What I'm reading these days

I am an unrepentant bibliophile. As such, I always have at least a few "irons" in the fire at any one time. Here's what I'm trying to digest these days:

C. J. Mahaney, Living the Cross Centered Life. This little book is what I'm working through in my devotions. It's about looking afresh at Christ's sacrifice for me on the cross and seeing it with a renewed sense of wonder. So far, it's been a challenging book. More thoughts to come from this one, so watch this space.


Millard J. Erickson, A Basic Guide to Eschatology. In our day, in the midst of all of the uncertainty that surrounds us, interest in the last things is quite high. This is certainly true of my Band of Brothers group on Wednesday mornings. These courageous men are going to study theology with me at 6 a.m., some of them sans coffee. I'm not sure how they're going to do that, but I'm looking forward to working through this neutral perspective book on the Millennium and the Tribulation.

Jerry Bridges, The Pursuit of Holiness. This is a book that one of the elders at our former church deeply loved. I was totally unfamiliar with it, but out of respect for Dave, I started reading it. Good books are actually hard to find, so I tend to gravitate toward those which are recommended by good people. It's easy to see what he appreciated about it. Grace and truth are infused throughout this little book on sanctification.

Mark Dever, The Deliberate Church. This is a book about structuring your church in all of its practices-leadership, worship, teaching, preaching, membership, etc. on the explicit teaching of the New Testament. That is, in contrast to a lot of other modern ecclesiological thinkers, Dever bases his prescriptions for growing a spiritually healthy church on the idea that only those things taught by the Scriptures are permitted, rather than the idea that anything which is not prohibited by the NT is permitted. It's a challenging book that the Elders and I are working through together. Great stuff.