This is a book that every Christian student should read before studying at a non–evangelical institution. Even those at Bible–believing institutions (including seminaries) will benefit, since they will likely be reading books by ‘elitists’ and may at some point study under them in graduate school. I found the book riveting and had a hard time putting it down. The two appendices about the life–pilgrimage of two ‘populist’ theologians are worth the price of the book.

Yarbrough argues … that the New Testament is a religious book and is therefore of interest to religious people. It is not a text to be endlessly compared, dissected, or deconstructed for the amusement of elites or to provide them with assurance that they need not take God too seriously. To the contrary, Yarbrough shows that the majority of Christians in the world are interested in the theological and spiritual dimension of the Bible…

Without dismissing the contribution of post–Enlightenment biblical studies, Yarbrough is recommending what one may call an Augustinian hermeneutic, already practiced in the majority world, where Christianity continues to thrive. He calls into question the … marginalization of ‘populist’ interpretive voices by an ‘elitist’ academia which has long lost its bearings.

Yarbrough here summarizes his views on the most important questions of biblical scholarship: With which methods, with which views on Scripture do we approach the Bible?Yarbrough presents many examples of two ‘clashing’ approaches, but only one of them has the fruit of leading and strengthening readers of Scripture to finding and following Christ as their Savior. There is hope for future Christendom, and also for mission, if Jesus is the center of Scripture and of the life of its readers.