It’s the end of another year and so I thought I would once again give a report of what I’ve learned this year.
This year I thought I’d try to accomplish the impossible by reading an average of a book per week — and amazingly I was able to complete it! Fifty-two books this year (including some audiobooks).
In addition to book reading, this year I decided to read the Bible chronologically, which I enjoyed more than straight through; and then I read the New Testament a second time in case I’d missed anything :). In church I preached through Galatians verse-by-verse, which ended up lasting 31 sermons! I loved it and it helped me on so many levels! Besides this, I enjoyed listening to hundreds of online sermons from various pastor-friends!
The List
❖ For Fun
- Hillbilly Elegy — J.D. Vance
- Band of Brothers — Stephen Ambrose
- The Hobbit — J.R.R. Tolkein
❖ Biography
- No Graven Image — Elisabeth Elliot
- Seeking Allah Finding Jesus — Nabeel Qureshi
- The Apostle: A life of Paul — John Pollock
- Davi — Charles Swindoll
- Things as They Are — Amy Carmichael
- Glenda’s Story — Glenda Revell
- The Hiding Place — John and Elizabent Sherrill
- E.M. Bounds, Man of Prayer — Lyle W. Dorsett
- The Passionate Preaching of Martyn Lloyd-Jones — Steven Lawson
- J. I. Packer, an evangelical life — Leland Ryken
- My People, The Amish — Joe Keim
- Saints and Savages — Alex Hay
❖ Personal Growth
- Faker — Nicholas McDonald
- Unoffendable — Brant Hansen
- This is Awkward — Sammy Rhodes
- You and Me Forever — Francis Chan
- Praying the Bible — Don Whitney
- A Guide to Prayer — Isaac Watts
- 12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You — Tony Reinke
- Just Do Something — Kevin DeYoung
- Pilgrim’s Progress, Unabridged — John Bunyan
- Curious Christian — Barnabas Piper
- Crazy Busy — Tony Reinke
- How to Walk into Church — Tony Payne
- The Mortification of Sin — John Owens
- Strong and Weak — Andy Crouch
❖ Educational
- Lit! — Tony Reinke
- Is that a fish in your Ear? — David Bellos
- Bible: The Story of the KJV — Gordon Campbell
- Taking God at His Word — Kevin DeYoung
- The Reformation: Monk & Mallet — S. Nichols
- A Maior de Todas as Histórias — Kevin DeYoung
- The World of Jesus — William Marty
- Words on the Move — John McWhorter
❖ Ministry
- The Supremacy of God in Preaching — John Piper
- The Benedict Option — Rod Dreher
- Contemporary Compromise — John Goetsch
- 9Marks of Healthy Church — Mark Dever
- The Pastor’s Justification — Jared Wilson
❖ Doctrine / Theology
- Law and Grace — Alva McClain
- Chosen but Free — Norman Geisler
- A Gospel Primer for Christians — Milton Vincent
- Faith Alone — Tom Schreiner
- Notes From The Tilt-A-Whirl — N. D. Wilson
- No Quick Fix — Andrew Naselli
- Slave — John MacArthur
- The Story of Reality — Gregory Koukl
- Delighting in the Trinity — Michael Reeves
- Why the Reformation Still Matters — Michael Reeves and Tim Chester
My original plan was to pick only a handful of books to report on, but so many books were so good that I just couldn’t leave them out!
FOR FUN
Band of Brothers — Stephen Ambrose
Wow. Stephen Ambrose is a master story teller and this book just comes alive! It is amazing as a historical account of a group of soldiers in WW2, but it is also amazing when considering how the Bible compares the christian life to a soldier’s struggles!
About the soldier in battle, Ambrose writes: “The experiences of men in combat produces emotions stronger than civilians can know, emotions of terror, panic, anger, sorrow, bewilderment, helplessness, uselessness, and each of these feelings drained energy and mental stability.” I think this can be true spiritually for those in ministry leadership.
