Andrew Bonar Books: M'Cheyne, Leviticus, Psalms and More

Biography Commentary Missions Revival

Andrew A. Bonar (1810–1892) was a Free Church of Scotland pastor, first in the country parish of Collace and then for thirty-six years in Glasgow. He was the best friend of Robert Murray M'Cheyne and the younger brother of Horatius Bonar, the hymn writer. He wrote two kinds of books: lives of devoted young ministers, and warm, Christ-centered commentaries on the Old Testament. TheWay Library has five of them, all free to read. For his life story, see who was Andrew Bonar.

Where to start

Start with The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne. It's Bonar's best-known book by far, and one of the most loved Christian biographies in English.

After that:

To follow M'Cheyne and Bonar to the Holy Land: the Narrative of a Mission of Inquiry to the Jews.
For another short missionary life: the Memoir of David Sandeman.
For devotional Bible study: Christ and His Church in the Book of Psalms, then the Commentary on Leviticus.

Every quotation below is checked against the book it comes from, and each is Bonar's own writing, not a line he quotes from someone else. For more, see our collection of Andrew Bonar quotes.

Biographies

The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne

Bonar's memoir of his friend, the minister of St. Peter's, Dundee, who died in 1843 at twenty-nine. It follows M'Cheyne's conversion after the death of his brother David, his first work as an assistant at Larbert, his early years in Dundee with their habits of prayer and solitude, the mission to Palestine, the revival that broke out in his church while he was away, and his last illness. Bonar lets M'Cheyne speak for himself through long passages from his diary and letters, so the book is as much a record of a soul as of a career.

The days when a holy pastor, who knows the blood-sprinkled way to the Father, is laid aside, are probably as much a proof of the kindness of God to his flock as days of health and activity.
The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne, His Labors in the Vineyard Before Ordination

It has six chapters and is easy to read in a week. Pastors especially have found it humbling and stirring. Read The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne.

Memoir of the Life and Brief Ministry of the Rev. David Sandeman (1861)

The life of a young man from Perth who was converted, trained for the ministry and went to China as a missionary, where he served at Amoy for only a short time before he died. Bonar builds the book from Sandeman's diaries and letters, which are full of longing for Christ and love for lost people. It ends with Bonar's own thoughts on why the Lord of the harvest sometimes calls His workers home early.

He employs the one, because He likes to honour His servants by using them as instruments; He sends home the other soon, because He would have us know that He does not need to use instruments any further than pleases Him.
Memoir of the Life and Brief Ministry of the Rev. David Sandeman, His Brief Career in China

If you liked the M'Cheyne memoir, read this one next. Read the Memoir of David Sandeman.

The mission to the Jews

Narrative of a Mission of Inquiry to the Jews from the Church of Scotland in 1839

Bonar wrote this book together with M'Cheyne. In 1839 the Church of Scotland sent the two young ministers, with two older colleagues for part of the way, to learn the real condition of the Jewish people. The book is both a travel journal and a missionary report. They go through France, Italy, Malta and Greece to Egypt, cross the desert into Palestine, stay in Jerusalem and Hebron, ride north to Galilee, and come home through Smyrna, Constantinople and the large Jewish communities of eastern Europe and Prussia. Along the way they describe Bible places, synagogues and rabbis, and many conversations about the Messiah.

We told them that we had come from Scotland out of love to their souls.
Narrative of a Mission of Inquiry to the Jews, Egypt, The Desert, South of Palestine

It's a long book, and you can read it in pieces, by region. Read the Narrative of a Mission of Inquiry to the Jews.

Commentaries

Christ and His Church in the Book of Psalms (1859)

A commentary on all 150 psalms. Bonar argues in his preface that the Psalms are a hymn-book for every age, and that one Person is generally in view in them. For each psalm he gives a title naming its subject, a short explanation of its theme and plan, and notes on the text. He finds Christ as the blessed man of Psalm 1, the King of Psalm 2, the sufferer of Psalm 22 and the exalted Lord of Psalm 110, and he hears the church's own voice in its longings and praises. It's written to help you pray the Psalms with Christ in view.

We are kept by the putting forth of God's perfections in our behalf, truth, mercy, love, power, wisdom, holiness.
Christ and His Church in the Book of Psalms, Psalm LIV

The notes are short, so it works well alongside your daily Bible reading. Read Christ and His Church in the Book of Psalms.

A Commentary on the Book of Leviticus

Bonar's chapter-by-chapter commentary on Leviticus, which grew out of notes from his daily Bible reading. He reads the five offerings, the priesthood, the laws of clean and unclean, the Day of Atonement and the feasts as pictures of Christ and His work. Leprosy becomes a picture of sin in the heart and its cleansing a picture of the gospel. Each chapter has a heading that names its spiritual theme, and the book ends with a call to give oneself wholly to God.

The love that God felt to the guilty, is the love which we are to feel to our fellow-men.
A Commentary on the Book of Leviticus, Duties in the Every Day Relations of Life

If Leviticus has always seemed like a closed book to you, this is a good key to it. Read the Commentary on Leviticus.

A note on these editions

The Leviticus commentary was restored from a scan of an old printing and still has misread letters and some garbled words, especially in the Hebrew and Greek notes. The Psalms commentary and the Sandeman memoir have a few scattered errors of the same kind. The M'Cheyne biography is clean.

Why read Bonar today

Bonar shows you what a life given to Christ looks like, both in the friends he wrote about and in the way he wrote about the Bible. Start with the life of M'Cheyne, then take his Psalms commentary into your own prayers. All five books are on the Andrew A. Bonar author page. For more books like these, see our guides to the best Christian biographies, the best missionary biographies and the best classic Bible commentaries.