Thursday, August 26, 2010

Most Influential Books in My Life: #s 6-10

This one's just for fun. For a while I've intended to post briefly on the books (other than Scripture) that have influenced me most, more for my personal reflection than anything. I'm not suggesting these are my top recommendations today, merely that they shaped my understanding of the gospel, Scripture, and following Christ more than any others, as best I can tell. With those criteria, what I read longer ago tends to be more influential than what I read after my theology was more developed. Here goes . . .

10. Rick Warren, The Purpose-Driven Church. Heavily influential, but not in the way Warren intended. I can still remember the moment, while I was on a step machine in the little gym at MBBC, when I read, "We should never criticize a method that God is blessing." This book made pragmatism come to life, and laid bare its vacuity.

9. Mark Dever, Nine Marks of a Healthy Church. Everything PDC wasn't. As in, grounded in Scripture, rather than culture, psychology and yuppie consumerism. This was the most recent read to crack the top 10—circa 2003.

8. Norm Geisler, Chosen But Free. Also not influential in the way the author intended. Some of the respected influences in my life were strong anti-Calvinists, and I had no desire to discard their convictions lightly. Geisler came highly recommended, and I thought he might present a coherent case for the non-Calvinist understanding of the issues. The book's embarrassingly shoddy exegesis and logic convinced me that Geisler's "moderate Calvinist" (actually neither moderate nor Calvinist) position was utterly untenable.

7. John MacArthur, Ashamed of the Gospel. Years ago a professor I respected, and still do, asked me how I could speak approvingly of John MacArthur when he was one of the architects of the Evangelicals and Catholics Together (ECT) movement. He wasn't being dishonest, simply regurgitating the misinformation others had fed him. Of course, MacArthur was one of it's most vocal critics, certainly not an architect. Though I can't remember whether I learned that from Ashamed of the Gospel, I do know that book clarified in my mind once and for all that MacArthur wasn't the squishy neo-evangelical that fundamentalist rhetoric often made him out to be. In some ways, reading it may have been the beginning of a trajectory in my life—not so much because MacArthur convinced me for the first time that the seeker-sensitive movement was bad, but because it defined to me a bit of who was credible and who wasn't.

6. John Piper, The Pleasures of God. This wasn't the first book by Piper that I owned, but it was the first that I read. I think I bought it at the Bethlehem Baptist bookstall. Everyone who recommended Piper to me said to read this book first. They were right. Piper masterfully unpacks the biblical theology of the supremacy of God's glory, not only to us, but to God himself. God is right to demand all honor, praise and worship, not because he is a narcissistic egomaniac, but because he is worthy. Were God to share this worship, he would himself be an idolator. Just beautiful, essential stuff. This book took my theological framework and gave it the theocentric foundation it needed.

Top 5 to come soon, I hope. In the meantime, feel free to share yours . . .

11 comments:

Greg said...

Transforming Grace, by Jerry Bridges

Joel said...

These two are significant for me because they were a big part in shaping my understanding of handling the text.

Is There Meaning in This Text?, by Kevin Vanhoozer (best $3 I ever spent at the Book Man's table)

Exegetical Fallacies, by DA Carson

Chris Anderson said...

Gotta tell you Ben: You had a site in serious need of some eye candy. Ahhh. Nice work. :)

Chris Anderson said...

God is the Gospel.

Living the Cross Centered Life.

Complete in Him.

Ben said...

Joel, that may be the best $ ANYBODY ever spent at that table. Possible exception: when Lukus Counterman got a Hyles student recruitment video for $1. It had Jack Schaap saying that guys need to go out and build churches patterned after the book of Acts—churches that use the King James Bible.

No lie. We watched that so many times just dying laughing.

Ben said...

Wow, Chris. MOST influential? I know how old you are, and a couple of those are pretty recent.

Chris Anderson said...

I had a pretty major paradigm shift re: the centrality of the gospel to every day living and ministry about 5-6 years back. So yes, I think so. Maybe not Mahaney (which is a bit light) but certainly the other two. Absolutely.

Call me a late bloomer.

Ben said...

Chris, gotcha. Mahaney is light, but helpful. I don't care what all the anti-gospel rhetoricians say. More could be said. Should be. Maybe has been.

Chris Anderson said...

I explain a bit here:

http://mytwocents.wordpress.com/2010/06/22/what-im-reading-god-is-the-gospel/

Chris Anderson said...

Here, too:

http://mytwocents.wordpress.com/2010/07/26/michael-barretts-complete-in-him-should-be-back-in-print/

Self-linking with all the subtlety of a defensive, jackhammering ox. :)

(Word verification: droopo)

Joel said...

Chris,
I just started listening to Dr. Barrett's guest lectures that he gave last year at Central, Virginia Beach. In them he mentioned that P&R asked him for a copy of Complete In Him. At that point he said he wasn't sure what they were doing, but maybe they will pick it up. After listening to the lectures, I really hope they do because I really don't want to have to overpay for it but really would love to have a copy.

Ben,
Sounds like I really missed a great deal on that video. Would have made for some great dorm party viewing...