Hillbilly Elegy — J.D. Vance
This is a secular book that made huge waves when it was published in the Fall of 2016. Since I grew up in a poor, rural region, I did not find it as earth-shattering as many others did. Basically, it is the memoirs of a poor, white, “trailer-trash” family who never got to step up in society but spent all their life trying to survive. The author, was able to rise out of that background, but still struggles with the mindsets behind that life.
BIOGRAPHY
Seeking Allah Finding Jesus — Nabeel Qureshi
This is an autobiography of a Muslim who converted to Christianity. If you want to know what muslims believe, you should read this book (and you’ll probably be surprised by their “christian” morals). Nabeel passed away of cancer soon after I read this book; he was my age.
Things as They Are — Amy Carmichael
This is Amy Carmichael’s report on the in India. It is a very honest look at the realities of foreign-missions, including it’s failures and potential to harm the locals. For many years, this book was black-balled and christian publishers refused to print because it failed to promote foreign missions in the super-hero type that they were trying to portray.
No Graven Image — Elizabeth Elliot
Though this is a “biography of a fictional character” I loved it because it was so transparently real. Obviously written by a missionary with experience, it is brutally honest about the struggles of foreign missions. Like her journal entry upon finally making contact with the Indians: “Well, they aren’t headhunters, I reflected with a slight trace of disappointment, for it was beginning to dawn on me that my position among these indians wasn’t not really a very dramatic one.”
It is the never-ending missionary struggle of trying to maintain “zeal” without causing more harm than good. Near the end of the book, and after experiencing some heart-searching struggles concerning the right-ness of how she did ministry, she writes: “I find that I can no longer arrange my life in an orderly succession of projects with realizable goals and demonstrable effects. I cannot designate this activity as “useful” and that one as “useless,” for often the categories are reversed and even more often I am at a loss to apply either label, for the work, in the end, as well as the labeling, is God’s.”
The Hiding Place — John and Elizabent Sherrill
There is a reason this is still a popular biography. Read it if you haven’t.
My People, The Amish — Joe Keim
I was rally surprised by the depth and quality of Joe Keim’s book. His story of leaving the amish is completely different from my family’s and so adds a new perspective to the whole issue. One thing he has observed after helping so many other people leave the amish is that: “The more liberal, open-minded Amish usually… transition into the English culture with greater ease. They are also less rebellious, have a higher standard of manners, and don’t resort to drugs and alcohol as often.” Very interesting book.
Saints and Savages — Alex Hay
This book was particularly interesting to me as it is the journal/story of two european missionaries who came to our part of Brazil as pioneering missionaries 100 years ago. I have had the privilege of pastoring an elderly man who knew these men and had spent nearly 60 years in the good, conservative church that they planted here in Rondonópolis!
PERSONAL GROWTH
Unoffendable — Brant Hansen
I absolutely loved this book and read it twice (but only counted it once for my year’s total). I can see how many people would say it leans too far toward “grace,” but for me, I needed that as a corrective for my naturally legalistic mindset. It is a very light, fun book and so it is easy to miss the importance of many of the things he wrote. He says, “In my experience, people — all people — thrive on being offended. It makes us feel more righteous to get aggravated at the behavior of other people.” So, how can we overcome the temptation to be angry at sinners? “When you’re living in the reality of the forgiveness you’ve been extended, you just don’t get angry with others easily.” He also made me realize that, even though I know salvation is not by works, when I get to heaven I want to be able to feel like I’ve earned the right to be there, especially compared to everyone else who just barely squeaked through the gate. This is my legalistic pride and is wrong.
12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You — Tony Reinke
Just a good, practical look at how much technology (and our phones in particular) are changing the way we live and think. One main problem is that the internet is destroying our capacity to concentrate on one thing for long enough to really ponder or meditate it.
