James Montgomery Boice was ushered into glory on June 2000. But he left legacy of godliness and passion for God's word. His books are pastoral at heart, therefore his books while scholastic, are never dry or devoid of practicality.
1. His books (3 vols, Unabridged 1 volume edition is also available via Kregel Publisher) on "The Minor Prophets" are amazingly challenging and powerful. This is not simply a commentary. This book connects the message of Minor Prophets (Hosea to Malachi) to today's world, thus making this book highly applicable and challenging to God's people. He addresses modern danger of materialism, syncretism, self-reliance, and modern idolatry in Christian churches.
2. He properly captures the heart of the message of Minor Prophets without cluttering with technical jargons. He emphasizes how God's people can break God's heart by their sins despite God's overwheling love for them. Then he applies that truth to current Christendom at large, calling for honest self-examination and determined repentance from Christian idolatry and sins.
3. He has made the message of Minor Prophets undestandable to ALL Christians by making it simple. It is simple, because it is sermonic in nature.

Those who read the Minor Prophets in the Bible will do well with this James Montgomery's book. You will be edified and challenged and ultimately understand God's message to His people.

This book is a classic "hands on" audit reference; written with the same "how to" style as "Operational Profitability". I highly recommend this book.

This book gives readers an accurate account of the History of Montgomery County, Georgia. It includes old pictures and maps and the names of the early founders. Great source for Genealogical research.

This book covers every species of fern (and clubmoss and horsetail, that sort of thing) reported in New Jersey, with excellent maps showing exactly where. It also includes good pictures, brief descriptions of each species, range and habitat and lots of interesting comments. Great for finding out what might be in a given area, not as good for identifying a specific sample. Still, I really enjoyed it.

This is a wonderfully balanced, even-handed approach to the "worship wars" and debate over styles used in worship services. The small book is remarkably free from personal preferences and challenges the reader to examine biblical foundations in formulating opinions and thoughts concerning contemporary worship, especially as it relates to a return to God-centeredness in worship. Its direction and instruction may not be popular with those who prefer a market-driven, pole-oriented approach to what worship should look like, but its scholarship will be evident to all who read it. This is classic James Boice at his direct and insightful best.

This month (06/00) James Montgomery Boice passed into the presence of the Christ to whom he dedicated three inspirational volumes on the Psalms. He leaves behind treasures that will certainly become classics. In his erudite but easy to understand way, Boice helps us to come to grips with the rawest elements of life on earth, as well as to delight in the most ecstatic pleasure of a relationship with God. In his amplification of the psalms, the author describes and illustrates the profound applicability of faith to all of lifes experiences. Volume 3 includes the crown jewel of the Psalms; Psalm 119. It is presented as not only about the excllencies of the laws of God but about the deep satisfaction of the ways of God. As a source for personal inspiration and meditation, these volumes are without equal and this final one is perhaps the best. Without compromising the truths of the original texts, Boice displays them in contemporary language and relevant applications. We are fortunate that this final volume was completed and published.

As indicated by the title of Boice's four volumes on Romans, this is an expositional commentary. Not only does Boice give the reader a sufficient depth of understanding in the text, but especially helpful to those who are teaching through Romans are his illustrations and the organization of his material into a "preachable" style. And though the average Bible student will need other more technical commentaries to flush out his/her understanding of Romans, we find ourselves turning to Boice more and more.

