Whew! The school year is over, and everyone is ready to unwind. However, we shouldn’t allow ourselves to become complacent during down times. Our less constrained schedules allow us to focus on other areas of our lives. Students and teachers especially should take this opportunity to develop their minds and spirits at a more even pace. But regardless of your vocation, we have a few reading recommendations for you. We have found these books to be particularly insightful on a wide range of topics, and we think you will too. Please leave us your own reading recommendations in the comment section.
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Frederick Buechner, A Room Called Remember (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1984), 208 pages.
I have been re-reading some of Frederick Buechner’s writings over the last several months, and I’m amazed at how he encourages me to look at and to listen to people around me. This is relevant for my life right now because I serve in hospital chaplaincy. He writes about how “we don’t like to get too serious about things, especially ourselves . . . . We hold each other at bay, keep our distance from each other even when God knows it is precisely each other that we desperately need” (5). Buechner encourages readers to look at and to listen to the pain that people experience. This is important for pastors whose simple compassionate presence with a grieving person can be powerful.
Readers will be challenged by Buechner’s unique ability to link faith and the stark details of life in the Christian journey. A Room Called Remember is unique because it is a compilation of essays, addresses, and sermons interweaving areas of theology, the discipline of remembering, and life’s circumstances. Remembering God’s past faithfulness for present circumstances is essential.
—Recommended by Zachery Maloney
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Fred B. Craddock, As One Without Authority (Nashville: Abingdon, 1986), 168 pages.
The work of Fred Craddock has significantly shaped the American homiletic tradition. Craddock was a long-time professor of preaching at Candler School of Theology at Emory University. Though he died in 2015, his legacy of teaching and writing shaped a generation or more of preachers and homiletics instructors. It isn’t a stretch to call his book As One Without Authority a classic in its field. First published in 1971, Craddock argues that the philosophical, cultural, and social challenges confronting religious authority and language means that preaching will have to adapt in order to be effective. He argues that preaching should take a more inductive form, rather than the widely used deductive form.
Craddock’s argument certainly has problems. I’m told he even revised/recanted some of his thoughts later in life. However, he makes a number of wise observations about preaching that even conservative, expositional preachers like me can appreciate and adopt. He offers theory and practice, criticism and proposal, caution and encouragement. Reading it carefully and wisely could prove a useful exercise for many seasoned preachers.
—Recommended by W. Jackson Watts
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William D. Dennison, Karl Marx, Great Thinkers (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2017), 102 pages.
The surge of socialism in popularity and acceptance in American political discourse has been driven, in large part, by ignorance: ignorance about Karl Marx, ignorance about the consistent results of communist and socialist ideas, and ignorance about the philosophical presuppositions that underpin collectivist economics and politics. For this reason, William Dennison’s short introduction to Marx is a very important work.
Dennison writes with clarity and precision about Marx’s life and philosophy. He is particularly good at condensing complex ideas into accessible language. After giving an overview of Marx and Marxism, Dennison offers a presuppositional response. While Dennison brings a hard Van Tillian approach to the subject, his response offers much that is helpful for more moderate presuppositionalists as well. This would be a good book for all voting citizens but especially for people who work with youth and college students.
—Recommended by Phillip T. Morgan
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Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002), 824 pages.
After reading Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov last year and enjoying it as much as I did, I decided to read a second book by the acclaimed author. Crime and Punishment, first published in 1866, is the story of a university student who has the arrogance to believe he can commit a crime without suffering punishment for it. The book is an exploration into the psychology of man: Can men and women sin and not suffer the emotional, rational, social, and spiritual consequences that might result from the wrong?
Dostoevsky’s answer to this question is that God has embedded a moral base into man’s anthropology such that he cannot ultimately escape the repercussions of his sin. Consequences will always follow, whether sooner or later. Throughout the book, Dostoevsky also explores the themes of alienation, nihilism, poverty, and redemption. In my estimation, Crime and Punishment is not as rich as The Brothers Karamazov, which is Dostoevsky’s magnum opus, but it is still an excellent work deserving of your attention.
—Recommended by Matthew Steven Bracey
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Austin Fischer, Young, Restless, and No Longer Reformed (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2014), 116 pages.
In a recent post at fwbtheology.com, I reflected on the challenges of non-Calvinistic theology getting a fair hearing since Calvinist authors and speakers saturate substantial quarters of the evangelical world. It also doesn’t help that what passes for Arminianism in many people’s minds isn’t the brand of Arminianism that Free Will Baptists espouse. However, some variations of free-will theism provide incisive criticism of Calvinistic determinism that I think we should welcome.
Austin Fisher’s Young, Restless, and No Longer Reformed accomplishes this with clarity, winsomeness, and honesty. He recounts his journey in and out of Calvinism. Like many younger believers exposed to five-point Calvinism, he thought it was a vision of God that he could not resist. However, the more he probed his beliefs, reflected on Scripture, and came to terms with the theological and moral implications of determinism, he could no longer maintain his beliefs.
Fisher’s proposal for better understanding God and the gospel is not as fully developed as it could be, and I think it would be helped by an engagement with our own tradition, including Robert E. Picirilli’s work on discipleship. But, in its primary goal as a critique, this short book succeeds.
—Recommended by W. Jackson Watts
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Peter J. Gentry and Stephen J. Wellum, God’s Kingdom through God’s Covenants: A Concise Biblical Theology (Wheaton: Crossway, 2015), 271 pages.