Just Do Something — Kevin DeYoung
This is another controversial book that I found helpful, not as a strict guide but as a corrective. It is very easy to think God’s personal will for your life is like a labyrinth: you take a few corners and you can go for a long time before realizing that way back near the beginning you took a wrong turn and so everything since then has been useless; the only way to correct it is to go back to that one decision and try to correct it.
This book seeks to prove that, as christians, God expects us to seek wisdom so we can apply scripture to life’s situations with godly reasoning. This implies that he’s not obliged to show us the future, magic-8-ball-style. Perhaps, we should stop asking God to show us the future, and instead start living and obeying His moral will (revealed in the Bible) and trusting Him to take care of us through the future.
How to Walk into Church — Tony Payne
This is by far the shortest book on my list, and it’s message was simple. Don’t “do church” as a mindless habit or with your brain disengaged. Spoiler: You should walk into church, praying about where you should sit for that service. Doing this will help you to have a conscious purpose of ministering to others and worshiping God.
EDUCATIONAL
The World of Jesus — William Marty
I really enjoyed this little book. For whatever reason, I had never read or studied much about the time between the Old and New Testaments. This book was a good, succinct history of that era; and it’s not just dry facts! It’s especially interesting see how the events of that time affected the Israel that we know of in the New Testament. Particularly interesting to me was to see Herod the Great (of Jesus birth) as a historical figure and to see that killing all the 2 year old babies in Bethlehem was no big deal to him. Also, where did the Sanhedrin come from? What about Pharisees and Sadducees? Why does it seem that the High Priest in the New Testament has such political power? Good book!
~ I read three books on the theme of Linguistics and Communication Philosophy. I find this topic very fascinating and all three of these books were excellent in their own specialty! ~
Bible: The Story of the KJV — Gordon Campbell
Gordon Campbell is an authoritative secular historian and has done his research. The author calls this book “an affectionate biography of the KJV.” It stays out of theological debates and is merely a historical record of the people, places, and events surrounding it’s translation and revisions. Very interesting!
Is that a fish in your Ear? — David Bellos
This turned out to be a very in-depth and technical discussion of what language is and it contrasts a variety of translation philosophies. Honestly, I was hoping for more of an overview of practical translation for living cross-culturally. However, I still found it very helpful and applicable to me, living in an exclusive 2nd-language environment. Translation is very complicated and almost never is as simple as transferring a word from one language to another. Real translation seeks to translate meaning, not just words; and I’ve found that to be very true in my english-portuguese experience.
Words on the Move: Why English Won’t — and Can’t — Sit Still — John McWhorter
A fascinating book on how language and words shift and change over time. He gives many case-studies of how words have morphed/evolved from what they once meant, to what they now mean. He especially enjoys taking Shakespeare’s works and showing how, even though the words are familiar, the meanings have shifted so that many phrases are completely incomprehensible to us today. Now, before you call him a moral relativist, it’s not that at all. Truth does not change, however, “what has changed is which packets of sounds we link to them.”
Of course we can think of old words that we don’t use anymore, but those aren’t the problem; the problem is when common words have shifted meaning over time, and so we assume we know what they mean, but we’re wrong. Words are on the move, because that’s how language works. I highly recommend this book if the topics of linguistics and communication interest you at all.
~ I also read a pair of books around the theme of the Reformation, since October marked 500 years since Luther’s 95 Thesis. ~
The Reformation: How a Monk and a Mallet Changed the World — Stephen Nichols
This is a history of the Events of the Reformation; the people and the places and their significance. Very interesting. No Protestant would deny the fact that there have always been bible-believing christians outside the roman church. However, it’s easy to see that the Reformation dramatically changed the Christian world and we should be very grateful for how God used these imperfect men to bring about the world of Christianity that we enjoy today.
Why the Reformation Still Matters — Michael Reeves and Tim Chester
This is a history of the Issues of the Reformation. We often say that we are not a result of the reformation because our doctrine goes back to John the Baptist… This book examines the doctrines that Luther and the other Reformers taught and debated. I really learned a lot about the catholic view on grace and the sacraments. The author compared grace (in the catholic view) to Spiritual RedBull –wow, that explains a lot!
