This is the eighth book in our favourite Crossway series for little kids — and the third featuring Arlo. From the blurb (“Arlo’s favourite TV show tells him that he can be anything he wants to be”), I assumed it would be about realising that kids can’t just grow up and become an astronaut/professional sportsperson etc, just because they want to be.
Having read it, however, I think that transgenderism is the more likely the intended target. Arlo’s favourite TV show features a mole who wants to be a rabbit, and when her friend sees that pretending to be a rabbit makes her happy, he decides that she should have been a rabbit all along. The song that goes along with it says: “Let the real inside you burst free…Don’t listen with others say ‘No'”.

The book is aimed at 3-7 year olds and the message is easy for kids to pick up, giving them principles that could be applied to transgenderism as well as just general dissatisfaction with how God has made them.

As with other books in the series, characters from other books appear within its pages, which the kids love as well.
Keep them coming Crossway!

(It’s also effectively the ESV Creeds & Confessions Bible — without the Creeds & Confessions)

Make no mistake, this is a nice Bible, as the $199.99 RRP suggests (you can get it for about £90 in the UK) – beautiful top grain leather cover, line-matched, 4 spine hubs, Smyth-sewn, edge-lined. It’s printed in China and hasn’t (yet?) been updated to the 2025 ESV text, unlike the ESV Preaching Bible in my previous review.

The font is significantly larger than the regular Thinline (10.5 v. 8.5), without a huge increase in footprint (23 x 15.5cm v. 21 x 13.5cm). You also get references, but down at the bottom right hand corner, like Crossway do for their wide margin Bibles. I love this way of doing references: it stops them taking up space around the text, but means you don’t lose them altogether. (Though if you really need the large print text, you might struggle with the smaller font of the references).

The top grain leather cover looks and feels amazing. My only previous experience with Crossway’s top grain leather was the 2018 THGNT Reader’s Bible, which I still use. (I love that Crossway made a premium Greek NT — even if it was short-lived — and hope they will do something similar when the second edition THGNT is published). That one is a bit more grainy. This one is smoother, which I actually prefer. Crossway currently have a few Bibles in top grain leather, but all are in black apart from this one. I would love to see this binding, with the brown top grain leather, on more Bibles.

So who is this Bible for? Anyone who likes a double column format. Its thinness makes it nice and portable (though not as portable as the Alpha), and it would also make a great preaching Bible. It’s a great all-rounder, and could be your one Bible, if you don’t need much room for notes.

Personally I prefer single column. Sometimes a two column Bible comes along and, in the words of my friend Daniel Sturgeon, “I shouldn’t even like it, but I love it”. He said that about the Pitt Minion, and I feel similarly about the Alpha. This doesn’t quite have the same effect on me, at least at this point in my life. I don’t need the large print, and am quite happy with the 8-point font of the Alpha. I would rather a smaller font and the text having a bit more room to breathe (ie letting space). But the day will come when an 8-point font becomes a struggle — and even today, the Large Print Thinline is better for low light settings.

Overall, this is a nicely executed two-column Bible. Depending on the price (Truth for Life were selling it at cost for $35 for a while) it could be a very cheap way to get a premium Bible with a lifetime guarantee. If you’re looking for something a bit bigger than an Alpha or a regular Thinline, or simply a nice two-column ESV that has cross references but doesn’t have red letter (unlike the Cambridge Diadem), this could be the Bible for you.

For the last five years, I’ve preached each morning service in Stranraer from the ESV Preaching Bible in Truetone over Board (effectively a hardback). I have been very happy with it, but can no longer recommend it — for the simple reason that it’s out of print! And so I was glad of the opportunity to receive a review copy of the Black Goatskin version, which is still available, and has recently been updated with the 2025 ESV text.

Background

What makes this a Preaching Bible? Apparently it’s the result of Crossway surveying over 1000 pastors. The result is a single column text block, with a generous 10-point typeface, extra-wide margins, and “enlarged, bolded verse numbers, surrounded by extra space to easily locate verses on the page”.

You can’t please everyone however, and this edition was quickly followed by a “Verse-by-verse Preaching Bible”, which maintains the single column format, but with each verse starting on a new line.

Premium but not Heirloom

After being (controversially) produced in China for a while, Crossway’s top-of-the-range Bibles are now once more printed and bound in the Netherlands. The ESV Preaching Bible lacks the “heirloom” monicker, and is still produced in China. It still very much has a premium feel to it, however, with a (fairly thin & very flexible) goatskin cover, red under gold art gilt page edges and four raised spine hubs.

Thankfully — and as with all of Crossway’s premium Bibles — the words of Christ are in black.

Text changes

My Truetone ESV Preaching Bible has the 2016 ESV text. This caught me out a few weeks ago when I was reading Genesis 3 and came to the part where the 2016 text says “Your desire shall be contrary to your husband”, which was widely considered too interpretative. The 2025 text restores this to “Your desire shall be for your husband”. They have managed to make these changes while retaining pagination.

