Best Selling Christian Books of 2016 - part 2

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Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.�

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By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her

King. Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio, ministry. That�s the best intro

I can give without just laughing like, �Man, we�re still laughing from last show, Steve. What�s going on ?� It was good times, really, really good times.

We�re just enjoying the fact that, you know, American Christianity is really locked into the

Bible. Okay, it�s not at all. Steve, you know, I think we�re into the sixth year or the seventh year of the show or something like that.

Is that all? I thought to myself, we�re running out of topics. And then I realized, no, we�re talking about evangelicalism.

There will always be things to talk about. Well, sadly, it�s like the same old things get repackaged and come back around.

You know, it�s like one heresy leaves and another one comes in and it�s just, you know, if we were to categorize them, there would be like A, B, C, D, E, and F, and they just kind of rotate through.

You know, it�s one after another, after another, after another. Right now we�re in a really heavy dose of mysticism and, well, that�s what

Jesus calling us, right? Mm -hmm. In that list that we were talking about last Tuesday or on that list,

ECPA bestsellers, Evangelical Christian Publishers Association, bestselling books of 2016.

This is, you know, the big publishers, the Zondervans and the Bakers and the

Thomas Nelsons. What is there, like five Jesus calling, different top, you know, topical

Jesus calling and hardback and faux leather and all that? It�s everywhere. Well, they�re going to be coming out with a men�s edition.

And I wonder what the cover would look like.

I don�t know, but, you know, it should be manly. You know, in the true men�s edition of Jesus Calling, all the pages are blank, so.

I�m just thinking about, you know, Ann Voskamp and Sarah Young and kind of birds of the similar mysticism feather.

And, you know, Voskamp, not her current book, but the last one, you know, I Fly to Paris to Make Love to God. I just go, what guy would read that?

What girl should be reading that? Honey, honey, you need to read this. Occasionally, I look at the

Twitter, the fake Ann Voskamp. That�s a funny one. She got booted off for a while.

The fake one? Uh -huh. How does that work? I don�t know. It seems like Twitter likes to edit the people that are on there, you know.

How about this one, number 35? Is This the End, David Jeremiah? Probably out of all the books.

I mean, he did the dope slap thing with, you know, Downey and blah, blah, blah on the stage.

David Jeremiah. So, is this the end? What is he exegeting, the door song or this is the end?

I think I like the Apocalypse Now version better with the helicopters in the background.

Yeah. I probably wouldn�t read that David Jeremiah book only because I�m not a fan of the doors. See, there you have it.

Lisa Tone Bergen�s book, God Gave Us Easter. At least�

It�s true, right? Yeah, uh -huh. The shack is back up there because we have a resurgence of the idea because of the movie.

The movie was a big seller, wasn�t it? Oh, yeah. Was it? No. I mean, just the idea and all of a sudden the murder and blah, blah, blah.

I�m just like, what kind of show is this? What kind of book is this? I don�t know. You know, they come out with these dopey sort of semi -Christian theme movies and I�m like, who do they think they�re really going to appeal to?

You know, they don�t appeal to Christians who actually know the Bible and then unbelievers don�t want anything to do with Christianity anyway, so.

I mean, the shack is about as Christian of a movie as, you know,

Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Ridgemont High is a Christian movie. If they marketed a movie to Christians called the

Koran, I�d be more likely to see it than the shack. What was Sean Penn�s character, Joe Spicoli or something like that?

You know, sadly, I never saw a Fast Times original. Oh, you never did? No. There are a number of those idiotic movies that I was blessed to have not seen.

Okay, The Broken Way, Ann Voskamp is at number 47. There�s The Broken Way.

Anybody that uses so many commas and stuff and semicolons, I just will not read.

That explains what happens to my emails. Steve, tell us a little bit about � It took him for a second to process.

Yes, I was thinking about something else. There�s a passion conference down in Atlanta that Louis Giglio hosts and he has the

Francis Chan�s, the John Piper�s, the Beth Moore�s, the Christine Kane�s.

He speaks. Giglio does. I saw a picture of Giglio kissing the pope the other day. I hope it wasn�t photoshopped.

It had to be photoshopped. I don�t know. I would shake the pope�s hand, right, if I met him, but there�s no kissing involved, no genuflecting.

I�d probably pull some kind of judo move on him. Judo. And you�ve got a bunch of these kind of mystics there at the passion conference.

And what was the truth to this? Correct me if I�m wrong. You have Ann Voskamp, who retweeted

Giglio�s wife�s assessment of Beth Moore�s prophetic message, right?