MINISTRY
9Marks of Healthy Church — Mark Dever
I have to say I was very blessed, challenged, and encouraged by this book. It consists of nine markers that will be present in a healthy church, and I was encouraged because he enumerated a number of the concerns I have about many of “our” churches today.
I have long debated the issue of instituting church membership, but he helped me see how important it is for christians to “belong” to one group of christians. He answers the question of “why do we need to meet together instead of just listening to a recorded sermon at home?” (Have you ever seriously thought through that? It’s a good question.) He says, “In our independence, we ignore the church. We are self-reliant, self-sufficient people, and the thought of mutual submission, accountability, and interdependence seems foreign, if not frightening, to us.” However, this “mutual submission, accountability, and interdependence” is a huge part of why each of us need to be part of a church.
The Benedict Option — Rod Dreher
This is another book that caused quite a stir when it was published earlier this year. It essentially deals with how Christians should relate to the unsaved world. Do we become Benedictine Monks or do we just assimilate, or is there a better option?
I thought the book as a whole is an excellent wake-up call for christians to see that americans have lost the social war against christianity. There is no “silent, moral majority” and the sooner we realize that and change our actions accordingly, the better. How can we, as christians, survive the social and religious storm we are in? “Start by getting serious about living as Christians, he said. Accept that there can be no middle ground. …If you recognize that He is the Lord of all, you will order your life in a radically different way.” He did an excellent job of defining the problems, but I think his community-style solutions are not the best.
The Supremacy of God in Preaching — John Piper
I appreciate how John Piper emphasizes the glory of God in everything. In this book, his purpose is to show how the Glory of God should affect our preaching. He writes that it is essential: “that the unifying theme [of preaching] be the zeal that God has for his own glory, that the grand object of preaching be the infinite and inexhaustible being of God, and that the pervasive atmosphere of preaching be the holiness of God.”
When discussing our perspective on why God sent His Son to die for us, he writes, “It horribly skews the meaning of the cross when contemporary prophets of self-esteem say that the cross is a witness to my infinite worth, since God was willing to pay such a high price to get me. The biblical perspective is that the cross is a witness to the infinite worth of God’s glory and a witness to the immensity of the sin of my pride. What should shock us is that we have brought such contempt upon the worth of God that the very death of his Son is required to vindicate that worth.” Powerful.
DOCTRINE / THEOLOGY
A Gospel Primer for Christians — Milton Vincent
This was not my first time to read this book, nor will it be the last. It is full of reminders that we are to live every moment of our lives in light of the Gospel. I recommend this one very highly!
Faith Alone — Tom Schreiner
This is book very technical and in depth, which also made it very rewarding. His pursuit of the truth was incredible, yet refreshing; he is not content to use simple “proof texts” that say what he wants the Bible to say, but he considers all the biblical passages on the topic of Faith and Justification. A good summary quote is: “Faith doesn’t save as if it constitutes our righteousness. It saves because it unites us to Jesus Christ, who is our righteousness and our only hope on the day of judgment.”
Slave — John MacArthur
This book should’ve been a pamphlet, but it’s main point was so good that I couldn’t leave it off this list. His contention is that when the Bible speaks of the christian being God’s “doulos,” we should understand it to mean that we are “slaves” not merely “servants” — the difference being that servants are hired but slaves are owned. “Servants have an element of freedom in choosing whom they work for and what they do. The idea of servanthood maintains some level of self-autonomy and personal rights… Slaves, on the other hand, have no freedom, autonomy, or rights… To be someone’s slave was to be his possession, bound to obey his will without hesitation or argument.” I think this is a proper understanding of the christian’s relationship to God (and that this is a good thing).
No Quick Fix — Andrew Naselli
I had been looking forward to this book for months before it was released, and I was not disappointed. This author has done extensive study about the “Holiness Movement” aka “Higher Life Movement” and has written this book to warn against it. He is very balanced, even pointing out that people who follow the Holiness Movement are not heretics and should not be treated as such. Yet, the teaching can be very destructive, which is why he wrote this warning.
