Books Found By Reading Other Books

Not the catchiest title ever, but...if I really like a book I'm reading, I will be on the lookout for any books the author refers to while I'm turning the pages.

For example, in the All of Grace book reviewed in the previous post, the author said that his favourite book was this 1937 French novel (translated into English in 1951):

It's the story of a young Catholic priest who is not accepted in his new parish and pushes through his many hardships under God.

I read a couple of blogs fairly regularly. One I read every day is Justin Taylor's. One of Justin's posts recommended a novel called Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson.

Published in 2004, this novel won the Pulitzer Prize, a remarkable achievement. It's the fictional autobiography of the Reverend John Ames who, knowing he will soon die, wants to leave his seven year-old grandson with the story of his life and times.

Yes, you can see a theme in these books - pastors' stories! Well, it is my list after all!  

Another blog I read sometimes referred to a book on finding your strengths called Strengths Finder 2.0, by John Rath.

It's not a 'Christian' book as such, but hey - it's good to know what you excel at isn't it. My wife and I want to read through this together.

Finally, my wife was told about this book below, called One Thousand Gifts, by Ann Voskamp. It won an Award of Merit in the Christianity Today book awards for 2012.  

The gist of the book is to remind of the importance of thanking God for the everyday, not just the big events of our lives.

So there's a snapshot of some future reads.

Incidentally, I won't be posting on this blog on Sundays, so you'll see the next post on Monday sometime.

God bless and read well.  

Ethical Issues for Christians: Some Introductory Reads

In the first quarter of 2012 I'm preaching through ethical issues that Christians face in our day to day lives. Sometimes we can find ourselves rowing against the stream of popular opinion. Some things we'll address at church include the environment, homosexuality and marriage, relationships, the power of words, and others.  

As well as reading through the every day papers and reflecting on popular opinion on different issues, reading the bible and praying, and panicking (I joke, although I feel the weight of presenting such a series), I've got some reads to start me off below:

The title speaks for itself. Andrew Cameron's underlying key to dealing with today's issues is 'finding our best humanity in the Lord Jesus' as 'He joins up messy lives'.

This is another accessible read with a similar goal to Andrew Cameron's, written by one of Cameron's teachers.

 
  This academic work is an evangelical response to homosexuality. It gives interpretation of biblical passages, thoughtful investigation of the various explanations of homosexuality (eg the 'in the genes' explanation and various environmental and family theories), church teaching, a Christian sex ethic, and how the Christian community can behave in a way that is welcoming but not affirming.

      
This is a very readable book which investigates society's current attitudes towards sex and relationships. It's very brief but full of statistics and intelligent Christian discussion.

2012 Books

Happy new year everyone!

Here are some Christian books on my 2012 reading list. Doubtless this list will morph over the year, but so far the list reads:

As an aside: it was disappointing to see the way this book was promoted. Let me quote from the publisher's blurb about the book from their website:

'The Christian Faith represents his magnum opus and will be viewed as one of—if not the—most important systematic theologies in the past fifty years.'

What an arrogant claim to make! At the very least, it is up to the book's readers to decide if this claim is true. It also really walks over many systematic theologies written before it - some of them not even American (joke?). So this blurb initially put me off a lot. Marketing like this has no place in Christian publishing. Shame on you publisher. Right, rant over. But nevertheless I did buy it in the end anyway! 

I may well post on this book over the year with what I find. 


Theology is what pastors preach in their sermons each week as they exegete and apply God's word. We are telling our congregations about God and his character. God is our subject always. Reading theology feeds our preaching too.    

I'm only going on what I've read around the blogosphere, but I've heard this is a very raw and compelling auto/biography of a Christian plagued by his very difficult childhood. Christians are by no means perfect; our lives are as messy, if not more so sometimes, than those who are not followers of Jesus. This is the moving story of a Christian with a very messy life.     

   

Hermeneutics - I've posted on this topic already. Kostenberger is the protege of Grant Osborne who wrote 'The Hermeneutical Spiral', another good introductory book on this topic. I've mentioned that I want to improve my preaching this year. Part of this process involves some more thinking about hermeneutics in the biblical text.

  

I'm afraid to read this but also compelled. It's the story of a missionary pastor whose 13 year old daughter tragically dies through a brain injury. The books tells of the man's recovery through reading Psalm 103 for a year (although I doubt you can ever recover from such an awful tragedy). 

    

I last read Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion online about 6 years ago. Since finishing J I Packer's theology volume (mentioned a few posts ago), I am hungry to read theology again. So this is top of the list. 

  

I'm not usually into the snappy- titled American pragmatic kind of Christian book, but this grabbed my attention. Will post if I actually read it... 

Books Read in 2011

I am not a voracious reader. I read the other day of a pastor who read 60 books in 2011. That is not me. I have certainly consulted many books this year but I couldn't honestly say I've read each from beginning to end.

Reflecting back on my 2011 reading habits, I'd have to also say that more challenging theological reading was not my forte either. In 2012 I'm aiming to read some more theology. I know theology is very helpful in informing preaching, as preaching's subject is always God! Let's pray that's the case in 2012!

Here's my total list of 2011 reads (having actually finished them!):

Generous Justice - Tim Keller
Simple Church - Thom/Geiger
Porn-Again Christian - Mark Driscoll
Spiritual Formation - Henri Nouwen
Practical Evangelical Spirituality - Alister McGrath
Zondervan Exegetical Commentary of the New Testament: JAMES - Blomberg/Kammell
Spiritual Direction and the care of Souls - Benner and Moon (eds)
Thinking Spiritually - John Owen
The Pastor - Eugene Peterson
Zondervan Exegetical Commentary of the New Testament : Galatians - Tom Schreiner
A Long Obedience in the Same Direction - Eugene Peterson
The Grace of Repentance - Sinclair Ferguson
Life in the Spirit: Spiritual Formation in Theological Perspective - Greenman/Kalantzis (eds)
The Wisdom Of Each Other - Eugene Peterson
The Dissociative Identity Disorder Sourcebook - Deb Haddock
Victims No Longer: The Classic Guide for Men Recovering from Sexual Child Abuse - M Lew
The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ - Pullman
The Radical Disciple - John Stott
Sex, Lies and the Truth: Developing a Christian Ethic in a Post-Christian Society - Belleville
Honouring the Written Word of God (Vol. 3) - J I Packer