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Ten Authors for Your Soul · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  This week, we're talking with Pastor John about book reading. On Monday,
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  we looked at the seven ways books have impacted your life, Pastor John,
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  and there you gave us a brief theology of reading as well, looking at
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  that incredible text and effusions three four. And as you were talking about all
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  the ways those seven ways that books have changed your life, I could hear
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  you very eager to give specific recommendations. So let's do the who today?
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  Who do you read? That's today's question for a listener named Sam, Hello,
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  Pastor John and Tony. In a recent Solid Joy's devotional, I listened
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  to Pastor John. You mentioned the practice of reading rich doctrinal books. That's
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  the quote, rich doctrinal books. What would you consider to be your top
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  ten rich doctrinal books that have helped you grow over the decades. Well,
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  I have an awful time answering top questions or most questions, but I can't
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  answer ten rich doctrinal books have made a wallbling impact on my life. Whether
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  I leave one out that's in the top ten, my memory is not good
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  enough to say. Here's what C. S. Lewis said about our longing
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  for the heart, our hearts to sing with joy over what we see about
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  God in our devotions. He said, for my own part, I tend
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  to find the doctrine of books often more helpful in devotion than devotional books,
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  and I rather suspect that the same experience awaits others. I believe that many
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  who find quote nothing happens when they sit down or kneel down to a book
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  of devotion would find that the heart sings unbidden when they are working their way
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  through a tough bit of theology, with a pipe in their teeth and a
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  pencil in their hand. So my response that says, well, you can
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  leave the pipe aside. He wouldn't get mouth cancer on your way to devotions.
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  You'll leave the pipe aside, but do pick up the pencil and a
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  doctrinally rich book and see what happens. So here are ten authors who have
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  done this for me. Made my heart sing because of what they showed me
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  of God and his ways from the Bible. Number one Jonathan Edwards. No
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  historic theologian has shaped me more. I mentioned four books, The End for
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  Which God Created the World, the Religious Affections, the Essay on the Trinity,
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  and Freedom of the Will. One of those showed me the nature of
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  God as three and one another showed me the goal of God to glorify himself
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  in all that he does. Another showed me that my affections are essential to
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  the worship and obedience of God. And the fourth showed me the compatibility between
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  God's absolute sovereignty and my human accountability before him. Number two John Owen,
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  The Mortification of Sin. That book, that little book, ninety pages,
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  takes us into the depths of how God overcomes sin in our lives, and
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  on communion with God shows us what it means actually to have fellowship with each
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  member of the Trinity, and the death of Death in the death of Christ
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  clarifies the glory of particular redemption, naming that Christ really did secure the new
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  Covenant blessings for God's elect Number three Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of
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  God. Courseway just put out a brand new double volume edition of this book.
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  That giant fifteen hundred page in two volumes sat on my bedside table for
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  my guess is I can't remember exactly a couple of years. It sat at
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  my bedside table and I soaked with just two or three pages at night before
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  I went to beds. I soaked in God's holiness, his eternity, his
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  immutability, his patience, his goodness. Someone asked Bernard of Claivaux in the
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  Middle Ages, why don't people love God more? And he said, because
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  they don't know him. Charnock is a great remedy for that ailment number four.
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  If you don't want to start with a two volume, fifteen hundred page
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  book, then start with Ji Packer Knowing God two hundred and fifty pages instead
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  of fifteen hundred. And the first sentence goes like this, as clowns yearn
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  to play Hamlet. So I have wanted to write a treatise on God.
