Favorite Books
I mostly read now on my iPad. I use the Bible Study app by Olive Tree to read my Bible and many of my books. I use Kindle, Barnes and Noble, and IBooks apps to read most of the rest. I also read mostly non-fiction books. Instead of creating a proper bibliographic reference I will just make a link to them from the author's page if possible. I will add new books as I read with the most recent first. If you have a favorite book you would like to share or a comment about one of the books, scroll to the end of the page and I will add your thoughts to this page. It will take a little while to add all my favorites so visit regularly.
Books about Being a Christian (in no particular order)
- Rachel Held Evans
- Inspired by Rachel Held Evans - A book of her story of how she has come to see and love the scripture.
- Wholehearted Faith - This is a book of essays about Rachel's journey away from and back to faith. It was one she had started on before her death and was finished by her friend, Jeff Chu.
- Freeing Jesus by Diana Butler Bass - This is the first book I have read by Dr. Bass but I am so looking forward to reading more. I made a post about it on the "Thoughts" page of this website. I am following her website, "The Cottage" and have subscribed to her newsletter. Looking forward to reading more of her books.
- We Make the Road By Walking by Brian McLaren. This is a book of 52 essays keyed to the church calendar to give fresh meaning and a new look at the Biblical story.
- I found this author, Nancy Guthrie, from my daughter. Nancy attends her church and I was fortunate to be able to attend a small Bible study with the women of her church. I have learned a lot from her books, an online workshop I attended, and authors she quoted. She writes from a Biblical Theology perspective.
- Even Better Than Eden
- Saints and Scoundrels in the Story of Jesus
- Blessed - A Bible study on the book of Revelations
- One of my new favorite authors is Michael Card. I first heard of him with his music back in the 80's. With these books he also has an album for many of them. In the past few months I have read the following books by Michael (link to his webpage where you can find all of these:
- The Fragile Stone (about Peter)
- A Violent Grace (about Jesus)
- Scribbling in the Sand (about about creativity and art in community)
- Inexpressible: Hesed and the Mystery of God's Lovingkindness
- Scot McKnight
- Blue Parakeet A book about how to rethink about how you read the bible.
- Jesus Creed - on the "greatest command"
- Open to the Spirit - a book about the Holy Spirit
- King Jesus Gospel -A book about how to understand the gospel as more than just the plan of salvation.
- I have several others on my "books I want to read list" so I will be adding more as I read them.
- Simply Jesus - N. T. Wright. I have several others on my "books I want to read list" so I will be adding more as I read them.
- Stay Salt by Rebecca Manley Pippert - This one I have just started but I am looking forward to the challenge from the Introduction to move beyond my "Christian Bubble."
- The Biblical Cosmos: A Pilgrim's Guide to the Wonderful World of the Bible - Robin Parry - An interesting book that explores how to understand the Old Testament.
- I have read many books by Tim Keller. Here are a few of them.
- God's Wisdom for Navigating Life - A year of daily devotions based on Proverbs. This is Dr. Keller's latest book, written with his wife, Kathy Keller, and I am using it for part of daily quiet time this year. So looking forward to this every day. I have grown so much by reading Keller's books and listening to his sermons on podcasts and YouTube.
- The Songs of Jesus - A Year of daily devotions based on the Psalms. Each verse of every Psalm is a part of one of the daily devotions - the easy as well as the hard to understand Psalms. Dr. Keller with his wife, Kathy Keller, wrote this book before the book on Proverbs. I loved it so much that I am reading it again this year.
- Prodigal God by Timothy Keller. This book was given to me by my daughter and son-in-law before he was my son-in-law. They were students at Mercer and read this book in their RUF group. It introduced me to Timothy Keller and I will be forever grateful. It is a thoughtful book about Jesus' parable that is often called the Prodigal Son.
- Rediscovering Jonah - The Prodigal Prophet - a study of the book of Jonah, "the most misunderstood parable in the Bible."
- King's Cross (also Jesus the King) - a study of Jesus based on the book of Mark.
