Reverberation (2012) - Jonathan Leeman

Reverberation: How God’s Word Brings Light, Freedom, and Action to His People (2012) Jonathan Leeman

9Marks, Moody Publishers

Trade paperback, 197 pages

ISBN 9780802422996

Retail price $12.99

Churches and church leadership can come up with all sorts of way to promote church growth: attractive programs, contemporary worship bands, people-oriented ministries, etc. All of these things are fine, but without the church’s main driving force, the Word of God proclaimed, all of these other considerations are secondary. 

To use Leeman’s terminology, the Word of God should reverberate in and through our lives, both individually and as a body of believers in local churches. In the book’s second chapter, Leeman states that the Word acts in five ways:

• God’s Word is an extension of God

• God acts through His Word

• God acts through His Word by His Spirit

• God’s Word and Spirit act together efficaciously 

• God speaks through human preachers and human words

Leeman (who clearly has a high view of Scripture) explains how the Word invites and divides, acts, frees, and gathers. Through sermons, the Word exposes our sin, “announces what God has done, and confronts its hearers with this news and its implications (p. 124).”

So that’s how God’s Word acts. But how does it reverberate? What does this look like?

The reverberation becomes noticeable in how Christians sing, pray, and disciple. It’s unmistakable, says Leeman. You know it when you see it. Such reverberations themselves can lead to the Word exposing, announcing, and confronting. It scatters, reverberating in the hearing of others, starting the process all over again. 

I initially feared Reverberation would be a very simplistic volume, but I was wrong. While the book is a fairly read, Leeman explores the topic with depth, making us rethink how our churches operate, how we think of the Word of God, and how it reverberates (or doesn’t) in our own lives. I’m not sure I agree 100% with all of Leeman’s thoughts on expositional vs. topical sermons, but his dedication to biblical teaching is evident. 

Kevin DeYoung’s quote does a good job of summing up Reverberation:

“The secret of the gospel is that we actually do more when we hear less about all we need to do for God and hear more about all that God has already done for us.”