Deepening Faith Through Reflection and Reading

In fact this whole series called new studies and dogmatics is important i would go so far as to say this is the most important book written in a hundred years on justification and only the reason is not that not that you know it does i don't mean that you shouldn't read luther and calvin and and all the classics but what michael does is as some of you know the uh the protestant doctrine of justification has been under a great deal of fire uh in the last generation and michael works on all that he gives you the history of the doctrine up to the present time he gives you a biblical survey of where the base of the doctrine and he answers all the critics and in the end comes down saying yeah the the protestant doctrine is right but he he gets you there by dealing with all of the various issues and aspects and criticisms and it's just great [00:01:41]

foucault along with karl marx is probably one of the most important thinkers affecting progressive secular ways of thinking today in america and uh christopher watkin wrote this it's a remarkable because watkin is a strong christian and he gives you a very strong biblical critique of foucault but he also summarizes his views in a way that's extraordinarily helpful and i just don't think there's anything quite like this [00:03:29]

yes because you're mostly mostly foucault and marx are just vilified without understanding really what they taught and if you don't understand what they taught you can just you can condemn them that's terrible but you really don't understand how it's influencing culture so you don't even really know what to look for it's very important some of the irony is people are condemning things that they have actually absorbed into the church and into their own lives without realizing where it came from yes that's why you really have to be thoughtful i it's these critiques are important because you're not going to get polluted by them you know don't say i don't want to have anything to do with them well you really no they're not on the other hand they are explaining quite well explaining what they actually taught [00:04:51]

this is a book called political visions and illusions by david coyzes i recommend this everywhere he basically takes a look at absolutely liberalism conservativism socialism capitalism every kind of economic and political system and shows that from the biblical point of view all of them have problems because they all make idols out of something it's so they he appreciates these various political views but he criticizes every one of them and doesn't really think any one of them is when you say appreciate you mean he finds what what's going on what common grace god has put into and what's bad them and yet what where they fail and he i don't believe he says everyone is equally good and equally bad on the other hand he does say that they're all good and bad [00:05:34]

probably the um uh here's a fast one can we trust the gospels by peter j williams a probably the best short little book you can read now most up-to-date book on why trust that the gospels are historically reliable that's enough said the inerrancy of it it will no it doesn't go into that it goes into how do we know whether or not the uh what the the new testament gospels say is historically reliable did jesus really say these things that he arrives in the dead so it's not getting into the doctrine scripture accuracy right how historically reliable is the text right [00:07:11]

this book called atheist overreach by christian smith is again it's short i think it's to die for he basically says very respectfully to atheists is that individually as atheists you can be wonderfully good people but if you think atheism gives you any basis for moral values it doesn't it fails it cannot if you're an atheist you have moral values great he says i want that but you're smuggling them in from other ways of thinking about things because your own he calls it overreach you actually cannot do a lot of the things you think you can do as an atheist very respectful but at the same time pretty devastating [00:07:48]

science cannot tell you how to live science basically let me boil it down but i still think you should read it even though i'm giving you that science can tell you what you can do but never whether you ought to do it and so the idea that science can tell you how to be happy or how to get purpose in life and a lot of scientific positive psychology suppose happiness psychology is supposed to do that they show how that can they can't science can never do that [00:08:28]

put it this way i believe that when you hear the term world view today christian world view you instead of saying oh yeah i know about that stuff there are a lot of different approaches to it i think there's a way to do christian worldview that's pretty triumphalistic i have the worldview and you don't i'm going to take over and do everything according to the world view and there's a pro there's an approach that says from my christian worldview i'm going to do my work in the world for the common good and testify that what i'm doing is coming from christ it's uh world view means that you should be distinctively christian in every area of your life but your attitude matters [00:09:03]

john newton uh if you're gonna get john newton's letters are are gold and they are great devotional reading but i just suggest and i've had a number of people ask me about this i suggest starting with this little book which you can still get it's a banner truth book called the letters of john newton it's my favorite because it's uh it's a selection from all the various volumes of his sermons the one that kathy lives by is the utterance of the heart you need to know that's only volume one they published that volume of utterance of the heart in two volumes if you can find anywhere on used book sites the 1979 baker book house version has a sort of strange yellow and orange cover that's my favorite that's the one i use and it has all of his letters uh but doesn't have all his letters actually right behind us the collected works of john newton that has all of his letters but the the baker bookhouse version any version is fine john john newton is right he's amazing he's amazing [00:10:10]

you can either read abridged versions of john owen like here's the glory of christ this is he wrote in english but then somebody translated him into english and that's what that is he's a 17th century writer and therefore words you can read john newton who's 18th century and pretty much get it when you get to the 17th and 16th century those readers those writers usually the english is far enough away that you really need abridgements or modernization but here's the communion with god with john owen glory of christ with john owen his material is i i it is great [00:11:04]

this is a classic book that talks about how why actually evangelicalism today is pretty anti-intellectual frankly but at the same time very successful in many ways of reaching reaching a lot of people it's a good you know it's it's definitely a uh bright side and dark side to evangelicalism but you i don't think you can understand modern evangelicalism without reading this book and then secondly a completely different book a book by bradford merlin who got his phd under this guy christian smith professor of sociology at notre dame and what he does there is he talks about uh he actually gets into why some churches flourish and why some churches do not in a secular culture and i'll leave it at that but he actually talks about how how can a church even though it's out of favor with the culture still grow you know still have religious strength he calls it [00:12:24]

and finally um we're city people and we love talking about the city and two complete here's an old and a new book this is uh jane jacobs the death and life of the great american cities now i admit i just reread this but i'd read it many many years ago and it was like reading it again it's a classic it's you can't understand american cities anyway without reading this that's all i say also ed glazer at harvard uh wrote a book about 10 years ago on triumph of the city when cities in america were really flourishing now after the pandemic he's written a new book called the survival of the city which shows that cities have been really beaten up by the pandemic and yet he's ultimately showing how it's it's you know cities are going to continue to grow and move forward but it's a really good book for those of you who are living or ministering in cities or both and about what some of the challenges we're going to be facing in the future [00:13:51]