Introduction

Howard Marshall's defense of the all of life conception over and against Ralph Martin's more liturgical emphasis. It is certainly no coincidence that it was Marshall who penned the preface to David Peterson's Engaging with God, the foremost book among a group of volumes in our pool that share a clear all of life emphasis. Peterson's book is not only highly ranked by the professors surveyed for this project, but also enormously respected by the author's peers. They count themselves indebted to Peterson's attempt at a closely exegetical and integrated biblical theology of worship. Strongly echoing Peterson's all of life conception, Harold Best's Unceasing Worship approaches the subject from a somewhat different angle. Whereas Peterson writes as a biblical scholar, Best's book might best be described as a work of topical theology. Resonating at many points with these two paradigmatic all of life volumes are the observations of the multiple theorist/practitioners who authored Worship by the Book.