This is Peter Gentry and Stephen Wellum’s excellent condensation of their 2012 tome, Kingdom through Covenant (Crossway, 2012). This smaller book takes the same approach as their earlier work but attempts to whittle down the most technical aspects for the average reader. Their approach to Biblical theology advocates accepting the text as what it claims to be (God’s Word written) and interpreting it in its textual context, epochal context, and canonical context. They focus on the progressive revelation of covenants. Therefore, they want to emphasize the distinct nature of each covenant while also excavating each covenant’s relationship with God’s other covenants.
Gentry and Wellum are most original when they expand beyond their Biblical theology to produce systematic theology for all of life. They take the time to expand on the theological ramifications of their interpretations. As they flesh out their broader doctrine, they then embody it through life applications. The end result is a full-bodied reading of Scripture that interprets Scripture with Scripture and makes application in the present.
—Recommended by Phillip T. Morgan
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Larry J. Kreitzer, New Light on the Early Years of Thomas Helwys (Oxford, UK: Centre for Baptist History and Heritage, 2018), 40 pages.
Larry Kreitzer has uncovered some new material on the early life of Thomas Helwys dating from the early 1590s. This shorter work presents his major findings, while a deeper exploration of his findings and Helwys’s life may be found in another new work from Kreitzer entitled Thomas Helwys and His World (Part 1) (Centre for Baptist History and Heritage Studies, 2019).
Most of Kreitzer’s new findings are court documents dealing with Helwys’s dispute with his sister Anne Greene over their inheritance. The other documents address Helwys’s relationship with his wife Joan Ashmore. It is difficult to assess how important Kreitzer’s findings are because the claims made in the court cases have little to no context. Most of the material likely predates Helwys’s conversion. But it is fascinating to learn anything new about this key figure in Baptist history.
—Recommended by Jesse Owens
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C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed (New York: Harper Collins, 1996), 76 pages.
Grief is a normal emotion that everyone experiences in response to loss. However, when left unprocessed and unattended, grief can be harmful. A Grief Observed is a reflection from C. S. Lewis on the subject while he was grieving for his wife Joy, who died of cancer. While the journal is set up in linear chapters, it’s important to see grief as a process. Lewis helps to name many emotions people experience with grief. There is often guilt associated with the attempt to “move on” from loss, and Lewis helps to process this unexpected feeling. A grieving person needs help putting into words how they feel during loss, and Lewis helps to explain these feelings and struggles. For this reason, I recommend A Grief Observed to anyone experiencing some type of loss.
—Recommended by Zachery Maloney
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Ronald H. Nash, Faith and Reason: Searching for a Rational Faith (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994), 296 pages.
Ronald Nash offers a helpful combination in his book Faith and Reason. On the one hand, a person can easily find volumes on Christian epistemology and/or philosophy of religion. On the other, that same person can interact with a variety of apologetic resources. If the latter ever interacts with the former, it is almost always on the subject of apologetic methodology. While Nash does address the issue of apologetic methodologies, his book offers much more. Nash uniquely develops a theological foundation that is both Biblically and apologetically compelling. His combination of these two areas is helpful and much needed.
—Recommended by Christopher Talbot
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Francis A. Schaeffer, The Mark of the Christian, IVP Classics(Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2006), 63 pages.
If there is a book that every evangelical should read as soon as possible, I dare say it would be this one, not only because of its brevity but also because of its ever-relevant message. Schaeffer offers this book as a clarion call for Christians to exemplify the singular mark of their transformative faith: unity among Christians. He notes clearly that this is the rubric Christ offers to unbelievers to determine whether someone is a believer. In a time that seems more divisive than ever, I highly recommend this book as a catalyst to leads us back to a Biblical portrait of Christian unity.
—Recommended by Christopher Talbot
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Thomas Sowell, The Thomas Sowell Reader (New York: Basic, 2011), 464 pages.
Thomas Sowell is an acclaimed, prolific economist, famous for his many columns in print publications, not to mention his many books such as Basic Economics (Basic, 2014) and Black Rednecks and White Liberals (Encounter, 2005). The Thomas Sowell Reader is a compilation of many of the columns he has written throughout the years. As a result, the majority of the selections are only a couple of pages long and, consequently, the volume is an excellent introduction to public policy for the layman. The columns are arranged by topic, including the areas of social issues, economics, political issues, legal issues, race and ethnicity, and educational issues. Sowell is witty, straightforward, and helpful.
—Recommended by Matthew Steven Bracey
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Thomas Watson, The Beatitudes: An Exposition of Matthew 5:1-10 (reprint, Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 1971), 352 pages.
When I was gathering resources to preach through the Sermon on the Mount, this resource came highly recommended from my friend and mentor Jeff Manning. When I began reading the work, I was stunned by just how applicable the work is to the present day. Watson’s writing style reflects the work of other Puritans, with long lists of points accompanied by multiple sub-points and even sub-sub-points. But the way in which Watson addresses the human problem of sin and mankind’s need for God’s gracious work is what makes this work timeless. Here’s just one example from Watson on “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Mt. 5:8):
Begin your sight of God here. Let the eye of your faith be still upon God. Moses by faith ‘saw him who is invisible’ (Heb. 11:27). Often look upon him with believing eyes, whom you hope to see with glorified eyes. ‘Mine eyes are ever towards the LORD’ (Ps. 25:15). While others are looking towards the earth as if they would fetch all their comforts thence, let us look up to heaven. There is the best prospect. The sight of God by faith would let in much joy to the soul (220).
If I were to preach through the Beatitudes again, and I could choose only one commentary, it would be this work. The depth of insight from Watson on these ten verses is, in my opinion, unparalleled.
—Recommended by Jesse Owens
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