New Books–April, 2010

Complete New Book List

April 2010

After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters, by N.T. Wright. Reviewer Timothy George calls this an “engaging summons to the moral life’, one that moves between the reigning paradigms of “follow the heart” or “keep the rules”. Wright says the Bible calls for a revolution—a transformation of character that takes us beyond our earthly pursuit of money, sex, and power into a virtuous state of living that allows us to reflect God and live more worshipful, fulfilling lives.

The Good News We Almost Forgot: Rediscovering the Gospel in a 16th Century Catechism, by Kevin DeYoung. Published in 1563, the Heidelberg Catchism is largely a commentary on the Apostles’ Creed, the Ten Commandments, and the Lord’s Prayer. Christians have been using it for centuries. Besides the Bible, Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, and Thomas a Kempis’s Imitation of Christ, it is the most widely circulated book in the world. DeYoung shows how it is as relevant today as it was 450 years ago.

Beautiful Things Happen When a Woman Trusts God, by Sheila Walsh. This is a book for women about trust. How we fight it, how we learn to do it, and how it transforms us.

Scandalous: The Cross and Resurrection of Jesus, by D.A. Carson. Mark Driscoll says “this book is what happens when one of the world’s preeminent theologians expounds on some of the Bible’s prominent texts”.

Son of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices, by Mosab Hassan Yousef, with Ron Brackin. The true story of the son of a leader of the Middle Eastern terrorist group Hamas, who rejected his violent destiny and became a double agent for Israel. But the greatest change occurred when he embraced the teachings of another famous Middle Eastern teacher, Jesus Christ, and became a Christian.

You Can Change: God’s Transforming Power for Our Sinful Behavior and Negative Emotions, by Tim Chester. In our busy culture, we often fail to spend time dealing with sinful areas of our lives. The author presents a biblical and practical challenge to the very root causes of ungodly patterns of behavior.

By Grace Alone: How the Grace of God Amazes Me, by Sinclair B. Ferguson. Are we still amazed by grace, or have we grown accustomed to it? The author reflects on grace from seven angles, each built around a stanza from a rich but little-known hymn, “O How the Grace of God Amazes Me”, written by Emmanuel T. Sibomana, a pastor in the African nation of Burundi.

Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years, by Diarmaid MacCulloch. A massive history of Christianity by the award-winning author of The Reformation and Thomas Cranmer. Rowan Williams calls it a “landmark in its field, astonishing in its range…full of insight…(and which) will have few, if any, rivals in the English language”.

Be Still My Soul: Embracing God’s Purpose and Provision in Suffering: 25 Classic and Contemporary Readings on the Problem of Pain, edited by Nancy Guthrie. Excerpts from Calvin, Spurgeon, Piper, Bonhoeffer, and others.

Jumping Ship, by Michael and Debi Pearl. What to do so your children don’t jump ship to the world when they get older.

Basic Christian: The Inside Story of John Stott, by Roger Steer. Takes us from Stott’s lifelong association with the parish church of All Souls in London to every continent on the planet. This completely new biography tells why Time Magazine in 2005 recognized him as one of the hundred most influential people in the world.

Pen and Iron: American Prose and the King James Bible, by Robert Alter. The surprising ways in which the King James Bible has shaped American prose. Shows the abiding presence of the King James Bible in the language of the American novel, from the 19^th century to today.

Jane Austen, by Peter Leithart (Christian Encounters series). Jane Austen is now what she never was in life: a literary celebrity. Her novels, like Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice, achieved a timelessness that makes them perennially appealing. Kipling and Churchill found solace in her writings in times of war and illness. This biography “captures the varied sides of Austen’s character and places her Christian faith in a more balanced light and with less distortion than has been achieved previously”.

Discovering Jesus in the New Testament, by Keith Warrington. A full portrait of Jesus as described in the entire New Testament, book by book.

