Book Review - John Mac Arthur's "Slave"

The back cover begins..."Centuries ago, English translators perpetrated a fraud in the New Testament, and it's been covered up every since. Your own Bible is probably included in the cover up." 

Whenever someone suggests that the Bible lacks credibility I usually shrug it off as anti-christian bias. After all, this has been happening since the Satan said the Author of the Bible lacked credibility.  But when a strong proponent of biblical authority, a man who believes in a high view of the Scripture says that "translators have perpertrated a fraud"  - I sat up and took notice.

I was asked to review the book "Slave" by Dr. John Mac Arthur as part of a marketing campaign by Thomas Nelson publishers. I would receive the book for free if I would read it and post a review of the book on my blog. So here goes my first review.

Overall I believe the book is useful because Dr. Mac Arthur is a faithful expositor and his work in this book is faithful as well.

My frustration with the book falls under the category of what I would call the "tabloid news tease effect." This marketing technique is used in T.V., Talk Radio, Sports Talk Radio and most advertising. It teases the viewer/reader/listener to "stay tuned" by suggesting that what is coming is so incredible that you wouldn't want to miss it.

While I put up with this in pagan marketing I was quite surprised that it would be part of evangelical circles. I believe Paul (that would be the Apostle Paul) wrote something about not 'tampering with the Word of God" for personal gain.

If the kind of "cover up" that Dr. Mac Arthur says has happened, has in fact happened. And if it has had the level of negative impact on our discipleship that he would suggest, then a massive recall of the bible needs to take place immediately. We are talking about the Word of the most high God.  If companies recall toys, medicine and automobiles for safety reasons it would only seem reasonable that someone with more influence than this reviewer would get right on this and demand a recall. I assume the bean counters at the bible publishing companies would not be in favor of bearing the cost of republishing millions of bibles even if it meant getting the biblical text accurate.

Another difficulty was that Dr. Mac Arthur gives a rather negative assessment of the "contemporary evangelical movement" (pg. 74). I find this judgment more than a bit hypocritical given the way this book is being marketed. To take a slap at those whom he had in mind over their so-called "worldly methods" and "worldly music" and having no "lordship ideology" is ridiculous, especially in light of how this book is presented as that which "unveils the essential and clarifying revelation that my be keeping [me] from a fulfilling and correct relationship with God." Really??? Hmmm. It is tough to take a lecture on the compromise of  "market driven strategies in ministry" (pg. 75) from someone who tells me that his book holds the key to a correct relationship with God and that a cover up of "biblical proportions" has kept me from that relationship.

I have no doubt that Dr. Mac Arthur is correct that the word for "slave" was mistranslated and probably for cultural reasons. As a pastor I am constantly aware of the illustrations I use and the responsibility to be culturally relevant. I am grateful for men like John Mac Arthur who have bequeathed this great heritage of biblical fidelity to me and millions of others through his writing, preaching and radio ministry.

So how do we move forward in regaining the concept of "slave" as a defining reality of our discipleship in Jesus?

This is perhaps where the book was most confusing. He never really tells us how to move forward. It seems that the author's intention was to write a book about Calvinistic doctrine. My natural bent to cynicism would lead me to believe that in order to get someone to read a book on Calvinistic theology you had better have a good lure - like the one on pg. 1 when the author tells us that he realized there had been a "centuries-long cover up by English New Testament translators that had obscured a precious, powerful, and clarifying revelation by the Holy Spirit."  Now I am not much of a fisherman, but I think that is a lure.

Since I am a commitment to biblical fidelity in matters of the glorious gospel of grace, I don't mind reading a book that reinforces my need to keep living in vital dependence to that grace. The problem is that the book has no gospel well to drink from. It is a well written lecture on doctrine but not a place for grace. It would be like giving a thirsty man a lecture on the elements of water without providing for him an actual drink of water.

If I am going to appropriate the spiritual reality of being a slave what I will need is for the gospel to change me so that I embody the teaching of being a slave as well as the reality of living as a slave to Jesus. I sensed in this book the usual law-lecture instead of pointing me to see the One who as rich and yet for my sake became poor so that through His poverty I might become rich.

My desire is to have my discipleship convey the full surrender of being a slave to Jesus. I pray for grace to embody it in the way Jesus did. To the extent that John Mac Arthur's book "Slave" encourages this I am grateful. To the extent he used the alleged "cover up" to sell books and take a swipe at culturally relevant expressions of being a slave of Christ I am disappointed.