book preview: Letters to the Church by Karen Jobes (2011)

In our Bible study at work, we've been working through the New Testament book of Hebrews. It's great for small group studies because it provokes many questions which make for good conversations. In the meantime, a partial preview of this new biblical survey came out on Netgalley.com, so I was very interesting in reviewing it, so they sent me partial copy to look through on my Kindle. I've been working my way through it slowly, taking time to digest what Dr. Jobes offers. She writes very well. She's engaging, open and not dogmatic, and thorough. I'm sure the primary market for this book is for seminaries and Bible colleges, but I'm a church elder who teaches classes and facilitates Bible studies, and I'm the other, though certainly smaller, market for this type of book. Jobe's background is in science, physics and computer science, and I appreciate her presentation of the data. Hebrews provides mysteries so there are several questions. When was it written? Who wrote it? Who was it written to? She lays out her humble answers, is generous with other theories, except the spurious ones. Although she is a Kione Greek scholar, in fact, the Gerald F. Hawthorne Professor of New Testament Greek and Exegesis at Wheaton College, but she doesn't expect the reader to be familiar with the language. I would be very happy to lead a class in church with this as our text to dig deep into this important sermon to the church. I highly recommend it, based on the chunk of book given me, only through chapter 4 of Hebrews.