What books (other than the Bible) have helped you draw closer to Jesus / God / the Holy Spirit? Or maybe it's just a book that made you realize exactly how He wants you to live your life and be more like Him?
I've tried a general search for this and two books that are mentioned a great deal are Mere Christianity and The Awe of God. But I'd love to hear what books you recommend.
Thank you for all recommendations!
BCubed
Hello BCubed, first off, I'll add
as my rating for Lewis' must-read,
Mere Christianity, and recommend a second book from him as well,
The Screwtape Letters (especially if you are receiving a lot of unwanted and frustrating attention from our common enemy).
The Screwtape Letters, though a collection of fictional short stories that Lewis first read on the radio, is actually a big help in understanding how demons operate in this world and in our lives, and how to recognize their attacks for what they are far more quickly
(and like
Mere Christianity, it can be read online for free on a number of different websites).
Beyond those two I will recommend two more from Dr. J. I. Packer,
Knowing God and his short premier called
Concise Theology.
You will find
Concise Theology to be an extremely useful source that you will turn to whenever you need to define and understand various theological terms (and that as clearly and concisely as any theology that I've ever read).
Go
here and scroll down a bit to see the table of contents (and thereby all of the theological terminology that
Concise Theology defines for us).
And as far as Dr. Packer's book
Knowing God is concerned, I have never read a Christian book that has had more positive reviews than this one does, and that by other theologians, pastors and well-known Christian celebrity types, many of whom claim it important enough to them/their walk to re-read every year. I'll include a short excerpt from one of the book's prefaces below to help you understand a bit about what Dr. Packer's aim was in writing it (of course its title, "Knowing God", is pretty self-explanatory as well).
In A Preface to Christian Theology, John Mackay illustrated two kinds of interest in Christian things by picturing persons sitting on the high front balcony of a Spanish house watching travelers go by on the road below. The “balconeers” can overhear the travelers’ talk and chat with them; they may comment critically on the way that the travelers walk; or they may discuss questions about the road, how it can exist at all or lead anywhere, what might be seen from different points along it, and so forth; but they are onlookers, and their problems are theoretical only. The travelers, by contrast, face problems which, though they have their theoretical angle, are essentially practical—problems of the “which–way–to–go” and “how–to–make–it” type, problems which call not merely for comprehension but for decision and action too.
Balconeers and travelers may think over the same area, yet their problems differ. Thus (for instance) in relation to evil, the balconeer’s problem is to find a theoretical explanation of how evil can consist with God’s sovereignty and goodness, but the traveler’s problem is how to master evil and bring good out of it. Or again, in relation to sin, the balconeer asks whether racial sinfulness and personal perversity are really credible, while the traveler, knowing sin from within, asks what hope there is of deliverance. Or take the problem of the Godhead; while the balconeer is asking how one God can conceivably be three, what sort of unity three could have, and how three who make one can be persons, the traveler wants to know how to show proper honor, love and trust toward the three Persons who are now together at work to bring him out of sin to glory. And so we might go on.
Now this is a book for travelers, and it is with travelers’ questions that it deals.
The conviction behind the book is that ignorance of God—ignorance both of his ways and of the practice of communion with him—lies at the root of much of the church’s weakness today.
~Packer, J. I. (1973). Knowing God, InterVarsity.
God bless you!!
--David
p.s. - I'll quickly mention six other books which have had a profound effect on my Christian walk, the first four are from Dr. R.C. Sproul and the last two are from Dr. Jerry Bridges,
