Ten Books We're Recommending
One of the privileges of being an English-speaking Christian in an affluent culture is that we have access to such a vast and growing library of superb Christian books. I continue to be amazed at the variety and quality of books that are available.
After seeing how our people swarmed over the book giveaway we held here a few years ago, I know that our people love books. Here are a few excellent titles that have come to our attention recently. Thanks to Art Temmesfeld (AT) for his help in evaluating several of these titles.
Anchors for the Soul: How to Trust God in the Storms of Life, by John Mark Hicks. This book is highly recommended for those involved in a grief counseling ministry, or for a small group that is going through great suffering. The author, who is well acquainted with grief in his personal life, gives counsel in Part 1 for those suffering as to how they might find comfort in the storm. This section is helpful and encouraging for people to understand that God is with them no matter what circumstances they are experiencing. Part 2 of the book gives excellent advice to those who are in the position of comforting sufferers. Though this book is not for everybody, it is certainly appropriate for some who are facing personal grief or counseling those who are grieving. (AT)
You are God's Plan A (and there is no Plan B ) by Dwight Robertson. This book shows that God’s purpose for the believer is to love and reach the world with the gospel. Robertson fills his book with stories and illustrations showing how God has worked in his own life and in other’s lives to accomplish His purpose. The book is thoroughly biblical and very readable. I recommend it highly for small groups, individual one-on-one discipleship, and even select Sunday school classes. (AT)
The Prodigal Prophet by Tim Keller. This book is timely in that Keller focuses on Jonah’s nationalism and prejudice as a hindrance to his obedience and his understanding of God’s love for the nations (not just his nation). If you want a solidly biblical examination of the corrosive effects of the toxic “Christian nationalism” exhibited in the assault on the Capitol, this examination of Israel’s reluctant prophet would be a good place to start.
Journey Into God's Word by J. Scott Duvall and J. Daniel Hays, is an excellent summary on how to study the Bible. It deals with issues of literary genre, cultural differences, interpretive issues, figures of speech, and the critical difference between meaning and application. Generally, it provides a great overview of Bible study methods. (AT)
The Common Rule by Justin Whitmel Earley. I wrote an entire blog piece on this some time ago, “Leveraging the Power of Habit.” But the book is so good that I wanted to feature it again in this list. We have written many times on the power of habit, and Earley wants to harness that power to help us grow spiritually. He recommends four daily habits and eight weekly habits to channel the power of habit in our spiritual formation. You might find, like me, that his recommended habits are daunting, but the simple idea that we can and should examine our habits and use the power of habit to help us grow is worth the price of the book.
Encouragement: How Words Change Lives, by Gordon Cheng. This book starts off pretty basic--more likely intended for fairly new believers; however, there are a few good zingers for mature believers in later chapters. I would recommend this book for anyone dealing with conflict. Cheng offers good suggestions how we could all be more encouraging to one another in the body of Christ. Cheng is an Aussie, so some of his references may seem foreign to Americans; but that's not a barrier to understanding what he's writing. Good sound advice for all! (AT)
I’ve saved my favorites for last. These are four books I highly recommend.
The Discipline of Grace by the late Jerry Bridges is a book I’m reading now with some of the guys I’m discipling. Bridges wrote this book to connect the themes of two of his earlier books Pursuit of Holiness and Transforming Grace. Some of Bridges’ chapter titles indicate his approach:
“How Good Is Good Enough?”
“The Pharisee and the Tax Collector”
“Preach the Gospel to Yourself”
“Disciplined by Grace”
“Dependent Discipline”
There are also individual chapters on the disciplines of commitment, convictions, choices, watching, and adversity. (This book is also now available on our Discipleship Resource shelves outside the Family Life Center.)
The Wisdom Pyramid: Feeding Your Soul in a Post-Truth World by Brett McCracken is one of the best books I’ve seen recently. If you’re like me, the subtitle resonates: “Feeding Your Soul in a Post-Truth World.” He’s right on both counts. We need this book right now because we do live in a “post-truth world,” and our social media addictions (and neglect of better sources of truth) are starving us spiritually. McCracken writes on media for the Gospel Coalition, and he speaks with the expertise of a man who is engaged with both popular culture (he is a film critic) and church culture (he is an elder at his church). He uses the familiar “food pyramid” to show how our heavy dependence on social media sickens us spiritually by “Information Gluttony,” “Perpetual Novelty,” and “’Look Within’ Autonomy” (titles of the first three chapters).
Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers by Dane C. Ortlund. This book is extraordinary both for the topic as well as the author’s marvelous prose (my copy is marked on almost every page) and for its source (Puritan writers on the subject, “the heart of Christ for sinners and sufferers”). This is a book you’ll want to re-read every few years.
The Gospel Comes with a House Key by Rosaria Butterfield. We’ve mentioned this book before as well, but it also is so good that I want to remind our readers of its value. Butterfield challenges us to make our homes into places of welcome, where the stranger can become a friend and a friend can become a brother or sister in Christ.
As we come out of the pandemic and we grow more comfortable with the idea of inviting people into our homes, this book can be both a practical guide and an inspiring encouragement to make our homes available to friends and neighbors, to create the space and depth in our relationships with unbelievers so that spiritual conversations can emerge naturally. (A few copies of this book are also available on our Discipleship Resource shelves.)
You can go to Amazon to look at samples for each book. There you can see the cover, table of contents, and usually a few early pages of the volume. And I have a copy of each of these, if you’d like to borrow one to see it for yourself.
These are a few of the many very excellent books I’ve seen recently. I’ll post recommendations like this from time to time. But don’t be so dazzled by all these choices that that you are distracted from the Book itself.
As Charles Spurgeon said it so well: “Visit many good books, but live in the Bible.”
Persevere.
Paul Pyle
Discipleship Pastor
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