Book Review: "Servant of All"

In June, I gave a short review of the first book in this series by Joseph Parker. That book was called “The Inner Life of Christ.” You may read that review (and order the book from Amazon) by clicking here.

Volume 2 of this three-volume set of sermons is entitled “Servant of All,” and it covers Matthew chapters 8-16.

Overall, I liked this book more than the first volume, but it carried over many of the same problems that I had with the first volume. First of all, the language is “up there.” Maybe I’m just not that smart, but I can’t imagine preaching the way Parker does. There are some quotable quotes, and a couple of sermon outline ideas, but, overall, the sermons are almost unreadable. Though only about 100 years old, there are many words in these sermons that I have only encountered in this series.

That being said, the sermon entitled “The Grain of Mustard Seed” is quite good. Of all the sermons, this one is the most readable and the one I would be most likely to reuse part of in a sermon of my own.

One other positive of this volume is that all the chapters are nearly the same length, making it easy to figure out how must to read each day. Almost every chapter is 8 pages long, and can be read in about 15 minutes.

Overall, I would only recommend this book if one was doing serious study on the book of Matthew (or the life of Christ in general), or someone who collects sermon books. It is a helpful read in some ways, but is not worth the price tag to most Christians. If you wish to order a copy, use the link below and pick up a used volume.

In the coming weeks, I plan on reading and reviewing the final volume in this series. Stay tuned for that.