Featured Top 5 books

No particualr order here!
Knowing God
Mere Christianity
Bondage of the will
Cross of Christ
Institutes of the Christian Faith

 

Some of these are old and moldy but fit the bill (Top 5 - - - have been a help / inspiration / challenge to you).

In the order that they first influenced me

1. Pilgrims Progress, by John Bunyan, [Modern English version]
2. A Christian View of Science and Scripture, by Bernard Ramm (1954)
3. Decision Making and the Will of God, by Garry Friesen (1980) [updated and still in print]
4. Inerrancy, edited by Norman L. Geisler (1980)

More recent
5. The Lost World of Genesis One, by John H. Walton (2009)

Rob

 

Top 5: First named are books the last 2 are authors
Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret
Purpose Driven Church
Walking With the Giants
Anything by James Montgomery Boice
Anything by Warren Weirsbe

 

Sometimes he's quite dry and stuffy, in other books I can't him put down.
Inerrancy introduced me to The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy which began a continuing examination of the topic. - I've got a whole shelf and more on this topic alone.

I'd forgotten Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret,
I read Hudson Taylor in Early Years (1911) as a freshmen in college and liked it even more (I knew right where it was on the shelf even though I haven't looked at it for a few years).

Rob

 

1. Romans
2. John
3. Acts
4. James
5. Proverbs

 

1. The Bible (KJV).

 

And He Dwelt Among Us, A.W. Tozer

Jewish Backgrounds of the New Testament, J. Julius Scott

The Message of Isaiah, Barry Webb

The Reformation: A History, Diarmaid MacCulloch (though I must mention, for a historical reference only)

The Gospel According to John, D.A. Carson

 

Just finishing up "Apologetics by the Book" by McManis. Very interesting read on the modern apologetics movement critiquing guys like Moreland and Craig. Don't agree on everything, but I'd be curious your thoughts on it.

My list of modern books would be:

A place called Heaven - Jeffress
Apologetics by the Book - McManis
Six Days - Ken Ham
Already Gone - Ham
Commentary: The Genesis Account - Sarfati

Heavy on Genesis, but that's where I believe the most important battle is today.

 

I am a calvinist , so my issues with those such as Dr Craig and lane would be that they hold to a mor elimited view on just how exhaustive God's sovereignty really is, as they desire to keep the option of full blown free will open to us now.

 

Have a feeling you'd like it then.

 

What were his main faults with them?

 

The biggest issue is philosophy. Also critiques Sproul, Geisler, and Frame. All of these reject a Bible-first view of apologetics. They advocate starting with human reason.

He likes Van Til and Bahnson but critiques them also.

He also goes through the history of apologetics from the early Church fathers to the Reformers. Fascinating.

As i said, there's a couple things I don't agree with, but one of the most enlightening books on apologetics I've read. A general critique like this, I now believe, is long overdue.

Foreward by MacArthur.

 

One needs to start from what God said, from the scriptures and that go to human reasoning, for people not saved yet already have a very skewed for the wrong world view base!

 

Exactly. You'll be shocked at what the top apologists are saying on this, including the calvinists.

He also makes the case for plain spoken apologetics vs. the high soaring rhetoric of some apologists. You would think you'd need a degree in latin to become respected in this field. It's not the case. The lowliest Christian can defend his faith in the same plain spoken manner Christ did.

For years Christian apologetics has suffered from an identity problem. What constitutes the practice of apologetics? How should engage unbelieving arguments? Should we separate apologetics and evangelism? Examine the latest books on the topic of apologetics and you will find a vast and irreconcilable array of answers to these questions. By rooting his discussion first and foremost in Scripture while examining the most popular apologetic approaches and arguments, Cliff McManis demonstrates that the practice of apologetics are not the prerogative of a few scholars, but the privilege of every Christian.​

 

What is very interesting to me is that the Apostles first and foremost quoted the scriptures to lost sinners, and emphasized that Jesus was risen and was the Lord, and they expected the Holy Spirit to convict and conviced based upon that, and not reciting for hours historical proofs of the resurrection, infallibility of the scriptures etc...
Those things are important, but lost sinners get saved by the scriptures themselves, as used by the Holy spirit Himself!