What I'm Reading These Days
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
Benjamin Kreps:
Welcome to the Mark Prater podcast where our aim is to connect our global family of churches with our Executive Director. Mark, as you well know, one of the things that I appreciate, that marks our family of churches, the pastors in Sovereign Grace, is that that we're committed to be lifetime learners. This is a movement of pastors who read and are dedicated to learning. And you are no exception. And so we just want to take this podcast to hear from you just a few quick hits, books that you're reading and recommendations that you can make to the Sovereign Grace pastors that are reading and listening to this.
Mark Prater:
Yeah. I'm like you, Ben, I'm grateful for the culture. We have to be life-long learners as pastors in Sovereign Grace and I think we all feel, boy, I wish we could give some more time to study. It seems like we could always be reading more. Whatever attempts we make, and to encourage guys that are listening to this, whatever attempts you can make to study, please do.
So, some books I've been reading recently, one is a book called Big Hearted: Are You Giving Happily or Hesitantly? by Joel Morris who's over at Union School of Theology. I think he's the Executive Director of that program over there. And he just does a great job of stirring generosity by showing us biblically how our God is a generous and happy giver. And so when we are generous and happy, we actually reflecting his character. He spends a chapter obviously in 2nd Corinthians 8 and 9 that classic text for giving, but he does a broader scope biblically and just has some great stories in there about generosity. So if you're looking to just grow in this area or help your church grow in this area, this would be a book that I would recommend.
Another book I'm reading: Iron Sharpens Iron: Friendship and the Grace of God by Michael Haykin. And he begins with just a biblical basis for friendship. You see that in the lives of David and Jonathan, obviously Paul and Timothy. And then he looks at historic friendships, which is very instructive and illuminating :Andrew Fuller and John Ryland, John Newton and John Ryland, and Andrew Fuller and Thomas Steven. So they were all pastoring at a similar time and actually pastored geographically distant from one another. It's just actually very heartwarming to see how they cultivated friendship through the writing of letters to one another. And he's just making a case for why friendship is important. And the reason he wrote the book is because he was talking to his seminary student who had a professor that told him as a pastor, don't make any friends with members of your congregation, cause they'll come back to bite you and don't make any friends with the other guys on your pastoral team, cause that'll come back to bite you and he was horrified by that essentially and decided to write a book on friendship, and our friendships are so important in Sovereign Grace.
I'm reading this book in part because we're a family of churches that builds relationally. So yes, I'm hoping this book helps us to strengthen that. I've actually given this as a gift to the Leadership Team and we hope to discuss it at our retreat together in June. So that's Iron Sharpens Iron: Friendship and the Grace of God by Michael Haykin.
Another book, a larger book: The Holy Spirit by Gregg Allison and Andreas Köstenberger. It's a little bit more academic, but very accessible. I think members of our churches could read the book and benefit, it's just longer. They do a biblical theology of the Holy Spirit, systematic theology of the Holy Spirit, and have a wonderful conversation about the continuation versus cessationism debate. They would lean, I think they are continuation, and they just treat that really, really well. So if you need a good resource on pneumatology, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, I would recommend that book.
Another one I just finished: You're Only Human by Kelly Kapic. And it's a book that essentially makes a biblical case for us to live more aware of our limitations and weaknesses as creatures. And when we don't live aware of those we try to act like the creator and Kapic does a couple of things really well. He makes a good distinction between sin, what is truly sin, and what are limitations and weaknesses and helps us not to confuse those two things. But from a practical standpoint, he really makes a case that when we don't live aware of our limitations and weaknesses, it causes this anxiety in our lives. It causes us to feel rushed and like we never get anything completely accomplished. That we're always working. And he is like, we're not designed to live that way because we are creatures. So a wonderful book by Kelly Kapic.
And then let me just mention one more: Crying Out for Vindication: The Gospel According to Job by David Jackson. It's a shorter book, 200 pages. I've read a commentary on Job before, Christopher Ash's commentary, which is wonderful. But this one was really helpful in taking larger sections of Job together. And he does a wonderful, consistent job of connecting it to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I read that devotionally but obviously you could read it for sermon prep. It really edified my soul as I read it devotionally. So a few books that I'm reading and have read and would commend to the guys that are listening to, or anyone listening to this podcast.
Benjamin Kreps:
Love it. Each one sounds very helpful. 'Looking forward to checking those resources out. So thanks for the recommendations. You had suggested that I give a couple recommendations as well.
The first one is a book by Sam Crabtree called Practicing Thankfulness: Cultivating a Grateful Heart in All Circumstances. Maybe guys have heard of Sam Crabtree's previous book: Practicing Affirmation, which I commend heartily, as well. But for your own soul and then also as we lead our churches into being grateful in all circumstances, it's a helpful resource.
And there’s a classic that I was reminded of because we're going through the gospel of John. It's one of the books I read each week when I'm doing sermon prep is: J. C. Ryle's Expository Thoughts on the Gospels. If guys have forgotten about that book, a series of books actually, on the gospels, I commend it to you. It is deeply edifying in personal devotions. It is helpful in sermon prep. One thing that's most helpful is that there are just fantastic quotes in Ryle because guess what? JC Ryle is a better preacher than me. And so he’s very helpful for preachers when you're working through the gospel. So I commend that series if you've forgotten about it or not aware. Expository Thoughts on the Gospels by J. C. Ryle. Anything else you want to say before we go, Mark?
Mark Prater:
No, just keep reading,
Benjamin Kreps:
Keep reading. And we're grateful that you guys and gals have tuned in to watch or read this podcast. Thank you for that. And we'll see you here, Lord willing, next week. Bye for now.