Plowing in Hope

This book helped me articulate part of what makes up good preaching, which is odd since preaching was not in view. Here's a quick summary of the book and then I'll come back to the insight on preaching.

The Bible begins in a garden and ends in a glorious city. We have a divine calling to transform the Earth from its initial natural state to a beautiful network of gardens and cities. As we bring out the latent beauty of creation we glorify the Creator. Importantly, we can expect our best works to follow us into the New Heavens and New Earth (Rev 14:13)! There is a real continuity between this world and the next, between the works done now to the glory of God and the surroundings we will enjoy in our eternal home.

Now for the idea about preaching. Redemption and Dominion go hand-in-hand; neither should be neglected. If redemption is neglected then we're no better than secular humanists, forgetting Christ and Him crucified. And if the dominion mandate is neglected then we fail to know what we are redeemed unto. We will forget that we've been graciously restored so that we can carry out the original culturative calling (Gen 1:28).

The book's author also has a blog.