Dorian’s Favorites:
My absolute favorite book is John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. I highly recommend putting the effort into reading the unabridged version, the work will pay off for sure. I found myself constantly driven to tears, and my thirst for God, prayer, and reading the word increased with every page. A truly great book.
A close second is Jerry Bridges’ The Discipline of Grace.
Above All Earthly Pow’rs: Christ in the Postmodern World, by David F. Wells.
Why We’re Not Emergent (By Two Guys Who Should Be), by Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck.
Overcoming Sin and Temptation, By John Owen, Edited by Justin Talyor and Kelly Kapic.
Virtually anything by John Piper, but especially Desiring God, God is the Gospel, God’s Passion for His Glory.
Fire! and Grow Up. Be A Man. by Dan Phillips and Phil Johnson at Pyromaniacs.
Tim Challies’ review of The Shack and Greg Gilbert’s review of Velvet Elvis.
Dorian
Could I add a few more “must reads”? These books have changed my life.
Chosen by God – R.C. Sproul
The Holiness of God – R.C. Sproul
Hard to Believe – John Macarthur
Systematic Theology – Wayne Grudem
Disciplines of a Godly Man – R. Kent Hughes
And I’d second the choices Dorian made.
Curiously enough, I;ve never read anything by Mac or Sproul. Although not for any real reason.
Solomon, you are not the first person who has told me Hard to Believe by John Mac is a must read. I’ve owned that book for 6 months now and never picked it up. Maybe I’ll read it next.
Hard to Believe is kind of like a sequel to Johnny Mac’s blowout book “The Gospel According to Jesus” (released in the 80’s) where he basically destroyed the easy-believism and cheap grace that many scholars were promoting. You know, “Believe in Christ, and live like a heathen.” It’s basically a call back to lordship salvation; receiving Christ as Savior means receiving Him as Lord.
Those two books by Sproul will rock your socks off. He is thoroughly reformed in theology and does an excellent job handling the issue of God’s mercy/justice.
I don’t know if I explained that last post well. John Macarthur attacks, not promotes, the idea of “Believe in Christ, and live like a heathen.” That concept is what I’m calling cheap grace/easy believism. That stands in contrast to the idea of lordship salvation. Clear?
Ya, I am familiar with the whole Lordship vs. Easy believism debate. A year or so ago I read The Gospel According to Jesus I didn’t know Hard to Believe was a follow up to that. Is The Gospel According to the Apostles another sort of follow-up to The Gospel According to Jesus?
Also, Sproul is great. I have never read anything by him but I have heard some of his lectures on Calvinism and been to one of his conferences, but I love his theology.
I really liked what Sproul had to say in the DVD Amazing Grace: The History and Theology of Calvinism, and I own Chosen By God and The Holiness of God, but haven’t had the chance to get into either of them. I got Mac’s The Truth War for free, it looks like it would have a lot of great material relevant to this blog.
I suggest these books not necessarily for their overall message but for the introspective that you get from going inside the author’s life.
1. Searching For God Knows What–Donald Miller
2. Scar Tissue–Anthony Keidis(Red Hot Chili Peppers)
3. Leadership and Self Deception–The Arbinger Institute
I suggest these books because of their theological ideas, hermeneutics, and redemptive value. Every modern Christian should read these.
1. The Drama of Doctrine: A Canonical Linguistic Approach to Christian Theology–Kevin J. Vanhoozer
2. The Penteteuch as Narrative– John Sailhamer
I’ve heard lots of good things about Van Hoozer, I’m kind of excited to read a couple of his books, but it probably won’t be for a while yet, my reading list is too long.
Yeah Vanhoozer has amazing concepts in the studies of hermeneutics and systematic theology. The Church needs thinkers like him to continue to rethink the contextualization of truth for today’s culture. How does theology engage culture and stay true and orthodox? His systematic theology doesn’t look much like Grudem or Erickson. He also has a good Canonical hermeneutic. And the last good thing I can say is that Dan Christiansen and Ray Lubeck love reading Vanhoozer. To get those two to agree on something makes his books a must read.
Gabe, is the Drama of Doctrine Vanhoozer’s “systematic theology?”
Yeah! He takes a whole new way of doing systematic theology. The modern systematic theology started with Calvin’s The Institutes as I’m sure you all know. Vanhoozer thinks the modern way of doing systematic theology is becoming very irrelevant. Maybe not to Bible Scholars but systematic theology isn’t written to just us. He thinks that it needs to be better contextualized to culture and that it should continue to be innovated with culture. Truth doesn’t change. So don’t freak out. He thinks like good Bible translators think. Make theology contemporary for a contemporary audience. Don’t take my word for it though. Bump it up to the top two of your must read soon list.
Bryce, I have crazy love on my library hold list; can’t bring myself to buy it as its so tiny. I actually got up to look for a book by Piper, which I know I own, and its not here… I gave the book don’t waste your life as a retirement gift to a particular person named Curt, I got a kick out of that… PS – could we borrow systematic theology? thx!
I have a different sort of list – John Eldridge, Richard Foster, Bonhoeffer, CS Lewis, & Anne Lamott top my list of impacting authors. I also greatly appreciate the work Neil Anderson put into his books.
My husband and I just bought a study bible; we are looking forward to studying together (somehow!) and since I’m still not entirely sure what all the differences are in all the theology you guys talk about, I suppose I should take some time to learn that as well…
Lanelle,
Yes you can borrow Systematic Theology. I’ll try to bring it to home group on tuesday and give it to Brian.
Did Curt read DWYL?