And then John Piper retweeted it as well. Yeah. Maybe are you skipping the dude in Texas?

Wasn�t the guy? Oh, Matt Chandler. Yes. Yeah. So - I think he retweeted Matt Chandler�s retweet of the -

Of Ann Voskamp�s retweet of Giglio�s wife�s summary of the prophetic nature of Beth Moore.

Yeah. That�s like a quadruple bank shot. How does this all happen? I mean, sometimes you just think

John Piper just doesn�t know what he�s doing. Does he act like that? You know,

I don�t know. I mean, I have immense respect for his intellectual capacity.

He�s a super smart guy. Does a lot of really good exegetical work. Has written some really profound things and has also done some, in my estimation, some fairly foolish things.

But I�m nobody. I mean, look, I am the sidekick on No Compromise Radio, right? Who am

I, right? All I have is three chords, a Bible, and the truth, you know? Yeah, but you know what will happen is we�re going to go to the

Shepherd�s Conference late February, early March, and I�m going to walk around campus and have a coffee and talk to some old friends and go to the bookstore and then just have people bugging me with the incessant question, �Where�s

Tuesday guy ?� You know, maybe you should have a shirt made up that says, �Tuesday guy�s over there ,� and it just points in a direction and then

I�ll answer that question. We had some friends up in Oregon send us the shirts where it�s Tuesday guy, but the blend wasn�t to my liking and I have certain parameters for what

I�ll wear. We�re still working on it. Yeah. Okay, what else is on this book? Okay, let�s stop here for a second and just ask the listeners, what books did you buy in 2016?

What were your favorite books? And I don�t think you�ll find any on this list. I mean, aren�t you waiting,

Steve, for some type of Pilgrim�s Progress or Fox�s Book of Martyrs or something like that?

Well, or at least something decent. I mean, I see Francis Chan there.

At number 54, Crazy Love Will Just Not Stop Selling. Sadly, no matter what we do.

Here�s the best book so far in the entire list. Number 57, the R .V. Santa Biblia, Barber Publishing, and that is,

I would assume, a Spanish Bible. The Reina Valera, probably. Yeah, good translation. Okay, anything else we�ve got here?

God Bless You and Good Night by Hannah Hall. Now, why did I not think of that? I don�t know, but that�s a very sweet thing to say to your kids, right?

As they�re going to sleep, little four or five -year -old, God bless you and good night. Now, here�s perfect Christianity right here.

Rachel Cruz�s book at number 85 on the list, excuse me, 65 on the list, Love Your Life, Not Theirs.

That is so agape. It�s in the Agape series, part two. Well, maybe her point there is to be satisfied with your own life and not be envious of others.

Well, Steve, I heard that Prince the Singer loved basketball and would play often.

And, of course, we know we like the Golden State Warriors here because it�s a California team and they�re all born again and stuff.

And so Priscilla Evans Shire had the idea to have the number 67 best -selling book,

The Prince Warriors. See how that works? Very nice. So we were right last time.

That is Tony Evans� daughter, Priscilla Evans Shire. Yeah, yeah. How about the next one,

Unashamed by Lecrae? I never knew his last name was Lecrae Moore. I had no idea.

Are you a Lecrae fan? I am not. I really, you know, I don�t like secular hip -hop, so I have no idea why

I would like Christian hip -hop. Okay. Well, here we have number 74, Jesus Calling Morning and Evening Devotional.

Christine Kane, Unashamed at 77, Wild at Heart at 78, the book that would never die.

Yeah, the original title for Christine Kane�s book was Should Be Ashamed, but they changed it. Steve, now that is audacious.

Oh, no, that�s number 81, Beth Moore�s book, Audacious. Audacious, Beth Moore.

Well, and right after that, isn�t this interesting? Is this a sign, number 82, Unqualified by Steven Furtick?

He is. There�s almost nobody on this list that, you know,

I would look at the list and go, oh, I can recommend that guy. Well, we can combine things now. You can take

Max Lucado and coloring books and put them together, and what do you get? Stop it. Because of Bethlehem, adult coloring book.

I wonder how much time he spent writing that. Well, I�m just curious the one afterwards, number 93,

The Berenstain Bears. I didn�t know that that was a Christian thing. That�s the best -selling top

Christian books. And The Joy of Giving. Well, apparently he got into ministry and decided to have one on giving.

Now, these Bibles, outreach Bibles, I guess you buy a bunch of those to give them out, KJV Bibles, New King James Version, Thomas Nelson.

You know, I�m not against that. It�s fascinating, though, that Tyndale at number 98 has the

NLT Economy Bible. Yeah, I don�t know what the N stands for, but the lettuce and tomato. NLT.