Comparison

The Bible this is most similar to is Crossway’s Gloria Dei (formerly Legacy), which has similar margin space (with slightly more at the top and particularly the bottom) but a 9-point font instead of a 10-point. However the extra writing space is somewhat negated by the section headings in the margin. The Preaching Bible has them in the more usual position in line with the text. The 10-point font is definitely nicer for public reading.

Another alternative would be the Heirloom Vertias, formerly Heritage (The same text block is available in non-Heirloom editions). It has 9.25 font but without a ton of margin space, giving you a smaller footprint. Fewer words per line and more spacing means that I actually find it more readable — it’s my favourite Crossway text block — but it also means less content viewable at any one time, and so requires a bit more flipping pages.

Wide Margin Alternative?

The ESV Preaching Bible is actually taller — and only very slightly narrower than my Cambridge “Eagle” Wide Margin. There’s much more space to write on the right-hand side of the Preaching Bible than the left, but that isn’t really an issue in a single-column format. Sadly Crossway’s Heirloom Wide Margin remains out of print.

There’s no reason why the Preaching Bible couldn’t be used by a non-preacher — other than it being a bit unwieldy to carry around.

Conclusion

Can 1000 pastors be wrong? Undoubtedly — but not when it comes to this Bible. In my view Crossway got it right the first time, and the paragraph format used here is much preferable to verse-by-verse, which is an artificial way to lay out a Bible.

In some ways it’s a pity that the (much cheaper) Truetone version is no longer available. Owning both would mean you could keep one on your desk, and one in the pulpit. Or if — like me — you preach in a different location morning and evening, you could keep one on each lectern.

It’s not really the sort of Bible you want to carry about a lot — but it is the sort of Bible I’ve been happy to read and preach from for the past five years, and plan to continue doing so, now with the 2025 ESV text and in a much-nicer package.

The Goatskin ESV Preaching Bible would be the ideal gift for a minister’s ordination — or for someone starting seminary and wanting to fill their Bible with notes.

He Always Hears is a book aimed at kids aged 3-8 which tackles a big subject. Punzi is a pastor’s widow and single mother after her husband died suddenly of leukemia. This book seems to have been written to help children facing similar circumstances to her own daughter.

The book follows the story of Jane who has fun friends and amazing adventures, but suffers a number of increasingly sad things – her soft toy gets ruined, her best friend moves away, and finally her dad gets sick (Though, unlike in the author’s own life, we’re not told if he gets better or not – which in itself makes for quite a powerful ending). As the lesser sad things happen, Jane learns about God’s promises: ‘one day, what’s broken, he’ll make new’. That then helps her when her dad gets sick.

This is probably the most powerful kids’ book I’ve read since The Moon Is Always Round. I asked our 8 year old if she thought it was a sad book and she replied ‘sad but good’. Highly Recommended.

The heart of the book is the “Reformation Triangle” of Scripture, Meditation and Prayer. Later chapters “widen the scope”, but all flow out of this central triangle. Such overflow includes self-examination (which Bingham contrasts with selfish self-absorption), as well as the chapter I found most helpful — on “The Natural World”. Bingham surveys many books on spiritual disciples and notes that none of them mention nature. And even though the Reformed tradition has been “more pessimistic” when it comes to nature than others, Bingham also highlights a rich Puritan tradition of drawing spiritual lessons from it. Many will feel as he does upon reading Puritan pastors unfolding theological lessons from their everyday observations of nature — “transported to another, rather alien, world” (p. 245). Yet he gives helpful tips for recovering this perspective, which is surely particularly important for psalm singers, given that some of them focus on nature to an extent which we naturally wouldn’t.

As a pastor, I’m already wondering about basing a sermon series off the book. At almost 350 pages, its riches need condensed for the average person in the pew. It reads like the edited version of a thesis (which it may well be), rather than a devotional manual. Perhaps there’s scope for a 150-page version which skips much of the theory and goes straight to the practice. But for those with the time to go through it, Bingham has unearthed great treasures, for which we owe him a tremendous debt.

This is the seventh in a great series of Crossway children’s books that seem particularly good for the 3-4 age group. Each is standalone, but the eagle-eyed reader will spot characters in the background from the other books.

The premise for this latest book is a little girl thinking she isn’t good at doing anything, but that if she can build the biggest block tower ever her teacher and those around her will be impressed and say lots of nice things about her.

Most of the book takes place in Sonia’s imagination, but our 4-year-old didn’t have as much trouble as I might have thought in understanding what was dream and what was reality.

Overall it’s a good concept, well executed — and hopefully there is more of the series to come!

I was pleasantly surprised by this book. I assumed it would simply follow a standard pattern of going through the various administrations of the Covenant of Grace, with a chapter on each. However there is nothing routine or formulaic about it.

