Maximum Mandatum

It’s that time of year again. I am looking back at all I read this past year and looking ahead at my goals for the new year. Physically, movement is life. Reading is the motion and animation of the inner life. It’s a necessary and enriching experience without which my heart and mind would only grow stagnant. It keeps me aware of the past, conversant in our ever-changing culture, immersed in otherworldly imagination, sharpened by stimulating prose, and rooted in timeless truths. Tim Keller felt compelled to read broadly and deeply in order to prevent his preaching from growing stale and repetitive. I want to follow in that sentiment, which is brimming with both humility and wisdom. In descending order, here are the books that I enjoyed most this past year. I recommend them to you. Tolle lege!

10. Before You Lose Your Faith edited by Ivan Mesa

“What if Christianity isn’t synonymous with your childhood church?” -Hunter Beaumont

It seems like everywhere we turn, there is someone losing their faith and encouraging others toward doubt and skepticism. In an age where deconstruction is a ubiquitous cultural phenomenon, I appreciated this book. Chapter by chapter, various authors work to systematically deconstruct doubt in order to help skeptics reconstruct their crumbling Christian faith. I found the book to be helpful in understanding deconstruction and preparing to counsel those on the verge of deconversion.

9. Scandalous by D. A. Carson

“God often surprises us; he is not to be domesticated by reductionist theology; he takes the common things and turns them into surprising things.”

This short book is incredibly dense. Carson reflects on the life, death, resurrection, and return of Christ in a fresh way that is relevant to our day and age. Jumping from Matthew, to Romans, Revelation, and John, he looks at familiar stories from astonishing angles and layers in order to awaken us to the awe and the irony of Jesus’ victorious death and resurrection. The cross truly was scandalous because God, in his infinite wisdom, designed it to shame the wisdom and strength of men.

8. Compelling Community by Mark Dever and Jamie Dunlop

“Authentic, gospel-revealing community with supernatural depth and breadth is a natural outgrowth of belief in God’s Word . . . [and] makes the glory of an invisible God to be visible.”

The local church can become a place to come and go from, a box to check, rather than a community where you can be fully known, loved, and cared for. When relationships and discipleship lack depth, church is simply not compelling. Dever and Dunlop cast a powerfullly countercultural vision for church community that is committed to depth and breadth of doctrine and relationships. This book will be beneficial to those in church leadership seeking to establish this kind of community from the top down and church members who desire to help build it from the ground up. It’s one of the most helpful books on Christian community that I’ve read.

7. The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson

“We shall not fail or falter; we shall not weaken or tire. Neither the sudden shock of battle, nor the long-drawn trials of vigilance and exertion will wear us down. Give us the tools, and we will finish the job.”

This is history at its finest! I was on the edge of my seat as I read through this gripping saga delineating the rivalry between Churchill and Hitler, two of the most prominent figures of WW2. They were neck-in-neck in their technology, surveillance, and strategy as they battled in the air, land, and the sea. Larsen artfully chronicles Hitler’s ruthless thirst for power and Churchill’s relentless ambition to protect the West. Much of the story focuses on Churchill’s efforts to garner support from President Roosevelt and the U.S. This book is filled with many fascinating details of WW2, many interesting nuggets about the personal and professional lives of both Churchill and Hitler, as well as many insightful principles and takeaways on leadership in general.

6. Fool’s Talk by Os Guinness

“God’s truth requires God’s art to serve God’s end. Any Christian explanation or defense of truth must have a life, a manner, a tone that is shaped decisively by the central truths of the Gospel.”

This is not your typical book on apologetics. Guinness believes that persuasion is a lost art that is not prioritized or practiced in our day and age. On the foundation of presuppositionalism, he tackles the subject from a fresh point of view. He calls for subversive persuasion that is creative, humble, culturally relevant, winsome, respectable, free from hypocrisy, intellectually honest, uncompromising in its commitment to the truth, yet spring-loaded to surprise skeptics. He presents the irony, comedy, and creativity found in the Scriptures as an effective model for us to follow. This is a call to restore persuasion and creativity in Christian evangelism, apologetics, and discipleship for our progressive, postmodern, disenchanted culture.