And Redeeming Love. It must be Nutella. Nutella, lettuce, and tomato. Well, the best

Graham preacher right there, the Daniel Prayer and Graham Lotz. This is all,

I mean, honestly, if you looked at this and you said, here are the top 100 selling books of 2016, and you said, how many of them are good books?

If you take out the Bible, I would say just about zero.

Now, that George Knight, that�s not the George Knight. That�s not the Presbyterian George Knight that�s written the pastoral epistles book at Green something

Seminary. This is a different one. I think he does like cartoons and stuff like that.

Seriously, that�s a different George Knight. Yeah. Okay. And look at the title of his book,

Know Your Bible, not Know The Bible. No, this is my Bible. Well, my Bible says, according to my

Bible. Okay. So, Steve, we�ve got these books, top 100 books, and the final book of number 9998 is

The Power of I Am by Osteen and Trusting God Day by Day by Joyce Meyer. How would you summarize the themes in these books?

You put all these together, 100 books, and we boil them down. What kind of pops out?

What are Christians wanting to buy now? Unbiblical nonsense is what they�re wanting to buy.

Why do we do that? I mean, let�s do a little self -assessment. We say, okay, why do we want to buy books like that?

It�s like 2 Timothy 4, where people heap up teachers after their own desires. They want their ears tickled, right?

Doesn�t the Bible box your ears sometimes? We�re the boxing ear books here. Well, and you know, for people who say, well, the

Bible is hard for me to understand, or the Bible doesn�t, it doesn�t address my need.

It, you know, it doesn�t fulfill me. I find the Bible boring. Well, these books, a lot of these books are not boring, right?

Or the Bible doesn�t apply to me. Well, you know, if you�re reading Jesus Calling, literally, you jump off every page, right?

If you struggle to find yourself in the Bible, hey, why not read Jesus Calling? See, I wonder how many of these books deal with, you know, the difficult parts of the

Christian life. This morning I got up and I read my Bible, my Bible, and while I was getting ready and just putting things away and picking up after my protein drink stuff and everything,

I had my ESV app on my phone and I just listened to all of 1

Peter while I was getting ready this morning. And you know what? Had some great stuff about the exaltation of the triune

God. And then it had other things where I just go, oh, man. It says in chapter 4, �Since therefore

Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the very same way of thinking.� What if I don�t want to?

Man, that�s hard. Christ suffered, get ready for it. �Whoever suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh, no longer for the human passions but for the will of God.

Do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you, but rejoice insofar as you share

Christ�s sufferings.� Some of these kind of things, I don�t think it would be a very popular seller. Suffering? Pete I don�t want to suffer.

Tom I know. Pete I�d rather have Jesus Calling. Tom I�d rather have Jesus suffer. Pete Well, and he did.

I mean, the question is, you know, getting caught up in the circumstances of this life and forgetting what this life is really about.

This life isn�t about this life, frankly. It�s about the next life. You know, it�s about the life to come, whether you�re witnessing someone trying to get them prepared for the next life or whether, you know, you should be anticipating

Christ�s return. But the point is, if you get lost in your own circumstances, if you�re trying to just really, if you�re focused on this life and this life only, you are going to be miserable.

You�re going to be depressed. And these books, you know, are like, they�re like putting a band -aid on a sucking chest wound.

They�re going to make you feel good for a moment, but they�re not going to help you long -term because they don�t point you to the deeper things of God.

They�re not like the A .W. Pink book. They�re not like, you know, any number of books that deal with deep issues and give you a greater appreciation for who

God is. Let me put it this way. If we�re going to spend all of eternity in heaven learning more and more about the quality and character and nature of God, why wouldn�t we want to do that now?

Steve, do you think this assessment is correct? If I fly in a plane and I see people sitting there reading things, they just want, many people just want the

People magazine, Us magazine, they�ve got National Enquirer, they just want little snippets and they�re just trying to keep their mind off of the long flight.

It�s escape. It�s the same thing here, isn�t it? Yeah. It�s escapism, but it�s not even true.

I mean, I don�t think in the Bible there�s escapism, but there�s certainly an eschatology where you�re looking forward to the future.

And as I was listening today, even in 1 Peter 1, you�re going through various trials so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

And so there�s this forward looking, of course, eschatologically. And so if you want to think about the future, if you call that escapism, fine,

I would disagree. But still, all this stuff, it�s just, it�s not going to help you get through the night of trials.

Right. No, and it might, like I said, it might, well, I�ll use another analogy since I�m a man with many stomach problems.

