A House for My Name - Peter Leithart

A House for My Name: A Survey of the Old Testament by Peter J. Leithart
Canon Press

There is no way I can really review this book.

That it can encompass such a understandable and exciting survey of the Old Testament in itself is amazing. I love Leithart's direct and concise writing.

I believe our Sunday school curriculum is based of this book and I've also read it before, but I picked it up again a couple weeks ago. I'm in 1-2 Kings right now in my Ligonier course and the commentary book isn't my favorite. It seems very narrow and doesn't pull or connect to any other part of the Bible. I felt like I needed something supplementary, so I picked A House for My Name. I'm extremely glad I did. :-)

I feel like it's something I should read bi-annually, since I'm not smart enough to remember all its amazingness!

It's one of those books that really makes you want to become wiser while showing you how horribly insufficient your mind is. (At least that's the way it made me feel...in a good way, of course. Does any of that make sense?)

I'm going to have fond memories of reading it too. I took it outside on a couple of occasion and read while I was swinging (sorry if that sounds childish). I love September and September wind should not be wasted. And, I finished on a Sunday afternoon accompanied by blackberry wine. ;-)

If you haven't read it, here's just a couple quotes to prick your appetite...

"The Bible tells one story.

It is a long and complicated story about events that took place over several thousand years, but even so it is one story. Like most good stories, the most exciting and important parts come toward the end.

In this case, the most important part comes when Jesus is born, lives, dies on the cross, rises again, and ascends to heaven. But to know why Jesus comes and what He is doing when he dies and rises again, we need to know the story that goes before. A man kisses a sleeping woman in a wood and she awakes. That's a nice ending to a story, but if we don't know that the woman is Sleeping Beauty and the man is Prince Philip, then we don't know the story very well.

A beginning is nothing without an ending, but an ending without a beginning isn't worth much either. To tell the story of Jesus, we need to start with Genesis, the first book of the Bible, a book whose name means 'Beginnings'. "

"Destroy this temple, Jesus said, and in three days I will raise it up. Three days later, Jesus is raised. But the water flowing from His side shows that Israel will be raised with Him and built into the new temple of His body.

In Pilate's Praetorium, the Jews renounces Jesus, choosing death over life.

But the Israel of God is never dead for long.

Israel has died before--in the wilderness between Egypt and Canaan, during the time of the judges, during the reign of Ahab, at the Babylonian exile. But when Old Israel dies, Yahweh, the Lord of life, brings a New Israel from the grave.

The death and resurrection of Jesus, who is the true Jacob and Israel, who is the temple flowing with living water, is the sign that a New Israel will be born. The Jews have rejected their king and destroyed their temple, but out of their dead bones the Spirit brings forth living stones for the holy house, an army that cannot be numbered.

But that is another story."


On a side note (being obsessed with "story" and writing as I am) I found this book very inspirational. To see and try and understand how the great Author creates the perfect story is awe inspiring.

Thanks for reading,
Miss Pickwickian