Top Ten :: Christian Books of 2013
By Pastor JimI love to read. I did a quick count and it looks like I read about 75 books this year. By far, my favorite books to read are scripture-saturated, Jesus-exalting books. But I also need a few “dessert” books thrown in there throughout the year. I thought it would be helpful to compile a few Top 10 lists of books I read this year, over the course of a few blog posts, to aid you in your book-buying/reading decisions. Enjoy! These are my Top 10 Christian Books of 2013. (I don’t usually prefer the qualifying word, “Christian” for inanimate objects, as Jesus did not come to "seek and save the music" or the books—but the lost—however, it is an easy descriptor.)1. Delighting in the Trinity - Michael ReevesThis easily took the top place on the list. I read it three times this year and was enriched and stirred to worship each time. It is a very accessible treatment on the Trinity. I promise you won’t look at anything in the world—creation, relationships, marriage, food, beauty—the same again. Please read this book. Everyone. Now. 
2. The Fullness of Christ - Preston, John, O'BrienThis is a short book from one of the Puritans. Don’t let the Puritans intimidate you, it’s worth the effort.
"A fullness is also given to him in his effects and works. There is scarcely any action, which Christ ever did, but you shall find a fullness in it. At the first miracle He ever worked, He filled six enormous water pots with wine. Afterwards, He filled five thousand guests from five loaves and two fish. Likewise, He filled the disciples’ nets with so many fish that they were ready to burst (John 21:6). He filled his disciples with the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, which is the best fullness of all. After this they were described as being 'full of the Holy Spirit' (Acts 2:4)."
“If there has been grace for so many, then surely there is enough for me.”
"You cannot be more incredibly sinful than He is incredibly merciful."
“If all grace is received, then let us respond the way receivers should. First, let us be thankful to God for everything we are given. The most gracious are the most grateful.”
3. Not by Sight: A Fresh Look at Old Stories of Walking by Faith - Jon BloomI really loved this book. It takes a look at a collection of biblical stories with “creative additions that never go beyond what really could have happened,” according to John Piper, who writes the foreword. "The truths that Jon sees for our lives are based not on what might have been but on what was. The might-have-beens give added flesh to the bones of truth. They are touchable.” I love the dialogue in this book. For example, imagining how a conversation might go between Zacchaeus, the tax collector, and a person (named Judah) he gave back extorted money to, Zacchaeus says,
“Then it hit me like a cedar beam: I’m poor, not rich! They had God; I had a dead idol: money. They were rich; I was no more than a beggar. They were free. But the only doors money ever opened for me led to lonely dungeons. My world, as I had known it, fell apart. “And there sat Jesus, looking at me as if he could read me like a scroll. Everything in me just wanted to follow him. I wanted the forgiveness and salvation he’s been preaching about.”
Then, Judah goes home:
Later, Judah’s wife found him staring at a small moneybag on the table.
“What’s that?” “A tax refund.” “A what?” “I think we need to go hear Rabbi Jesus.” “Rabbi Jesus? Why?” “I think we’re poor.”
4. C. S. Lewis - A Life: Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet - Alister McGrathI went on a biography kick and read about 10 biographies and autobiographies this year. This was definitely my favorite.
"Literature, for Lewis, enables us 'to see with other eyes, to imagine with other imaginations, to feel with other hearts, as well as with our own.’ What mattered in poetry was not the poet but the poem . . .The poet is thus not a “spectacle” to be viewed, but a “set of spectacles” through which things are to be seen.”
5. The Hole in Our Holiness: Filling the Gap between Gospel Passion and the Pursuit of Godliness - Kevin DeYoungA lot of “Christian Living” books offer good content, with decent enough writing to get you through it. But DeYoung is a great writer with great content—which is a great combination. DeYoung’s fear "is that as we rightly celebrate, and in some quarters rediscover, all that Christ has saved us from, we are giving little thought and making little effort concerning all that Christ has saved us to.” This is a good book that balances some of the gospel-centered talk that can drift (like anything) away from, well . . . the center.
"The Great Commission is about holiness. God wants the world to know Jesus, believe in Jesus, and obey Jesus. We don’t take the Great Commission seriously if we don’t help each other grow in obedience."
"The irony is that if we make every imperative into a command to believe the gospel more fully, we turn the gospel into one more thing we have to get right, and faith becomes the one thing we need to be better at.”
6. The Contemplative Pastor - Eugene PetersonThis is an older book that I read for the first time and it was really good for my soul. I spent most of this year studying prayer in hopes of maturing in it and, mostly, clinging to it as I learned to abide in Jesus more and more. This book was very helpful in that.
"Knowing about things never has seemed to improve our lives a great deal. The pastoral task with words is not communication but communion."
"Our most important work, which is directing worship in the traffic, discovering the presence of the cross in the paradoxes and chaos between Sundays, calling attention to the 'splendor in the ordinary,' and, most of all, teaching a life of prayer to our friends and companions in the pilgrimage.”
"And so pastors, instead of practicing prayer, which brings people into the presence of God, enter into the practice of messiah: we will do the work of God for God, fix people up, tell them what to do, conspire in finding the shortcuts by which the long journey to the Cross can be bypassed since we all have such crowded schedules right now.”
7. Encounters With Jesus - Tim KellerIt’s Tim Keller, what more could I say? Read these collections of essays on encounters with Jesus.
"The heart of the unique message of the Bible is that the transcendent, immortal God came to earth himself and became weak, vulnerable to suffering and death.”
"People cannot live without any hope or meaning, or without a conviction that some things are more worth doing with our lives than others.”
"Jesus Christ says, 'I am the Lord of the Feast. In the end, I come to bring joy. That’s the reason my calling card, my first miracle, is to set everyone laughing.’”
8. Eyes Wide Open: Enjoying God in Everything - Steve DeWittEver wonder why we are drawn to beauty? Ever consider why a mountain range, or a flower, or harmonies stir something in us? This is a book like none other; you won’t look at things the same way again. If your spiritual life is stale or you think you may have a one-dimensional view of God, read this.
“Created beauty eclipses God’s beauty in the desire factory of man’s heart. It is a case of mistaken identity. Every created beauty was created by God to lead our affections to Him. That’s why He made the pleasures of earthly beauty so fleeting — so that on the other side of the pleasure we might experience either wonder and worship and ultimate satisfaction in God or the pursuit of the pleasure that beauty provides for its own sake. If we choose the latter, we will only be disappointed again.”
9. Amazing Grace - Eric MetaxasAnother great biography on the British abolitionist, William Wilberforce. "At the center of this heroic life was a passionate twenty-year fight to abolish the British slave trade, a battle Wilberforce won in 1807, as well as efforts to abolish slavery itself in the British colonies, a victory achieved just three days before his death in 1833.”
"No one had ever told these poor people what this man with the voice like a trumpet was telling them, but it was as if they were hearing something they had always known was true but had forgotten.”
“Africa! Africa! Your sufferings have been the theme that has arrested and engages my heart— your sufferings no tongue can express; no language impart.”
10. Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther - Roland H. BaintonIf you have never read a biography on Martin Luther you should, and this should be the one you read.
"When Luther looked at his family in 1538, he remarked, 'Christ said we must become as little children to enter the kingdom of heaven. Dear God, this is too much. Have we got to become such idiots?’"
Honorable MentionDeath by Living: Life Is Meant to Be Spent - N. D. Wilson Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ - John Piper Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God's Work - Timothy Keller