Review of Gordon Keddie's Prayers of the Bible

The following is a guest post by Russell Pulliam, an Indianapolis Star columnist and ruling elder at the Second Reformed Presbyterian Church of Indianapolis.

Gordon Keddie has a way with words.

Maybe it has something to do with growing up in Scotland.

He’s been using that gift to write splendid Bible commentaries. Now he’s also used it with his Prayers of the Bible (2107) and its daily devotionals published by Crown and Covenant Publications.

The format is user-friendly. Take any day of the year, and Pastor Keddie has a Scripture meal ready. Read the Bible chapter. Read the 4-6 paragraph commentary. Sing the assigned psalm Write down some prayer requests. He keeps it simple, though he has read enough books to make it complex.

His walk with the Lord comes through. “As long as we fancy we have a bit of strength of our own, whether to resist some sin or perform some good deed, we tend to reserve a bit of glory for ourselves,” he writes. There are plenty more of his these one-sentence examples of Proverbs 25:11 – “A word aptly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.”

The commentary section includes his thoughts, and he also draws on his wealth of classical commentators: Matthew Henry; Matthew Poole; the Dutch Wilhelmus A Brakel; Charles Spurgeon; Charles Simeon; A. W. Pink; John Calvin. He leans British given his Scottish heritage, but that’s an advantage for American readers to learn some new names and find their place in church history. He also draws on the shorter catechism.

He also quotes the Beatles at one point. He even offers a useful muddy story from his own cross-country running days back in Scotland. Another advantage is that he is no longer a young man. Like Matthew Henry, he’s offering his commentaries later in life after accumulating wisdom and understanding from pastoral service in several RP churches, both in Scotland and the United States.

The strength of his volume is his own personal devotion to the Lord as well as his wide reading of those who have gone before us and left their thoughts and journals for us.