5. Tim Keller by Collin Hansen

“The unique thing about Tim Keller is he is more open than any other person I’ve ever seen about his influences, about the people who have shaped his life and his thought. “

This is a unique biography. It doesn’t focus on all the details of his life. Rather, it traces the significant influences on Keller rather than the influence of Keller—his spiritual and intellectual formation. Tim Keller has be a rather polarizing figure in fundamental Christian circles, yet I walked away from this book surprised at just how conservative and balanced he actually was. He was an ardent defender of the Gospel. He was a lifelong reader and learner. Some of his greatest influences were the imagination of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien; the ministries of Martyn Lloyd Jones, John Stott, R. C. Sproul, and David Powlison; as well as the theology of Jonathan Edwards, J. I. Packer, and Edmund Clowney. I was especially encouraged by the focus on Keller’s selfless, faithful ministry in obscurity long before his prominence as a prolific author and planter in NYC.

4. The Whole Christ by Sinclair Ferguson

“A misshapen understanding of the gospel impacts the spirit of a minister and affects the style and atmosphere of his preaching and all of his pastoral ministry.”

Most people haven’t heard of the Marrow Controversy. It occurred 300 years ago, but it did clarify some vital distinctions between the law and the gospel that we need a refresher on today. Basically, there was a subtle shift where repentance began to be seen as the qualification for grace rather than the fruit thereof. This muddied the waters of grace, gospel, sanctification, assurance, and eternal security and opened the door to legalism and antinomianism. This is a must-read for the Christian. If we’re honest, at times we all wrestle with doubt and feel as though God’s love is dependent upon our performance. This book seeks to emphasize and preserve faith alone, while also preserving the transforming intention of grace; but most importantly, it keeps our eyes fixed on Christ.

3. Planting by Pastoring by Nathan Knight

“Pastors, not entrepreneurs. Shepherds, not salesmen. That’s what my city needs. That’s what your town needs . . . Jesus prioritized relationships over speed.”

Eighteen months ago, I planted a church in New England. In my years-long preparation for the ambitious task—whether formal, personal, or practical—I noticed that most material out there on church planting is rather man-centered and extra-biblical There is a palpable lack of trust in God’s ordinary means of grace and planters are wrongly led to believe that everything depends upon them, their entrepreneurial prowess, and marketing ingenuity. This will inevitably lead to pride or despair—to godless success or self-centered burnout. This book is refreshing because of its radically different approach. Knight clearly shows that unbiblical models lead to unbiblical expectations. He makes the glaringly obvious and simple point that church planters are pastors and should act primarily as shepherds.

2. Workers for Your Joy by David Mathis

“In appointing particular individuals to be pastor elders or deacons, the church marks them as models and representatives, in some reasonable measure, of what the church is and stands for.”

Having recently read many books on the subject, I believe this is by far the best treatment of the elders’ responsibilities and qualifications. From church to church and individual to individual, the practical outworking of the qualifications will look different. The bar could easily be set to high or too low. Maybe we wish Paul was less subjective and more specific, but his list is brilliantly designed for the church to make a wise collective decision regarding a man’s readiness and fitness for the office. There is room for nuance, flexibility, and discretion. Mathis’ biblical, theological, practical, down-to-earth approach provides wisdom for churches in thinking about recognizing and developing qualified elders in Christ’s church.

1. Gospel People by Michael Reeves

“The humility we learn at the foot of the gospel, glorying in Christ and not ourselves, turns out to be the wellspring of all evangelical health.”

Don’t be deceived by this book’s size. It may be small, but it is a powerful treatment of evangelicalism, and more specifically evangelical integrity over inbreeding. In a fractured and tribalistic culture, what is it that unites us? What is evangelicalism in its purest and simplest form? Reeves points us to a trinitarian grid that preserves the structural integrity of the Gospel: revelation from the Father, redemption by the Son, regeneration through the Holy Spirit. Rather than putting the ballistic in tribalistic, we need to keep the evangel in evangelical. We must be a Gospel people—unwavering in our faithfulness to the truth without elevating every issue to a Gospel issue. He encourages evangelical commitment over denominational allegiance and warns about fighting over too much and discerning too little.

Honorable Mentions: Gospel Eldership by Robert Thune, Acts 20 by Alexander Strauch, Lost in Thought by Zena Hitz, Spurgeon on the Christina Life by Michael Reeves, Dream Small by Seth Lewis, The Baptism Debate by Peter Goeman, Cultural Intelligence by Darrell Bock, The Plurality Principle by Dave Harvey, The Shepherd Leader by Timothy Witmer, and The Day the World Came to Town by Jim DeFede.

This is now the sixth year that I’ve been doing these posts on the best books I’ve read. You can see the ones from years prior by following the links at the bottom of each post. You can find last years post HERE.