Remaking a Broken World overviews the Bible story. The book gives us, in the author’s words, “a fresh camera angle on the Bible story” that focuses on scattering and gathering―scattering as an aspect of God’s judgment, and gathering as an aspect of God’s redemption. The back cover of the book reads, “Our world is fractured on every level. From the family to international relations, it is hard to make and maintain harmony. How can we bring peace? This book offers a surprising, compelling answer: that the ordinary local church contains the seeds of a remade world. The most significant thing we can do is to commit ourselves to our church. Christopher Ash sweeps through the whole Bible, showing how the gathering of God’s people has always been central to God’s plan for the world. Read this to see the Bible anew, refresh your passion for your church, and find hope for a broken world—which, it turns out, is already being remade.” The writing is engaging, clear, and engages constantly with the Scriptures. In addition to the introduction and conclusion, there are nine chapters; arranged into four sections:
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Section A – A Broken World: Scattered Without God
●Section B – The Assembly of Israel: Gathering Foreshadowed
●Section C – The Assembly of Jesus: Gathering Realised
●Section D – The New Creation: Gathering Consummated
Mark Meynell, authors of a number of books, and Europe and Caribbean Director for Langham Preaching (part of Langham Partnership), provides an extensive and helpful review HERE. (He reviews the previous edition of Remaking a Broken World, hence the different cover displayed on review―the book has been revised and updated since.) Meynell writes, “The genius of Ash’s approach is to see God’s purposes expressed in the dual theme of his people being scattered and gathered. He bases this around a Bible tour of 9 places: Eden, Babel, Sinai, Jerusalem, Babylon, Golgotha, Pentecost, Church, and New Creation . . . . And once it’s pointed out, you see it everywhere – there’s a thrilling section, for example, in which Ash picks up the post-exilic context of prophetic hope (pp96-102). . . . . this is a genuinely biblical melodic line. This alone makes this book an important contribution to growing library of popular level biblical theology. But it is no academic curiosity – it has huge pastoral significance, . . . . it provocatively places the very idea of the community of God, and in particular the local church, centre stage.” Meynell concludes, “All in all, this is a wonderful read – stimulating, engaging, passionate, credible. I’m going to be recommending it left right and centre.”
Remaking a Broken World is published by The Good Book Company and is very reasonably priced (at the time of writing, it was £6.79 for the paperback and £4.79 for the ebook). If you buy the ebook, you get the book in three formats―PDF, epub and mobi. Another feature is that the PDF is printable―this format doesn’t have printing disabled. So if obtaining the paperback is difficult, or if you want both an ebook and a printed copy, you can buy the ebook and then print the PDF. The publisher’s page for the book is HERE―the page includes a free excerpt that you can download.
Christopher Ash is writer in residence at Tyndale House in Cambridge, United Kingdom, and a full-time preacher, speaker, and writer. He previously served as the director of the Proclamation Trust’s Cornhill Training Course and as a minister and church planter. He and his wife, Carolyn, are members of St. Andrew the Great Church in Cambridge, and have four children and seven grandchildren. He has written numerous books.
Creation to New Creation - a Bible Overview 