SIX GREAT BOOKS ABOUT THE TRIUNE GOD
Dear Friends,
Last week we began a ten week sermon series called "Knowing God." We will look at the nature, attributes, and character of the Triune God. Usually at the Church of the Messiah we preach through books of the Bible, or large chunks of the Bible, going verse-by-verse through the text. If you want to be a theological nerd, then the type of preaching which we mainly do at Messiah is called "expositional preaching." In this new series, our preaching will be verse-with-verse or "topical." Those of you who heard the first sermon in the series, "The Triune God," will have seen how sometimes it is best to look at several verses in different parts of the Bible to be able to understand doctrine. The nature, attributes, and character of God is a perfect example of when a verse-with-verse method is helpful.
I promised in my sermon last week that I would write a blog suggesting some good books to read on this series. In this blog, I am keeping my promise.
Please pray for those of us who will be preaching this summer. Our hope is that: the doctrine will be clearly explained, we will show how this doctrine is important to the gospel, we will show how the doctrine is important to your life, and finally, that it will make you want to adore the true and living Triune God.
In no particular order......
1. Michael Reeves, "Delighting in the Trinity." (2012). This book is simple in the good way that writers like C.S. Lewis wrote in a simple manner. The book is winsome, has wit, and if you like underlining a good passage to think about some more, you will have lots of underlined passages.
2. J. I. Packer, "Knowing God" and "Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God." If you only have the time and energy to read one or two of the books on my list, then I would recommend these two. "Knowing God" was first written in 1973 and has come out in many new editions ever since. It is not unusual to meet someone who re-reads this book every year - in fact I did this for about the first 5 or 6 years after I first read it, and I still re-read it occasionally. The other book, on the sovereignty of God, is very helpful in dealing with this topic, and related ideas like "predestination" or "election" in a way that makes you want to worship and to share the gospel.
3. Fred Sanders, "The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything." (2010) The first two authors are Anglicans. This author is with the "Evangelical Free Church." A good, solid, interesting and helpful book.
4. Michael Horton, "Pilgrim Theology: Core Doctrines For Christian Disciples." (2013) This book is a simpler version of his magisterial book on systematic theology, "The Christian Faith." A book on systematic theology will of course explain the nature, character, and attributes of God, but will also show you how those doctrines connect to a wide range of other doctrines like soteriology (how to think about salvation), ecclesiology (how to think about the church) and many other "ologies." The author is from a conservative (orthodox) Presbyterian denomination in the U.S..
5. Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli, "Handbook of Christian Apologetics." (1994). As the title indicates, this is a book about apologetics, not theology or "christian living." However, apologetics both explains the Christian faith and then defends the faith from its detractors. So this is a book to read about the Christian understanding of God in light of the errors and attacks launched against it. The authors are both Roman Catholics. They provide a great, concise book on historic apologetics issues from a "mere christianity" perspective.
Not everyone is a reader, and we all read at different levels. Feel free to email or call and ask for book suggestions, especially if you find these books either too hard or too easy. By the way, The Gospel Coalition is a fantastic resource for great articles on Christian living and thinking. TGC was started in the U.S. and their site is the biggest. However, there are now many national TGC's, including one in Canada. If you google any of the TGC sites, there is a way to connect with other TGC sites, including those in many different languages and regions: arabic, chinese, spanish and more. Full disclosure, I am one of the founding Board members of TGC Canada.
George+
