best books I read in 2017

In no particular order...

Reformation:Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow, by Carl Trueman (Christian Focus, Reprint 2011). In this reprint, Trueman (professor of church history) gives a number of important applications for today's church from the Reformation.

How to Think: A Survival Guide for a World at Odds, by Alan Jacobs (Currency, 2017). Hard to describe this little book, but it is profound. How community affects the way we think.

I enjoyed two collections of sermons by Martyn Lloyd-Jones:
Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled, (Crossway reissue, 2009).
The Cross: God's Way of Salvation, (Crossway, 1986)

Awakening the Evangelical Mind: An Intellectual History of the Neo-Evangelical Movement, by Owen Strachan (Zondervan, 2015) Along with Confessions of a Theologian, by Carl F. H. Henry (Word Books, 1986). Strachan chronicles the rise of the new evangelicals in the 1950s and beyond. Carl Henry figures prominently in that movement. I also finished Volume 4 of Henry's magisterial God, Revelation and Authority, and read portions of Vols. 5 & 6. Carl Henry (who also founded Christianity Today) is probably the least known, but extremely gifted theologian to impact the church in America in the second half of the twentieth century. His works are immensely valuable to evangelicals today.

The Everlasting God, by Broughton Knox (Matthias Media, 2012).
Excellent (and brief) overview of the nature and character of God by Australian clergyman and former president of Moore College.

God, Marriage, and Family (Second Edition): Rebuilding the Biblical Foundation,
by Andreas J. Kostenberger (Crossway, 2010). Thorough, clear, biblical, and much needed explanation of marriage, family, and gender.

He Is Not Silent, by Albert Mohler (Moody, 2008). I picked this up at the Basics Conference last May. Mohler connects God's use of words in making covenant and our use of words in preaching.

Seeing the Unseen, Expanded Edition: A 90-Day Devotional to Set Your Mind on Eternity, by Randy Alcorn (Multnomah; Expanded edition, 2017) This is a daily devotional that my wife and I enjoy reading together.

I read three smaller works by J. Gresham Machen, best known for Christianity and Liberalism. These were...
-- The Person of Jesus (radio addresses, 1935)
-- The Christian Faith in the Modern World (1936)
-- What Is Faith (1937)
Machen, former professor of New Testament at Princeton and later founder of Westminster Seminary, had an uncanny ability to take profound theological truths and state them simply, clearly, and forcefully.

Howard Hendricks on OT books chronology

When I was in seminary, Howard Hendricks (aka "Prof") gave us a little card with the books of the OT chronologically arranged. The scanned copy I have was a bit blurry and I wanted to make something like this available for our church class in OT theology ("Story of Redemption"). A few minor edits and here it is...

clement quotes hebrews

Clement of Rome wrote to the church in Corinth around AD 90. This is perhaps the same Clement, companion of Paul, mentioned in Philippians 4:3. Many hold him to be the first bishop / pope in Rome, aka St. Clement I. Clement quotes from the letter to the Hebrews. Origin suggested that Clement was in fact the writer (as transcriber or amanuensis) of Hebrews. Perhaps this letter began as a "word of exhortation" given by Paul at the synagogue (Heb 13:22; cf Acts 13:15) which then became a circular letter for the churches. Other possible authors of Hebrews include Luke, Barnabas, or Apollos. The theology is Pauline, but the transcriber is obviously second-generation (Heb. 2:3-4). At any rate, this early church leader in Rome, is already quoting Hebrews in his letter in AD 90: CHAPTER 36 ALL BLESSINGS ARE GIVEN TO US THROUGH CHRIST This is the way, beloved, in which we find our Savior, even Jesus Christ, the High Priest of all our offerings, the defender and he

bible reading nov 1-2

Bible reading for weekend Nov 1 -- 2 Nov 1 -- Hosea 7 and Psalms 120-122 Nov 2 -- Hosea 8 and Psalms 123-125 ================ "Were I to write for him my laws by the ten thousands, they would be regarded as a strange thing." (Hosea 8:12) THE RESULTS OF SIN (ch 7-8). Notice the words and metaphors to describe Israel's sinful condition: they are surrounded with, and proud of, their evil (7:1-3); like adulterers in the heat of passion (7:4-5); their anger is like a hot oven (7:6-7); they are like a half-cooked (one side only) cake (7:8); their strength is gone (7:9); they are like silly doves easily trapped (7:11-12); they are undependable like a warped bow (7:16). In spite of all of this they are so proud of themselves! (We might say they have a strong self-esteem.) They have spurned what is good (8:3); they sow to the wind and have no real fruit (8:7); they are a useless vessel (8:8) and a wild donkey wandering alone (8:9); they regard God's law as a strange thing

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