Saturday, December 9, 2017

Reading List: December 9, 2017



Finished this month:

Turning Points: Decisive Moments in the History of Christianity by Mark Noll
I love reading about history, especially how it related to the Bible and Christianity. This was a really interesting book on key events in the history of Christianity. There are many others of course, but the author has carefully chosen 12 that he believes are the most impactful. They include The Fall of Jerusalem, The Council of Nicaea, The Great Schism (division between Eastern and Western churches), the Protestant Reformation, Counter-Reformation, the French Revolution (this was a very interesting one!) and more. Interesting read, well-written and I learned a lot!

Taking God at His Word by Kevin DeYoung
The ladies Bible Study read through this book this semester. It’s filled with good reminders about why God’s Word is “knowable, necessary, and enough”. It has chapters dedicated to the authority, necessity, clarity, sufficiency, and power of Scripture. I found this book a little basic (I’ve been to seminary and read a lot more detailed stuff on this subject) but for newer/younger or not as well-read believers it’s a great resource! Very encouraging reminders of how wonderfully sufficient and powerful the Word of God is!

The Beginner’s Guide to the Gift of Prophesy by Jack Deere
If you haven’t read Deere’s book Surprised by the Power of the Spirit you should read that first, but this is a great book if you are interested in learning about and pursuing the gift of prophesy, or if you want to know how to be more discerning when it comes to listening to prophets. How can you learn to discern the voice of God? What pitfalls do you need to watch out for? How do you know when to believe to a prophet or not? What about when a prophet is wrong (i.e mis-understands/mis-applies) what God is speaking to him? This was a very helpful book that was also convicting… the human heart is easily deceived and easily proud and those are big dangers that not only greatly hinder our growth and ministry, but we constantly need to fight against.

You May All Prophesy by Steve Thompson
This was a very interesting and balanced book. Informative about what prophesy is and how to grow in or encourage the gift in the church. The author also gives many warnings about how pride and other sins get in the way of this gift being used rightly, and how to learn to be discerning in things you “hear”. Great follow-up book to the previous one I read!

Mike and I also finished listening to The Hobbit which was fun.

Currently Reading:
Five Views on Sanctification edited by Stanley Gundry. Also listening to some fun fiction with Mike, and also currently reading through Baby-Wise by Gary Ezzo (there are various opinions about this book – some have found it to work and love it, for some others it hasn’t and they hate-talk it, but it’s interesting at least and there are good principles to put in place. Stay tuned I guess!)