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  Packer knows God is infinite, and he's finite. The chasm between in him
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  and God is wider than the universe. So Packer is a good, humble
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  guide. He's not presumptuous, but he is profound in his own special,
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  accessible way. So start with Packer. If Charnoc sounds daunting, John Murray
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  redemption accomplished and applied. I learned my Calvinism not from Calvin, but mainly
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  from Romans and Ephesians and Philippians and the Gospel of John. But at certain
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  points along the way in my theological pilgrimage, a book would come along that
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  put so many pieces together in a beautiful, coherent way that I found them
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  extremely helpful. The very title redemption colon accomplished and applied still functions for me
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  like a bright light. God accomplished redemption on the cross once for all,
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  decisively. It's over, it's done, it's finished, it's accomplished, propitiation,
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  redemption. And then he sovereignly, at age six, he applies that
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  to my life justification, adoption, sanctification, glorification by giving me faith,
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  bringing me to himself. So after Packer go to Murray number six John Bunyan,
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  Pilgrim's Progress. You might not think that this interesting story that children can
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  enjoy a fascinating allegory is doctrinely rich, but it is. One of the
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  things about an allegory is that you can read it at different levels. It's
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  just an interesting story with monsters and dangers, or at the profound level of
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  how the Christian life really works under the sovereignty of God. Number seven J.
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  C Ryle Holy. One of the great strengths of this book that makes
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  it so doctrinally rich is that he keeps in clear view the difference between justification
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  and sanctification and how they relate to each other in the quest for holiness.
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  It also has the hidden benefit of being one hundred and fifty years old,
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  so that we can see, I was just glancing at my notes yesterday.
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  We can see how some of the challenges to holiness that we face we think
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  are new, really not new or peculiar to our age. Number eight Da
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  Carson The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God. This is only eighty four
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  pages, but it goes a long way to keep us from talking in sentimental
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  nonsense about the love of God. Almost everybody in the post Christian West thinks
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  of God as more or less lenient and kind. They bring their conceptions to
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  the Bible, and when the Bible says God is love, they fill it
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  up with meaning that they already had in their head, which may be completely
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  wrong. And Don Carson helps us see what God is really like in what
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  he revealed about his love. Number nine Martin Lloyd Jones The Sermon on the
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  Mount. This two volume collection of sermons on Jesus most famous sermon opened my
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  eyes in the summer of nineteen sixty eight to how doctrinal preaching could set the
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  heart on fire. When I read it, I was twenty two years old,
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  and I thought, that's how I'd like to preach some death. Number
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  ten George Lad A Theology of the New Testament and the Presence of the Future.
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  Doctor Lad was my New Testament prof in seminary and introduced a whole generation
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  of American evangelicals to the fact that the New Testament is eschatological cover to cover,
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  meaning that Israel's long awaited Kingdom of God has already arrived and yet is
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  not entirely here. He showed us that the quote mystery of the Kingdom that
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  you read about it in the Gospels, the mystery of the Kingdom is fulfillment
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  without consummation, as the mystery the Kingdom of God is already here in some
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  senses, and it is not yet here in other senses. And the tension
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  between the already of the Kingdom and the not yet of the Kingdom affects everything
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  in the Bible, everything in life. So eschatology is not just a final
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  chapter about end times in the systematic theology textbook, but a pervasive reality touching
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  everything in the New Testament and in life. Those are my ten suggested authors
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  and some of their doctrinely rich books. Remember as you read, to be
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  like BB Warfield when he was criticized that ten minutes on your knees would give
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  you a truer, deeper, more operative knowledge of God than ten hours over
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  your books, he replied, what than ten hours over your books on your
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  knees? Even if you read these books in your chair, not on your
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  knees, Even if you're sitting in your chair, be kneeling in your heart,
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  and then the rich doctrine will make the heart sing. Great lists of
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  book ideas perfectly timed, Pastor John, Because for those of us in the
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  States, we're are coming up on a long weekend. Monday is a labor
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  day for us, a long weekend perfect for a little bit more extra book
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  reading. Monday is a holiday, a holiday for doing just about anything but
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  thinking about work. Really, to be honest, but not for us.
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  We're back on Monday to talk about work and to ask if there is work
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  in eternity, in the new creation, and if so, what vocations will
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  there be in the new creation? And will we be employed in something that
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  corresponds to our interests in this life in resting set of questions we'll ask Pastor
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  John on Monday. I'm your host, Tony Rankie. We'll see then