Last week I gave my “Favorite Books of 2014” knowing it didn’t include what may just have been the most surprising book of the year: Job: The Wisdom of the Cross by Christopher Ash.

I say “surprising’ because who knew a commentary, on a canonical book many pastors never touch, would be so technically sound and pastorally sensitive. For my mind, Ash’s book is a model of how to write a commentary.

Here you will find Job’s harder parts treated with sound rigor and careful attention to the prevailing views of the time.

Here you will find sermonic outlines that are dangerously insightful. If you don’t have your own exegetical or homiletical outline before reading Ash, it will be hard not to just use his.

Here you will find a “Christ-centeredness” that is not predictable or forced. Rather, it is gloriously multifaceted. Ash continually lifts our gaze to all the wondrous ways Job is a foreshadowing of Christ’s person and work.

Here you will find heart-searching wisdom and application that makes this a wonderful devotional book. If you read it during daily devotions I bet you will find your soul growing pleasantly large.

Here you will find an exposition of Job that, if you have yet to do an expositional series on the innocent sufferer of old, will almost undoubtedly lead you to conclude, “Oh, how I need to preach through Job!”

An all-round outstanding, and surprising, achievement. Tolle lege!