I don’t review every book that I read – but still this blog has accumulated 79 book reviews. I’ve settled on choosing ones in which I have lived the most – and then influenced the most. So, for example, there is no room for Stuart Lange’s A Rising Tide which within ten hours of being posted became my most viewed post – ever! I still haven’t figured out why… but that book wasn’t so much about ‘influence’, as reinforcement.
So, here goes, with the ones that have shaped me the most:
#11 pure gold
The sad and stirring story of Eric Liddell, reminding me again that nothing beats the usefulness of totally consecrated ordinary people in the mission of God – a goal within reach of each one of us.
#10 musings on a challenge to faith
I fail to see the attraction in atheism. So I thought I’d open my mind and give it a go with this popularised articulation of the cause. It served only to reinforce my commitment to biblical theism.
#9 the mission of god’s people
Goodness me – did I never review Chris Wright’s Mission of God? This is a fine second choice, confirming my commitment to give my life to joining God in his restorative mission in the world.
#8 dancing in the glory of monsters
The combo of working with Langham and a son with a heart for the Congolese drives me to read books like this. A sad story told on the back of a series of one-on-one interviews by a brave author.
#7 william wilberforce
To follow countless viewings of Amazing Grace with reading this definitive biography of the great man in the months around the 200th anniversary of abolition. Good times!
#6 bible and treaty
The story of the role of the gospel in NZ’s early history. To discover the architect of the Treaty to have direct links to both Wilberforce and Simeon was almost too much for this faint heart to bear.
#5 unchristian
The outcomes of this Barna Group project stunned the Christian establishment in the USA, describing how far the next generation is drifting from the faith. Great fuel for my DMin thesis too.
#4 pakistan: a hard country
As a child of India, it surprised me to find my heart so soften towards Pakistan. But it has. This more complicated history added facts to the feelings – and urgency to the advocacy.
#3 fairness and freedom
This weaving of the histories of NZ & USA – chronological and topical, at the same time – is masterful. Then to be able to distill ‘fairness’ and ‘freedom’ as the one word summaries?! So satisfying.
#2 the lost history of christianity
Philip Jenkins must fit in somewhere. He has been the discovery of the decade for me. As I never reviewed The Next Christendom, this book is his most accessible book and will do just fine.
#1 to change the world
Every Christian leader must read this book. Enough said. The phrase ‘faithful presence’ captures the essence of a missiological strategy that has somehow got lost over the past generation.
nice chatting
Paul
About Me
the art of unpacking
After a childhood in India, a theological training in the USA and a pastoral ministry in Southland (New Zealand), I spent twenty years in theological education in New Zealand — first at Laidlaw College and then at Carey Baptist College, where I served as principal. In 2009 I began working with Langham Partnership and since 2013 I have been the Programme Director (Langham Preaching). Through it all I've cherished the experience of the 'gracious hand of God upon me' and I've relished the opportunity to 'unpack', or exegete, all that I encounter in my walk through life with Jesus.
Recent Posts
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Ten years ago, Ode to Georgetown was my response to being surprised by grief when the only church I had ever pastored closed its doors. Last week brought the news that the theological college which I attended, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS), was to close most of its Chicagoland campus. I have been feeling a…
I am neither painter nor poet, musician nor actor. With Art and Music and Drama classes at school, I was present in body—but absent in spirit and skill. However, as a teacher, there has been the occasional flare of creativity in the crafting of assignments. One of my favourites is one of my first ones.…
John Stott was the first one to help me see the tension in Jesus’ teaching on salt and light. They are pictures for how his disciples are to live in society. Salt pulls them in, keeping them involved. Light holds them back, keeping them distinctive. Being light responds to ‘the danger of worldliness’, while being…
