I'm having a discussion with another poster
@Devin Hammond that I thought deserved its own thread. I know there are many people who do not believe in anything but scripture for learning about God so this thread might not be for you.
Here are my top 10 off the top of my head that greatly impacted my life
1) The Pursuit of God by AW Tozer
2) The Knowledge of the Holy by AW Tozer
3) Knowing God by Packer
4) The Cost of Discipleship by Bonhoeffer
5) How to read the Bible for all its worth by Fee and Stuart
6) The Gospel according to Jesus by MacArthur
7) Pilgrims Progress by Bunyan
8) Fox's Book of Martyrs by Fox
9) Kingdom of the Cults by Martin
10) Evidence that demands a verdict by McDowell
What are your favorites ?
I have read and enjoyed....
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
John Bunyan's entire library at the Virginia Tech Library
George Clark Rankin gave a lot of insight on the revival of the last age... And he talks about it in his writings!
I passed my examinations and that year I was sent to the Wytheville Station and Circuit. That was adjoining my former charge. The circuit was a large one, comprising seventeen appointments. They were practically scattered all over the county. I preached every other day, and never less than twice and generally three times on Sunday.
I had associated with me that year a young collegemate, Rev. W. B. Stradley. He was a bright, popular fellow, and we managed to give Wytheville regular Sunday preaching. Stradley became a great preacher and died a few years ago while pastor of Trinity Church, Atlanta, Georgia. We were true yokefellows and did a great work on that charge, held fine revivals and had large ingatherings.
The famous Cripple Creek Campground was on that work. They have kept up campmeetings there for more than a hundred years. It is still the great rallying point for the Methodists of all that section. I have never heard such singing and preaching and shouting anywhere else in my life. I met the Rev. John Boring there and heard him preach. He was a well-known preacher in the conference; original, peculiar, strikingly odd, but a great revival preacher.
The rarest character I ever met in my life I met at that campmeeting in the person of Rev. Robert Sheffy, known as "Bob" Sheffy. He was recognized all over Southwest Virginia as the most eccentric preacher of that country. He was a local preacher; crude, illiterate, queer and the oddest specimen known among preachers. But he was saintly in his life, devout in his experience and a man of unbounded faith. He wandered hither and thither over that section attending meetings, holding revivals and living among the people. He was great in prayer, and Cripple Creek campground was not complete without "Bob" Sheffy. They wanted him there to pray and work in the altar.
He was wonderful with penitents. And he was great in following up the sermon with his exhortations and appeals. He would sometimes spend nearly the whole night in the straw with mourners; and now and then if the meeting lagged he would go out on the mountain and spend the entire night in prayer, and the next morning he would come rushing into the service with his face all aglow shouting at the top of his voice. And then the meeting always broke loose with a floodtide.
He could say the oddest things, hold the most unique interviews with God, break forth in the most unexpected spasms of praise, use the homeliest illustrations, do the funniest things and go through with the most grotesque performances of any man born of woman.
It was just "Bob" Sheffy, and nobody thought anything of what he did and said, except to let him have his own way and do exactly as he pleased. In anybody else it would not have been tolerated for a moment. In fact, he acted more like a crazy man than otherwise, but he was wonderful in a meeting. He would stir the people, crowd the mourner's bench with crying penitents and have genuine conversions by the score. I doubt if any man in all that conference has as many souls to his credit in the Lamb's Book of Life as old "Bob" Sheffey. - George Clark Rankin (
The Life of George Clark Rankin)
