Gospel-Centered Bible Study: June 2005 Archives
I’ve been tagged for this book meme by Mick Porter of Unveiled Face! So here it goes:
Total number of books I've ever owned: I would guess a few thousand. I’m really not sure though. I’ve been heard saying that I would rather buy a book and read it then purchase food or clothing. I don’t read as much as I would like too though (time and brain constraints).
Last book I bought: The Drama of Scripture: Finding Our Place in the Biblical Story by Craig Bartholomew and Michael Goheen. It has been a good read thus far.
Last book I read: River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze by Peter Hessler. It is a book about the author's experience in the city where we are going to serve in an orphanage, namely, Fuling, China.
Five books that mean a lot to me:
1. The Bible: There are many books that I would like to master. There is something ennobling about thinking the thoughts of great men. But the Bible is the one book that I want to master me.
2. Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture by Graeme Goldsworthy: This book was recommended to me when I was seeking to understand how to interpret/preach the Bible from a gospel-centered perspective. This is a must multiple-read for all Christians (not just for all pastors).
3. The Pleasures of God by John Piper. I consider this book to be Piper’s best. It has been a few years since I’ve read it. So I think it’s about time to pick it up again to drink deep.
4. The Christian Doctrine of God: One Being, Three Persons by Thomas F. Torrance. As far as I’m concerned, this book is without peer in its presentation of the beauty of our God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
5. The Mediation of Christ by Thomas F. Torrance. If I had to pick the one book that I think is helping me understand and apply the gospel more than any other book I’ve ever read, it would be this one.
Occasionally I will alert you to what I think are some very helpful (i.e. edifying) gospel-centered posts by other bloggers. Today I would like to recommend three excellent posts by David Bish (thebluefish blogger of the UK). They provided rich gospel food for me this past week (seeing that I struggle with the very same things). So let me encourage you to take a trip across the pond to read David’s gospel-centered posts.
Aircon for My Soul
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
I've added a new link category to my sidebar. It lists eucatastrophe articles that specifically unpack some of the various facets of gospel-centeredness. For those of you who are relatively new to eucatastrophe, here is the primary object of this blog: to explore the beauty and implications of the gospel of Christ for all of life. So with that objective in mind, I added "B 2: eucatastrophe articles" to our link categories.
If you've never read anything by T.F. Torrance, you need to pick up one of his books. I would recommend starting with The Mediation of Christ. He is not easy to read but who cares about easy when you can find hundreds of paragraphs like the following:
“This does not mean that all our knowledge of God can be reduced to Christology, but that, as there is only one Mediator between God and man, who is himself both God and Man, and only one revelation of God in which he himself is its actual content, all authentic knowledge of God is derived and understood in accordance with the incarnate reality of God’s self-revelation in Jesus Christ, and is formulated in doctrinal coherence with Christology. That is to say, doctrinal statements about God are possible and true only when Christologically grounded” (T.F. Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God, p. 17).
Both Adrian Warnock and David Wayne are linking an interesting discussion started at Stronger Church. It asks the following question: "If you could only have five books out of your library to keep to help you prepare sermons, what would they be?" I want to modify the question slightly. "If you could only have five books to aide you in your study of Scripture for personal holiness, what would they be?" So feel free to answer from either perspective.
Here is David Wayne's answer:
Actually, for about the last seven or eight years I've been using Logos Software and accumulating all kinds of stuff from them so I would just ask for my laptop and my Logos disks and could be very happy. But, since that's not the question I'll play along.Spirit of the Reformation Study Bible
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - ok, this has four volumes so I'm done, but if you'll allow me to count it as one volume I'd go with the following three others.
Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem (betcha thought I was going to say Berkhof, didn't ya?)
According to Plan - Graeme Goldsworthy
Your Best Life Now - Joel Osteen - kidding - just checking to see if anybody's really reading this. How about Young's Analytical Concordance so I can have a language reference.
My answer is the result of about 5 minutes of thinking. It would probably change if I thought about it a few more minutes, but right now I'm satisfied. Also, I'm assuming that I will have my BibleWorks computer program which allows me to reference the biblical languages :-).
1. ESV Bible 2. Preaching the Gospel in a Post-Modern World (Tim Keller) 3. Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture (Graeme Goldsworthy) 4. Gustav Oehler's Old Testament Theology 5. New Testament Theology: Many Witnesses, One Gospel (I. Howard Marshall)
What 5 books would you choose?
