I began this book when it seemed that my days of preaching and teaching the Bible were over. I missed the discipline and blessing of preparation so tried to think of a Bible book which I had not heard preached on for a long time and was unlikely to do so soon. I thought of Leviticus. At about the same time some were saying that if I would not be preaching, would I write for them. So the work began to change from something done simply for my own benefit. All the time I have written with the kind of people in mind that I have met in the congregations to which I have preached.