"The Fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge."

The Fear of God is just the kind of book on doctrine that I like: a thorough and well organized treatment of a subject. Most modern books tend to take a verse, or an idea, and then launch themselves into spasms of prose, wandering through page after page without hardly a glance back at the Scriptures. Mr. Frank's book gets going with the Scriptures on page one and never looks back.

The book is very well organized, showing several aspects of the fear of the LORD and several other types of fear. As long as one doesn't take the various divisions as being necessarily doctrine in themselves, these are very helpful in understanding the subject. He speaks of that fear that brings us to  Christ, and that fear which we bring away from our encounter with Him. He speaks of the fears that keep us from Christ, and the fear that brings us to worship Him more and aright.

The conclusion of the book is one of the best sections, bringing us to exactly what must be taught (he says 'preached', but as a father I tend to 'teach' not 'preach) on the subject. And he, very appropriately, focuses on the Law of God... how the fear of God must, inevitably, if it is real, lead to an understanding of and obedience to the law of God.

If I have a cavil about the book it would be that the 'Summary' sections for each chapter were not as helpful as they could be. I heard a famous preacher once describe good preaching as saying what you were going to say, saying it, and saying what you've said. I find the 'saying what you've said' bit a bit weak.