After a somewhat biographical introduction, the first chapter introduces us to the covenant of works and the covenant of grace, asking: ‘Do we not see a collapsed world under a broken covenant of works in hard jobs, painful childbirth, illness and death, broken families, war, natural disaster and a host of opinions about religion? (19-20). This is followed by a chapter which traces the covenant of grace throughout the Bible: ‘if we want salvation in Christ today, then we need to have the “blessing of Abraham” (Gal. 3:14)’ (34). ‘Paul taught good OT theology when he argued that a true Jew is not one who is a Jew only outwardly’ (36). Rather than being a republication of the covenant of works, the Mosaic covenant ‘greatly expanded the blessings of the covenant of grace’ (37). The section on the Davidic covenant begins with a great illustration involving Aragon (41-2).

A chapter on ‘Covenant, Testament and Joyful Bible Reading’ compares the old and new covenants. Particularly helpful was the section of how we underestimate the trauma it would have involved for Jewish Christians to move from the old covenant to the new – and then he makes a powerful application: ‘…when we arrive to church Sunday morning tired, with frying or fighting children, wondering whether we have to talk to the awkward visitor, in an old building, with no smells, bells, and whistles, we should never lose sight of the glory of God’s covenant presence among us’ (51).

A fourth chapter on ‘Covenant Theology and the Triune God’ was more on the Trinity than covenant theology. The next chapter, ‘Covenant Theology and the Christian Life’ was very helpful.

The book closes with some questions and answers about covenant theology. There is a good section on republication, as well as on how Jesus advances human nature. McGraw doesn’t provide much evidence for his surprising suggestion that ‘the Spirit changed hearts in the old covenant without dwelling within believers’ (114). I also found it interesting to read that children are not members of the church until their baptism (120) and wonder whether that can be squared with LC 62: “The visible church is a society made up of all such as in all ages and places of the world do profess the true religion, and of their children.”

Finally, maybe I’m being thick, but I’m struggling to make sense of the following sentence, particularly the word “but” – maybe someone can help! ‘the KJV translates the Greek word for covenant as “testament” in 9:15 (and 9:18), but “testament” and “Testator” in between’ (110).

Overall, it’s a great introduction to covenant theology, and I’d probably recommend it just after (or along with) Jonty Rhodes to those new to the subject.

Of all the people who bought Christopher Ash’s long-awaited 4-volume psalms commentary when it was released last year, I suspect not too many have made it the whole way through the introductory volume. If so, that’s a pity, because it a wonderful work on Christ in the Psalms, which would be worthy of a place on the required reading of any seminary course on the Old Testament. (Indeed, parts of it – eg ch 4 on ‘Interpretation and Worship’ are helpful on interpreting Scripture in general, not just the Psalms. It is also helpful on prayer – both Christ’s and ours: “There is one man who can pray and whom the Father always hears and grants his every request”).
It has taken me several months to work through the book, partly because I felt the need to stop so frequently (particularly in the first half of the book), and write down many of the connections Ash draws between individual Psalms and the New Testament.

A couple of quotations illustrate the approach he takes: “We need not be confined to the well-known and clear quotations that much of the literature focuses on, for the threads of allusion, ranging from the clear to the less clear, weave for us a tapestry in which Christ is central to the understanding of the Psalms.” (p. 99). Furthermore, “We should not be too strict in confining the meaning of a Psalms text to what we think the author could consciously have intended.” (p. 121). Indeed, not to take a Christ-centred approach may well be the result of human sin, which always tends towards “the eclipse of Christ in hermeneutics” (Goldsworthy) (p. 114).

Ash highlights four problems we face when we try to appropriate the psalms to ourselves as individual believers:
– the protestations of extraordinary righteousness
– the extreme nature of much of the suffering
– our difficulties with praying God’s judgement on the wicked
– so much refers to the King rather than his people

The answer? See the Psalms as first and foremost the songs of Christ – which become true of us, in him. As Augustine put it: “Let no one, then, on hearing these words, maintain, “This is not said by Christ, or, on the other hand, “I am not speaking in this text.” Rather let each of us who know ourselves to be within Christ’s body acknowledge both truths, that “Christ speaks here” and that “I speak here.” Say nothing apart from him, as he says nothing apart from you.” (p. 223).

Ash doesn’t avoid the difficulties: Can we see psalms confessing sin as the words of Christ? What about the imprecatory psalms (a term he doesn’t like)?

In short, it’s a book full of the sort of things psalm singers have been saying for years – but delightfully executed, and one everyone can learn from.

2023:
The Westminster Divines and the Alexandrian Codex (Foundations)

Reading the Confession in Context (1): Authentical (Gentle Reformation)

2022:
Textual Confidence (Gentle Reformation)

This is the sixth in a great series of Crossway children’s books – all with the same illustrator, though with various different authors. It’s the second one to feature Arlo as the main character, and deals with the subject of peer pressure. The big boys at the park invite him to join their club – but only if he’ll throw a little girl’s toy rabbit in the bin. The subject is handled well, and in a way that our 3 year-old could understand. It maintains the high standard of the series, and it’s good to see that book 7 is due out in April.