I plan to begin a series of posts that will stretch out over a long period of time on my favorite books. I do not count a book as a favorite unless it actually does something to me. C.S. Lewis makes the case in An Experiment in Criticism that good reading always does something to us. Perhaps I am not a great reader, but the percentage of books I read which I would deem as life-changing is very small. Yet there have been some.
The list includes (in no particular order, and not including the Bible):
- The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien
- The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien
- The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis
- The Four Loves, by C.S. Lewis
- A Dissertation Concerning the End for which God Created the World, by Jonathan Edwards
- Meditations and Discourses on the Glory of Christ, by John Owen
- Communion with God, by John Owen
- The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, by John Frame
- The Holy Trinity, by Robert Letham
- Reason and the Heart, by William Wainwright
- Preaching and Preachers, by Martyn Lloyd-Jones
I am not going to review these books. Rather, I intend to record the major points that have stuck with me and impacted me over the years. Perhaps they will be of help to someone else.
I will begin with perhaps my favorite book, Preaching and Preachers, by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones. This book is a tour de force, not only in preaching, but in Bible reading and spirituality in general. For this book I will point out five things I learned from it that changed not only the way I preach, but the way I study the Scriptures and live life in general.
The Doctor, outside of men recorded in the Scriptures, is my hero – and I am not ashamed to say it. I look forward to sharing some of what I have gleaned from him.
