,” and “The Four Aspects of Application.”  You will also appreciate the extensive footnotes throughout the book.

One statement from chapter four will convey the freshness of Doriani’s work.  “Most biblical texts offer several lines of application.  They typically manifest two or more of the seven ways a text can generate applications.  Further we can develop them through the four types of questions people ask.” Those four questions are: 1.  What is our duty?  2. What is a noble character, and how can we obtain and develop it?  3.  What goals should we pursue?  4.  In a cacophony of competing voices, how can we distinguish right from wrong?  While there may be other questions that we could and should ask as we interpret and apply Scripture (and you will find more suggestions in this book), I agree that these are fundamental questions to which we must respond.

Much training in the past has not prepared us to deal with application, other than to suggest that we include a few illustrations to shine some light into the window of our interpretation. Even in reformed and evangelical circles preachers and teachers fail to really help the audience understand how the Scripture passage rubs up against our lives.  I am convinced that this is one of the main reasons people like George Barna and George Gallup conclude that less than ten percent of professing Christians have a biblical worldview.  This book will help the audience to see light in God’s light that otherwise may not be seen.  It will also address the problem dealt with in Bryan Chapell’s book Using Illustrations to Preach with Power about “the teacher’s ultimate crime—to propound heresy, the penultimate crime is to make biblical truth sound boring.”

Carson and Doriani are right about the extreme importance of application. If people do not know how to relate to the Scripture, how can they apply it to their lives? This is a book of both the theory and practice of biblical application. Doriani is pioneering new and important ground.  We can no longer rest with the old saying that “it’s the Holy Spirit’s job to apply the truth, we merely teach it.”  While that is partially true, it does not represent the whole truth.  Buy this book and give it top reading priority.

- Charles Dunahoo, CEP Coordinator