The first half discusses the history of the movement and the second half discusses the Biblical Theology behind the teaching. (Note that if you read it on kindle it is listed as 160pgs, but 3/4 of that is full-text verses in the endnotes, so the book is actually only about 50 pages. I was disappointed it ended so quickly.)
Basically, the Holiness Movement teaches that you can have a spiritual crisis moment (probably at a revival service) where you “break through” and “claim the victory over sin” and then suddenly the christian life is easier and you don’t struggle with sin, because you’ve given all control over to the Holy Spirit and He’s giving you the victory. The danger of this teaching is that “it offers a greater measure of deliverance from sin than Scripture anywhere promises or the apostles themselves ever attained.” He shows that eventually, this teaching often leads to disillusionment and spiritual despair. (Note: This teaching is very engrained in our circles and is common in many of our hymns.)
Notes From The Tilt-A-Whirl — N. D. Wilson
This was one of the most enjoyable books I read this year because his writing style is completely whacked-out! He doesn’t try to make nice, tweetable phrases, but builds a very complex argument in order to drive home a single truth at the end of the chapter. Though he has a very “unique” writing style, I still list him in the “theology” section, because that is where this book rightly belongs. It deals with worldview and the problem of the presence of evil in the world of an all-powerful God.
He does not try to soften the cruelties of the world, but writes: “The world can make me motion sick… Am I old enough to be on this ride? When was its last inspection? I can’t find my seat belt, and I can hear someone screaming to get off.” “The world is rated R, and no one is checking IDs. Do not try to make it G by imagining the shadows away.”
On the subject of our pain and suffering, in spite of an all-powerful God, he says, “The struggle comes when we look at ourselves in the mirror, a carnival mirror, a mirror that stretches our worth into the skies. Given my immense personal value, how could a good God ever allow me to feel pain?”
He reminds us that there is so much more to life than what we can see right here and now: “When we die…, God is also there, shaping the story, off the stage and on the stage, closing a chapter…. To His eyes, you never leave the stage. You do not cease to exist. It is a chapter ending, an act, not the play itself. Look to Him. Walk toward Him. The cocoon is a death, but not a final death. The coffin can be a tragedy, but not for long. There will be butterflies.”
The Story of Reality — Gregory Koukl
I know there are a number of books whose purpose is to tell “The Story of the Bible” but this one is truly excellent! This is a great book for deep-thinkers and is written to convince, which would make it a good evangelistic tool as well. The entire book is written from the understanding that “God owns everything and has proper authority to rule over everything he has made.” Dealing with the problem of evil, he writes: “evil is not the problem for Christianity that people think it is because it is not foreign to the Story. It is central to it. It fits right in.”
The book follows a natural progression of discussing God’s perfect creation, what went wrong, what has been done to make it right, and how it will all be restored in the end. In the end, the final resolution to the problem of evil is, “Perfect justice for evildoers, perfect mercy for the penitent; evil banished forever, and everlasting good restored.”
In the end, he writes that all of this logically leaves us with a choice: “You can bend your knee to your Sovereign, beg for mercy because of Christ, be welcomed into his family as a son or daughter, and belong to him. Or you can reject the gift, stand alone at the judgment, and pay for your own crimes against God, such as they are. I invite you to accept your pardon now, while you can, and turn and follow Jesus.”
LOOKING FORWARD
Though I loved almost every book I read this year, and was helped tremendously by them, next year I’m planning to read less broadly and instead focus on studying a few select themes more intensely.
I am already filling out my list of books to read next year — if you have any good suggestions, please let me know!
By the way, if you’re not already using Goodreads to track your reading progress, I’d invite you to join the rest of us there!
Disclaimer. I do not endorse everything written in these books. I believe that right stuff is good, and wrong stuff is bad. Also, cussing is bad.
