John's Favorite Books | Clip from Recommended Reading for 2022

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Well, let me get to my six what I tried to do was I I tried to pick one topic so Christology and so most of my books are going to be dealing with that, but I did try to choose from a variety of the

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Periods and maybe of types. I don't know that I did so well. All right, here's here's my first book

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Knowing Christ by Mark Jones now. I haven't read that much that Mark Jones has written.

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He's a he's a modern author And but Jones this book is a is a good starting place in the sense that it gives you all the basics

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So good clear truths about Christ laid out in a in a in a systematic way that Will form a foundation for everything that follows

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So in a sense, it's it's like, you know before you walk out the door on the journey that I want you to go on And before you you know, you you explore these beautiful places with Christ I Want to kind of put into your hands things you'll need for the journey

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So the right kind of shoes the right kind of jacket, you know They're right the right maps and so Jones does that he gives us really just basic truths

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So his chapters read like this Christ's declaration Christ's dignity

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Christ's covenant Christ's incarnation Christ's divinity Christ's humanity Christ's companion the

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Holy Spirit Christ's faith Christ's emotions Christ's growth all The way through so covering really all of the aspects of the person and work of Jesus Christ in in very short

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Readable chapters, but it is written as a as a theology And the next book that I would read is a book on the life of Christ by a man in the 19th century named

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William Blakey and I first came across this book when I was doing research in Wales and with Mr.

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Hi, I'm the pastor of the church where we attended had a manse meeting now If you're an American, you may not know what a manse meeting is a manse is just the pastor's home

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So every Saturday night he would pack into his small living room there

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All these college kids, you know university age and in a way that only British people can do like Americans cannot do this

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All right, because we kind of sit spread out and we tend to be a bit larger But these were like the chairs even the stools we sat on no back

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It was about a one foot by one foot square pad And so you just sit on your one foot square pad and you just sardines.

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All right, so like 60 college students there So I attended and after about a year of attending he asked me would

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I teach it and so he kind of you know Opened the meeting and closed the meeting But he had me teach the meeting and this is one of the books that I taught glimpses of the inner life of our

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Lord Now this is by tent maker publications, which has now Closed its doors because the older gentleman that was running it a pastor and his wife are no longer able to do that because of health we are

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Republishing the first of these two books this actually has two but we're republishing

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Blakey's book in a small set of Christological books through media gratia, but you can still find it print -on -demand through Amazon and it's not as nice a copy

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But it'll do glimpses of the inner life of our Lord covering the humanity of our Lord It's a bit of a strange title the humanity of Christ and it's done in a way that's very warm and you know very challenging another book

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Jesus power without measure the work of the Spirit in the life of our Lord by Douglas Macmillan.

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So again 20th century writer and Dealing with the topic that perhaps you haven't thought about how

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Christ as true man Does the will of the Father as his son?

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by depending upon the Spirit and so a lot of Questions that might come to your mind as you're reading the

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Gospels and the relationship between the Sun and the Spirit as the Sun Lives out his humanity before the face of the

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Father. So a good book there one of my All -time favorite books the church actually has read both of those books glimpses of the inner life of our

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Lord Jesus power without measure Every year we try to do about One or two books where we read through them as in small groups and discuss them

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This was one we did early on the true Christians love to the unseen Christ and this is a

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Puritan So it's an older book By Thomas Vincent, but it is a fairly short book for a

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Puritan 121 pages in this in this edition and it really is very

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Penetrating so showing the loveliness of Christ and then calling the Christian to love him and Warning those that have no response that they are not

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Christians Well a book from the 19th century a little later than the

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Puritans a Contemporary of Spurgeon a man named JC Ryle, and this is his book holiness so after looking at all those books on the life and the the doctrine of Christ Moving to holiness to try to bring that down into a practical way.

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How does living separated unto this Jesus? How does it look and this is my favorite book on the topic of sanctification?

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It really does deal more with the root issues, you know, the big picture issues So if you come to this book looking for a series of do's and don'ts

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Which which are good it won't be in this book. This book is more dealing with in many ways like Marshall's Dealing with the big pictures of understanding what holiness is and how it works its way out into our life

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But staying with the big pictures. I find this book very helpful There are a couple of chapters that I just can never forget the one where he talks about Moses you know leaving all and then the chapter on looking unto

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Jesus as a means of holiness just Really thrilling. All right, and the kind of the odd lady out in my in my reading suggestions is a little book of Just Short statements the book is called if it was written by the missionary to India Amy Carmichael Late 19th early 20th century.

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Well first half of the 20th century and as a missionary as a leader of missionary ladies who were working with children who were being pulled out of Out of really out of a sex trafficking trade through Hinduism in her day

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She wrote these statements about the nature of true Christian love and One time

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I asked a man Did he did he like this book? He was a he was the head of a seminary and he mentioned if and how he didn't really like it and you know and a

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Friend of mine and I asked him what you don't like if and he said oh, I I I love it

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But it destroys me every time I read it It is a book that makes these simple statements each page

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You can see is just a simple statement up top and it's a statement about real love And so for me, this is the book that kind of of my suggestions

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You'd have to read through it very slowly. You could read the book in half an hour read through it very slowly one one page a day

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Do I really follow Christ? Do I really love people and love God? Like I say I do You know, so It just gives a lot of statements.

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I don't want to give a bunch of examples, but you know Let me just give one if and each one starts with if if I deal with wrong for any other reason

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Then that implied in the words from his right hand went to fiery law for them Yeah, he loved his people if I can rebuke without a pang then

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I know nothing of Calvary love Maybe that wasn't the clearest example. It was one that my wife underlined

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I don't wonder if that was for me She might have a like John you need to do this so those books

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Now my bonus book is actually not a simple book For a person just starting to read but I'm going to give a children's book

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All right And this is a book that I really like to give out to the families in the church by RC Sproul the priest with dirty clothes dealing with Just a fable that he gives here that tries to illustrate the issue of the righteousness of Christ the imputed righteousness of Christ and The transfer of our guilt to him his righteousness to us

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And so we try to give all the families with little ones this book Sometimes I have kids from the church will come over and hang out even

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Teddy's kids have come and spent the night a few times and We always read that book as a bedtime story

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Any closing words Jeremy I I think there's plenty of overlap there

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John if you'd said if you'd give me those first I'd have been thinking Oh, well, I wish I could have got those in myself

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The book you mentioned glimpses into the inner life of our Lord. We've talked about lazy reading There is no lazy meditating in Blakey's book his

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Thoughtful consideration of what it means for for the Lord Jesus Jesus of Nazareth to have that self -awareness of being

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God's Messiah absolutely stunning Douglas Macmillan on Jesus power without measure a wonderful insight into the the one person of Jesus Christ the

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God man you will You will never think of him or yourself in relation to him in the same way afterwards

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And then just just to pick up on Vincent Again, that book is so full of Christ I remember once I was casting about I felt my soul was very dry and I wanted something that would would lift my heart heavenward and I found

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Vincent's book. I wasn't sure from the title whether or not it would be what I needed But I just fed my soul and refreshed me with a with a new sense of the beauty and the glory of Jesus Christ, so yeah,

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I I would gladly endorse That list and and I trust that if if people are able to read all of those or even some of those that perhaps it would really

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Reinvigorate our our walk with God over the course of the coming months Well, thank you for watching the clip