Theology and Culture
The Holy Spirit, by John Owen
I took this Puritan Paperback with me on my Asia trip in the Autumn. Owen's famously heavy style has been made readable here by the editor, R. J. K. Law. Even so, it still demands a careful read. Owen is both biblical and devotional. If someone dismisses his work because he doesn't tick all their 21st Century boxes, it is more to their detriment. I found it both challenging and encouraging spiritually.
I was struck by how much of the work of God can be examined as the work of the Spirit. Such a neglected theological topic.
Freedom, Authority and Scripture, by J. I. Packer
This book came out over 40 years ago but is still hugely relevant. It is a slim volume but if you are familiar with Packer you will know what to expect. His prose is tightly woven, without the slightest careless phrase. So it needs to be read slowly, like Owen, one of his heroes.
If I ever have to give a seminar on these themes, this will be the book I go to first.
In Search of the Common Good, by Jake Meador
Jake Meador is one of my favourite writers. He edits the Mere Orthodoxy web site, and has written a bunch of very good articles. So I picked up this book from a few years ago. Meador is heavily influenced by Schaeffer, as well as other Reformed writers and preachers. Keller writes the forward.
Meador seeks to diagnose the decline of Western civilisation. His focus is his own, United States, but much of what he addresses is shared with the UK and other Western societies.
He argues that modern liberalism is a story that we have told ourselves and that that has led to our decline, seen in the loss of meaning, wonder, and good work. He then seeks to tell a different story - the Christian tradition, heavily informed by the Bible - and show how this gives a better grounding for our common good.
Devotional
Truth for Life, Volume 1, by Alistair Begg
My wife and I really enjoyed starting the day together with Alistair Begg's devotional in 2024. He gives a connected Bible reading at the end of the day's page; we found it helpful to read the Bible passage first, before reading the verse or verses that he bases his meditation on.
Our plan is to go back to an old Packer daily devotional that we read 30 years ago (Your Father Loves You) for 2025 and then probably pick up Begg's second volume for 2026.
Missiology
The Church between Temple and Mosque, by J. H. Bavinck
Dan Strange was the power behind getting this book reprinted, and he writes a helpful introduction (slightly spoiled by too many typos). J. Herman, if you don't know, was the nephew of Herman Bavinck, who, with Abraham Kuyper, was a founder of the neo-Calvinist movement, that continues to gather steam, especially with the translation work of James Eglinton and his gang. J. H. was a missionary to Indonesia in the mid-twentieth century, and worked in Bandung and Yogyakarta, both cities of Java with which I have become familiar after three visits in recent years.
J. H. Bavinck spent a lot of time in dialogue with Indonesian religious leaders, and by carefully studying their texts, he was a very knowledgeable evangelist and church worker. This comes out in much that he writes in this book, that forms a good companion with his more well known, Science of Mission.
There is much to learn. But I think J.H.B. was hampered by two weaknesses: 1) he was a man of his time, and that time was Dutch colonial time, with all the obstacles that created for the intercultural minister; 2) he does not seem to have understood how much Asian religious life is shaped by the social order in which it is lived. That latter weakness makes him too cognitive and too individualistic, in my opinion.
Biography
Timothy Keller: His Spiritual and Intellectual Formation, by Collin Hanson
I don't read enough biography. I love Tim Keller and have read quite a few of his books. But I still learned a lot from this account of his life. The way Hansen arranges his material is really helpful: at each distinct stage of Keller's life, the key influences on his life and ministry are described. It is easy to see how these influences - writers, lecturers, preachers, friends - shaped Keller's thinking and ministry.
It is lovely to see the providence of God in the way these people came into Keller's life, and how each added a building block that was later to bear such astonishing fruit (if I may mix metaphors) in his ministry in New York City and then in his wider ministry in later life.
Makes me thankful to the Lord for all the godly and wise influences that he has brought into my life over the years, and cry out to him for grace to steward those influences for his glory in the years I have left.
Fiction
The Luminaries, by Eleanor Catton
This could be the biggest book I have ever read - over 800 pages. The setting is that of the gold fields of New Zealand in the nineteenth century, which Catton describes so evocatively.
The author arranges the novel in a number of acts, that get shorter and shorter as the story goes on - the first is 400 pages and the last is 1 - guided by a fascinating astrological framework. I frequently referred back to a helpful page of dramatis personae at the front.
Jack, Marilyn Robinson
It has been a few years since I read the first two novels in this series - Gilead and Home, so I re-read those stories before reading Jack. I won't spoil it for you, but Marilyn Robinson doesn't let you down. A love story; very sad and very lovely.