One Step from the White House is a very satisfying, well-written biography of a pivotal figure in both post-World War II U.S. political history as well as 20th century San Francisco Bay Area history. The book chronicles William Fife Knowland's life in a straight-forward narrative from his 1908 birth to his suicide in 1974. Knowland's life makes a compelling story -- from his early days as the favorite son of a politically ambitious father, to his Senate years as a strong voice for the Republican Party's conservative wing, to his self-destructive golden years. Montgomery and Johnson allow the story to unfold slowly and tell itself without too much analysis or summary. While this style gives the book good narrative momentum as the reader becomes more and more familiar with Knowland, this sometimes analysis-free style resulted in this reader wondering how certain events came about, such as Knowland's meteoric rise in the Republican Senate leadership. The book is also too "soft" on its subject for a post-Watergate era political biography. While the author's introductory remarks thanking the Knowland family for their confidence and trust seem polite and appropriate, they ultimately reveal an excessive concern for the subject's descendants at the expense of the story at hand. When Montgomery and Johnson do impose some analysis on the story, it is sometimes unconvincing. The most prominent example of this is naming the book "One Step from the White House," clearly an appropriate title for a biography of Thomas Dewey or Hubert Humphrey, but the author's do not successfully sell its applicability to Knowland. In spite of such lapses, Montgomery and Johnson deliver a effective chronicle of a fascinating man and flawed man.

Gayle B. Montgomery and James W. Johnson have presented an excellent book on the complex life of Senator William F. Knowland. This book is great history of California and the (SF) East Bay Area;the Republican Party of the 1950's and the Oakland Tribune. Daniel Wyatt, the author of the life of Bill Knowland's father, Joseph Russell Knowland.

I knew Senator Knowland well, having worked for twenty years for the Oakland Tribune, and having had the unenviable assignment of writing his obituary for the newspaper following his death. Gayle Montgomery and Jim Johnson have done a magnificent job of capturing the driving demons of a man whose brusque and hearty demeanor disguised a complex and, in the end, tortured personality. This is a compelling book for every reader, not just those interested in the social an political history of the time.

Why should you buy a Bible commentary written in the 1920s, especially when so many have been written since? I would not suggest that this should be the only commentary on Daniel that you buy. If you want only one at this level of technicality, I suggest the one by J J Collins; it is far more recent and easier to read. However, I recommend that you get this one as well, because Montgomery was a master of his craft. His discussion of the Greek versions of Daniel, for example, has not yet been superseded and is still well worth studying. Have both on your bookshelf, and you will know nearly everything that is worth knowing about the Book of Daniel.

This is possibly the most often quoted of all commentaries on the Book of Daniel.

It's scholarly to the point of being intimidating. Montgomery usually leaves quotations from Latin, Greek, Aramaic, Hebrew, German, and French untranslated. He uses abbreviations to cram 1000 pages of material into 500 pages.

Other commentaries from early in this century are getting hard to find (e.g., Driver, Boutflower, and C. H. H. Wright.) So you should buy this before it goes out of print.

I liked Montgomery's survey of the modern resurgence of literary criticism of Daniel. He sees Bertholdt's German commentary (1806) as the modern return to Porphyry's 3rd century criticisms of Daniel.

The book has wonderfully detailed histories of interpretations for controversial passages in Daniel. They are hard reading because of the abbreviations and untranslated quotations.

If Catholics want to understand why unity is impossible, I would read this book. Protestants should read it and try to figure out how much truth should be sacrificed on the alter of unity. The most important sections was how the false claims of the papacy rose. I would suggest Calvin's Institutes as another reference. Michael Horton is also an engaging writer. Also deals with core issues such as justification and Catholic veneration of Mary.

Horton writes an excellent executive summary, if you will, of what truly continues to divide the churches of the Reformation from Rome.

Primarily as then, Rome's insistence on adding to Scripture alone as the only source of theology; of adding to grace and faith alone as the only source of salvation, continues to erect a huge, major divide between the two. As Horton correctly quotes Avery Dulles in Rome's continued holding to the anathemas of Trent as still prevailing now in Vatican II times, this is absolutely Rome's position.

My own church speaks in detail about this. See "The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification in Confessional Lutheran Perspective" available at www.lcms.org/ctcr/docs/pdf/justclp.pdf, or read Robert Preus' excellent work: Justification and Rome.

The authors present a helpful picture of church unity at the end of the millenium. Far from being anti-Catholic, the authors point out differences in the core beliefs of the reformed faith and the Catholic faith. Highly recommended.