On Sunday we examined the gospel doctrine of Justification. I mentioned that there are several perspectives on this doctrine that are worth considering when trying to answer the question: “How do unright people get right with a righteous God?” Here are a few resources for those interested in reading and studying more on this topic:
Missional/Cultural
- Culture Making, Crouch – a significant contribution to discussion on Christ and Culture, emphasizing not so much the transformation of existing culture, but the creation of new culture.
- Transforming Worldviews, Paul Hiebert – anything by Hiebert will rock your mind and change your missiology…for good.
Practical
- A Praying Life, Miller – one of the most realistic, encouraging, prayer inspiring books I have read in a long time.
- You Can Change, Chester – an accessible, transforming book on gospel centered change
- Relationships: A Mess Worth Making, Lane – great book on how the gospel shapes and renews all kinds of relationships from family to friends.
- How People Change, Lane – more nuanced, technical book on how the gospel can lead us into cross-centered change
Theological
- Justification, N.T. Wright – thoughtful reflections on Justification that aim at keeping the gospel central, clarifying previous statements on justification, and a much needed emphasis on the Spirit in Justification.
- Christ, our Righteousness, Seifrid – excellent contribution to the NPP debate, particularly his contribution to justification as resurrection, not imputed righteousness
- Romans, Moo – superb commentary on Romans
I got a U.K shipment today with some great titles:
- You Can Change, Tim Chester
- The Busy Christian’s Guide to Busyness, Chester
- Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision, N. T. Wright
- Clusters: Creative Mid-sized Missional Communities, Hopkins and Breen
Posted on February 6, 2009
- Make a serious beginning on a longer book on divine providence, perhaps called something like Sightings of the Sovereignty of God. The idea here is to encompass all of Scripture and show from it the hundreds of ways God reveals his absolute sovereignty over all things. This would probably take more than one writing leave.
- Write a shorter book called perhaps Reasoning with Jesus: Thinking for the Glory of Christ.I have most of the raw material for this already on paper in several messages. The idea would be to provide a plea, perhaps especially to younger people, to devote their best mental efforts to understanding and living out the Christian faith.But it would be for everybody and would be different from lots of books about the intellectual life in that it would be largely expositions of Scripture. What does it mean to love God with our minds? How important is education (which is not the same as “school”)? What are people doing with their minds today that makes Jesus angry?
- Preparing the Ruth cycle of Advent poems for publication without Christmas endings so that in the next year we can put together a suite of materials on Ruth including the book I just finished (Ruth: A Sweet and Bitter Providence) and a set of video messages on the book to be recorded next December.
- I dream of writing a children’s book. It may be as small as one of the old Arch Books, retelling biblical stories in poetry form. Or it may be a little longer and more substantial in parabolic form.
- There is churning in me a book on issues of race and ethnicity in the church and in America. If I live, it will be done. It’s a matter of timing. I never feel qualified to write it. But, as with marriage, I may just have to do it anyway and let the chips fall where they may.
- I might be stirred to do one more book on justification.What needs to be done to complete the picture I have drawn in the first two books (Counted Righteous in Christ and The Future of Justification) is a biblical exposition of how “works” function in relationship to justification. This would involve a treatment of the nature of the faith that justifies, and how it relates to works.
- Make a serious beginning toward publishing the Romans sermons in four volumes, possibly editing one volume per year for four years.
Read the whole thing here.
