The Good News We Almost Forgot: Rediscovering the Gospel in a 16th Century Catechism
by Kevin DeYoung
Why You'll Love This
A 16th-century catechism turns out to be a sharper diagnosis of the modern church's problems than anything written this century.
- Great if you want: historic Reformed theology made accessible without dumbing it down
- The experience: 52 short chapters — steady, unhurried, devotional in pace and tone
- The writing: DeYoung writes with pastoral warmth and zero theological hedging
- Skip if: you're outside Reformed tradition and resistant to its framework
About This Book
What if the answers to the church's most pressing questions aren't waiting to be discovered but recovered? Kevin DeYoung makes exactly that argument in this warm, searching examination of the Heidelberg Catechism, a 16th-century document that has quietly shaped Reformed Christianity for centuries. Rather than chasing novelty, DeYoung invites readers back to a text that moves through human guilt, divine grace, and grateful obedience with a clarity that feels almost startling in an age of theological drift. The stakes are real: when Christians lose their grip on the gospel's shape and substance, they lose something harder to recover than they might expect.
DeYoung structures the book as 52 short chapters, each one unpacking a portion of the catechism in prose that is precise without being cold and conversational without being shallow. The format makes the book genuinely usable—weekly devotional, small-group study, personal refresher—without feeling like a workbook. His writing rewards careful readers because he refuses easy answers while still writing for ordinary believers, not just scholars. The result is theology that illuminates rather than overwhelms.