- Every Good Endeavor - abook about role of work in our daily lives.
- Prayer - what the title says - a book about prayer
- Hidden Christmas - I read this one each year as part of my devotions during Advent.
- Encounters With Jesus - This book looks at life biggest questions through the encounters that Jesus had with people.
- Hope in Times of Fear - written in response to the COVID pandemic
- Circle of Seasons - Meeting God in the Church Year by Kimberlee Conway Ireton My pastor, Ellen DiGiosia, shared this book with me when I asked her for ways to learn more about the liturgical year. I just started this one and it is great. It gives information about the seasons of the church year as well as scripture references and ideas about how to use the seasons to grow closer to God.
- Shaped by the Cross - Meditations on the Suffering of Jesus by Ken Gire. This is a great book to read during Lent and Easter. Ken Gire writes a series of devotions about the suffering of Jesus written around the famous Pieta sculpture created by Michelangelo. It is an amazing book that uses art to help us understand more about the crucifixion of Jesus.
- The Singer Trilogy by Calvin Miller. These three books are allegorical poems that tell the story of the New Testament. I remember when I first read them when I was in college that they gave me a new and deeper understanding of Jesus. From time to time I get them out and read them again and learn something new. They also have beautiful artwork, which I didn't really appreciate at the time, but do more so now. I was fortunate to hear him speak in chapel and he signed a copy of the trilogy which I gave to my son for his birthday.
- Moments With The Savior, A Devotional Life of Christ by Ken Gire. This is one of my favorite devotional books. I have read it many times and am currently reading it again. It is a complication of three of Ken's previous books. The chapters in the book are short, 3-5 pages, and arranged in rough chronological order of Jesus life.
- A Way Other Than Our Own by Walter Brueggemann. These are a set of devotions for Lent that I am using for the first time this year. Brueggemann is a theologian from Columbia.
- Art and Faith by Makoto Fujimara - This book explores the relationship between creativity, God, and the New Creation.
Books about Creating and Art
- The Creative Fight - by Chris Orwig. Chris Orwig is a photographer that I found when looking for books about taking portraits. I found this one and it has made me think a lot about what it means to be creative and art. It is about much more then just photography.
- Within The Frame by David DuChemin. This is another photographer that I found when trying to learn about photography. It helped me think about why and how I want to make pictures.
- Rembrandt Is In The Wind - Russ Ramsey. A beautiful book with the stories of artists and what we can learn about following God from their paintings.
Books for Studying God's Word
- For Everyone Commentary Series - Old Testament and New Testament. This 35 volume series takes each book of the bible and divides it into sections. After each section which has been translated by the author there is a commentary with background information about the text and also how this passage relates to out lives today. The author of the Old Testament volumes is Biblical Theology scholar John Goldingay and the author of the New Testament volmes is N. T. Wright. I use these commentaries from my Olive Tree Bible app and they are very, very much less than if you purchase the print versions.
- The Final Days of Jesus by by Andreas J. Köstenberger, Justin Taylor, With Alexander E. Stewart . I found this book and read it during Lent this pass year. It has a chapter for each day of the passion week that begins with the text from each gospel about that day and explains the things that happened that day.
- The First Days of Jesus also by Andreas J. Köstenberger and Alexander E. Stewart. I found this book by the same authors as the previous book this advent season. It tells the story of the incarnation with wonderful and thoughtful scholarship. There were parts of this book that I actually cried when I read. It made the incarnation and coming of Jesus into this world amazing to me again.
- Feasting on the Word is a set of three commentaries organized around the Revised Common Lectionary. For each scripture there are 4 essays about the passage written by many different authors. This it the link to Year A but you will find the others by searching on this site. There are many other resources for using this resource on this website. I have started using them each day in my bible study time.
- Feasting on the Gospels is a set of commentaries organized around the Gospels. It is similar in format to the the Feasting on the Word commentaires with 3 essays on each passage written by many different authors. This is the link to the gospel of John but you can the other volumes by searching this site.