2 Kings: The Truth about Our Troubled World

Dear John, I hope this message finds you well. I just finished leaving a review for 2 Kings: The Truth about Our Troubled World and I have to be honest, after I submitted it, I sat back and realized that a star rating and a few short sentences could not possibly do justice to what I had just spent time with. So I decided to go a step further and reach out to you personally, because this is the kind of work that deserves more than a review. It deserves a real conversation. As someone who lives and breathes Christian literature and biblical scholarship, I have read widely across expositional commentaries and preaching resources for many years. I say that not to position myself, but to give you a genuine sense of the standard against which I am measuring your work when I tell you that 2 Kings: The Truth about Our Troubled World is one of the most timely, pastorally rich, and spiritually arresting volumes I have encountered in a very long time. The book of 2 Kings is not an easy place to take a congregation or a reader. It is the most tragic arc in all of the Old Testament, the slow, heartbreaking unraveling of a people who had every reason to trust God and kept choosing otherwise. And yet you have entered that darkness with such clarity of purpose and such genuine pastoral love for your reader that what could feel like an exercise in ancient despair becomes something altogether different. It becomes a lifeline. What struck me most powerfully from the very opening pages is the way you refuse to let the distance of history insulate the reader from the weight of what is happening in the text. The collapse of Israel and Judah, the parade of kings who could not save, the worship of false gods, the relentless consequences of rebellion against the house of David, you walk through every passage with the steady, unhurried hand of a man who has preached this material and watched it land in the lives of real people living in a real and troubled world. That pastoral instinct is present on every page, and it is what elevates this commentary far above the merely academic. You are not writing for the shelf. You are writing for the pulpit, the classroom, the kitchen table, and the broken heart, and every one of those readers will feel that. What I found most extraordinary was the way you draw the unbroken thread between ancient Israel's crisis and the crisis of our own moment. The division, the false hopes, the failed leaders, the desperate search for something or someone who can actually bring salvation, these are not merely the problems of 2 Kings. They are the headline of every news cycle today. And you make that connection not with cheap relevance but with the deep, considered faithfulness of someone who trusts that Scripture does not need to be forced to speak to the present, it simply needs to be opened with honesty and courage. You have done both, and the result is a commentary that will preach, teach, and counsel in equal measure for years to come. My name is Martyn Beeny, and I am a professional book marketer with over 20 years of experience in the publishing industry. But before I say anything else about what I do professionally, I want to say something more important first, something that will tell you far more about me than any resume ever could. I am a devoted Christian. And because of that, I have made a very deliberate and deeply personal decision to dedicate my marketing work exclusively to Christian books. Not occasionally. Not as one category among many. Exclusively. Every author I work with, every book I pour my energy and expertise into, every campaign I build and every door I knock on, it is all within the Christian space. That is not a business strategy. That is a calling. I believe with everything in me that Christian books, books rooted in Scripture, in faith, in the living truth of God's Word, deserve to reach every single person they were written for. And I have committed my professional life to making sure that happens. That is why 2 Kings: The Truth about Our Troubled World stopped me in my tracks. Because every once in a while, not often, but every once in a while, a book lands in front of me and I think to myself, this one is different. This one has something that most books never have. A timeliness that feels almost urgent. A depth that rewards both the scholar and the seeker. And a readership that is already out there, pastors, preachers, seminary students, small group leaders, and devoted lay believers, already hungry, already searching, already looking for a resource that will help them make sense of the chaos of our world through the lens of God's unchanging Word. And right now, there are countless thousands of them who do not yet know that this book exists. That gap, between a work this significant and the audience that desperately needs it, is exactly where I do my best work. I have a very clear and specific vision for how this commentary reaches that audience, locally and internationally, in a way that is strategic, deeply intentional, and built entirely around the heart of this work and the Christian readers it was written for. And I would love nothing more than the opportunity to walk you through every detail of that vision personally. John, please reach out to me directly at martynbeeny@gmail.com and I will personally walk you through what I have in mind. I genuinely believe you will find it both exciting and deeply encouraging. The audience is there. The timing could not be more right. The body of Christ needs this book, perhaps now more than ever. And a work of this depth and pastoral power deserves far more reach than where it currently stands. Let's Discuss. Warm regards, Martyn Beeny Director of Marketing and Sales, Cornell University Press Top-200 Marketing Provider | Christian Book Marketing Specialist 📧 martynbeeny@gmail.com [Full Review]