Saint Patrick, by Jonathan Rogers (Christian Encounters series). Biography of a young man taken from his home in Roman Britain and sold into slavery in Ireland. After later escaping and returning home, he had a dream that told him that God wanted him to go back and take the Gospel to the country of his captors.

St .Patrick of Ireland: a Biography, by Philip Freeman. The Wall Street Journal says this book succeeds where others have failed in its portrait of Patrick the boy, the slave and the missionary.

Isaac Newton, by Mitch Stokes (Christian Encounters). Brief biography of Newton (1642-1727), who as an inventor, astronomer, physicist, and philosopher, forever changed the way we see and understand the world. At one point, he was the leading authority in mathematics, optics, and alchemy. Yet he wrote more about faith and religion than all of those subjects combined.

Winston Churchill, by John Perry (Christian Encounters). Churchill captivated the world with his voice, his writings and his leadership during WWII. Born into an aristocratic family, he was whisked off to boarding school at an early age, ignored by his parents, and left in the care of a nanny who encouraged him and shared her own steadfast faith in God, shaping the views and vision of the persistent little English boy who would become one of the most influential men in history.

On Guard: Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precision, by William Lane Craig. A concise training manual filled with illustrations, sidebars, and memorizable steps to help you stand your ground.

The Faith We Confess: An Exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles, by Gerald Bray. One of the three historic formularies of the Church of England which gave the church its distinctive identity at the time of the Reformation, and had a formative influence upon world-wide Anglicanism. A repository of sound Christan doctrine.

The Thirty-Nine Articles: Their Place and Use Today, by J.I. Packer and R.T. Beckwith. Packer believes the Articles catch the substance and spirit of Biblical Christianity superbly well, and provide an excellent model of how to confess the faith in a divided Christendom.

The Great Theologians: A Brief Guide, by Gerald R. McDermott. An introduction to eleven of the leading theologians in the history of the church, briefly examining their lives, careers, books, insights, quirks, and bloopers.

The Gospel for Muslims:

to Share Christ with Confidence, by Thabiti Anyabwile. The author is a former Muslim, who is now senior pastor at FirstBaptistChurch in Grand Cayman.

The War for Mansoul, a John Bunyan Classic as told by Ethel Barrett. An adaptation of the famous John Bunyan allegory of man’s fall and redemption, The Holy War. Excellent for family reading.

The Shepherd Leader: Achieving Effective Shepherding in Your Church, by Timothy Z.Witmer. A primary resource for elders and pastors. Church leaders are called to be shepherds, not a board of directors, and this book looks at the four primary ministries of shepherds—knowing, feeding, leading, and protecting.

The Last Christian on Earth: Uncover the Enemy’s Plot to Undermine the Church, by Os Guinness. Using the device of one spy writing memoranda to another on how to undermine the Church, Guinness provides an incisive and wide-ranging analysis of what has happened to bring about the decline of the Church in America and the West. (formerly titled The Gravedigger File).

THE ESSENTIAL EDWARDS COLLECTION, by Owen Strachan and Doug Sweeney, with Introductions by John Piper. Jonathan Edwards was America’s preeminent theologian. This new series features 5 books which have taken the kernel of much of Jonathan Edwards’ thought and put it into eminently accessible form. Each book is only 150 pages long: Jonathan Edwards: Lover of God; Jonathan Edwards on True Christianity; Jonathan Edwards on Beauty; Jonathan Edwards on The Good Life; and Jonathan Edwards on Heaven and Hell.

COMMENTARIES: The Letter to the Hebrews, by Peter T. O’Brien (Pillar NT Commentary); Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, by Iain M. Duguid (EP Study Commentary).

ADULT FICTION: One True Love, by Lori Copeland (Belles of Timber Creek #3); Crimson Eve and Amber Morn, by Brandilyn Collins (Kanner Lake #3-4); In Harm’s Way, by Irene Hannon (Heroes of Quantico); Inside Story, by Susan Page Davis; Lonestar Homecoming, by Colleen Coble; Take Three, by Karen Kingsbury (Above the Line #3).