Daily Doctrine:A One-Year Guide to Systematic Theology
By Kevin DeYoung
Published by Crossway
Book Review by Jackie Beach
What’s your view of doctrine? Do you savor the opportunity to delve into topics such as the trinity, covenants, sin, and the atonement? Or do you find doctrine to be dry, boring, mostly incomprehensible, and irrelevant? If doctrine isn’t your delight, I believe that Daily Doctrine, A One-Year Guide to Systematic Theology, will change your perspective. The approach and design taken by Kevin DeYoung and Crossway in Daily Doctrine to present doctrine as readable, interesting, educational and compelling for many levels of Biblical knowledge is masterful.
Kevin DeYoung, a PCA pastor and teacher at Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte, NC, has written Daily Doctrine to provide a structured framework based on systematic theology for learning more about God and Christianity. The devotionals in Daily Doctrine are organized in groups of 5 for each of the 52 weeks of the year. Each week of 5 devotionals is categorized under one of the following headings:
- Prolegomena: Preliminary Considerations and Doctrine of Scripture
- Theology Proper: The Being of God and the Works of God
- Anthropology: Man as Created and Fallen
- Covenant Theology: How God Relates to His Creatures
- Christology 1: The Person of Christ
- Christology 2: The Work of Christ
- Soteriology: Salvation in Christ
- Ecclesiology: The Nature, Mission, and Ordering of the Church
- Eschatology: Last Things
In the Introduction to Daily Doctrine, DeYoung writes that he wants to communicate the “technical arguments and terminology” of doctrine in a manner that can be clearly understood by “busy pastors, students, leaders, and laypeople” (p 1). In my opinion, DeYoung has achieved his goal with excellence.
Daily Doctrine can stand alone as a tool for learning about the doctrine of the Christian faith, and it also can motivate the reader for further study about a particular topic from other sources.
DeYoung adds that his main goal in Daily Doctrine is for people “to understand what the Bible teaches, defend what the Bible teaches, and enjoy the God whom the Bible reveals” (p 2). I found Daily Doctrine to succeed in all of those areas.
Kevin Lee DeYoung (born June 23, 1977) is an American Reformed theologian, historian, and pastor. He is currently the senior pastor at Christ Covenant Church PCA in Matthews, North Carolina. The church he previously pastored was University Reformed Church (East Lansing, Michigan). He moved to the Presbyterian Church in America in March 2015 after having been a member of the Reformed Church in America.