This is like, you know, you have some kind of serious digestive issue and you�re going to take a

Tums pill. These things are, they�re worse than bromides. I mean, this is nothing.

Steve, let�s write a new book. We need to figure out how to crack the code, and I think I just did. Tums for the

Soul Coloring Book. Tums for the Soul Coloring Book. Yeah. Zondervan, I�m sure, would publish that.

How about this one? You know, let�s be a little more theologically astute. The Attributes of God Coloring Book.

Well, what about the Ten Commandments Coloring Book? And when we get to the images of God, I don�t know what we color.

How would that work? I don�t know. It�s like whatever feels right is what you would�

Oh, no graven images, and then we�re just, you know, like� Going to make a graven image. Carving that thing. Well, if you�re not careful, you go for books like this.

So let�s give a few books maybe that would be important to read. I�m reading the Ligonier book now,

Reformation Heritage or whatever it�s called, The Legacy of Luther. A bunch of different authors writing things about Luther.

I think that�s an excellent book. That�d be one of my recommendations for 2016. I think that�s an excellent one.

I just think, you know, if you�re going to, there are a myriad of books.

I mean, you could read all kinds of biographies. There are things that are important to learn, and then there�s this stuff.

If you read every single, what do you suppose, if you read every single book on this list, and here�s my challenge, if you read every book on this list, how much better would you know

Christ? Now, it - Pete� Or how much worse would you know him if it�s the wrong way you think about it?

Pete� I mean, would you understand the Bible any better, you know, if you take the

Bible books out of this? And I mean, I see a child�s first Bible. This is probably one of the best, probably one of the best.

I mean, assuming it�s a decent - Pete� Is that Kenny Loggins or Jesus? Oh, sorry. Pete� Yeah, I might have pictures and junk like that in it, but, you know, if you�re reading a so -called

Christian book and it�s not giving you more information or a better picture or making you more enthralled with the biblical

Jesus, then you are wasting your time. Pete� Well, maybe that Atonement book, The Atonement by Beverly Lewis, Bethany House, maybe that�s really good.

That substitutionary atonement, penalty substitution, wrath and stuff. Kevin� I think she writes fiction though.

Seriously, she writes fiction. Pete� I did get the new book on Who�s the

Runner? Eric Liddell and something about glory or something like that, the road to glory.

I heard MacArthur say that he couldn�t put that thing down. So I thought, you know what? I wanted to read this story anyway about Eric Liddell and the

Scottish Olympian. He got killed, I think, in China as a missionary.

I don�t know if that�s Boxer Rebellion, but probably close around that time. Kevin� Well, that�s interesting at least. Pete� Yeah. So see, there�s these kind of books that you can either learn about the

Bible or if you want, to me, kind of lighter reading would be these biographies because I realize when

I read biographies, hey, these people that God uses, they�re weak just like I�m weak and God still uses them and these people are motivated for the glory of God because life is short and so then

I benefit. What do you do, Steve, about your book planning in terms of reading?

Do you have a, like you read a biography and then some theological thing or do you have a plan or just whatever kind of rises to the top of the stack?

Steve� I�m usually reading a secular book and something more serious at the same time.

So like, you know, sometimes something trashy like a Bradthorne novel, you know. Trashy.

Kevin� I thought I was trashy when I was reading D .G. Hart�s newest book on Mencken. Steve� H .L.

Mencken? Kevin� Yeah, yeah. And kind of the back and forth between Mencken and Machen.

At least, you know, he understood that Machen was the real deal. Steve� Now that�s interesting.

It�s very interesting. Yeah, I�d like to read that. Kevin� Yeah, it�s brand new. I can�t remember who, I mean, sometimes Hart does the

Yale or the Oxford Press kind of thing. D .G. Hart. If you haven�t read D .G. Hart, you can get his book on Machen probably is the place that you should start.

So anyway, Mike Ebenroth here, Steve Cooley on No Compromise Radio. You can write us info at nocompromiseradio .com.

Weird things that you want us to talk about, that�s heno at nocompromiseradio .com.

Steve Cooley You know, we really do need some Heno stuff. So send us your Heno material.

Kevin� I know. I still haven�t copyrighted Heno or trademarked it but the lawyers, it�s pre -patent pending.

So it�s not patent pending but it�s pre -patent pending. I watched that show, How to Invent Things and so we were going to just have slogans, �Forget you,

Heno� and a variety of other things like that. One word for you. Steve Cooley Forget you. What are you going to do at the Shepherd�s Conference?

What�s your favorite thing about going? Kevin� You know, seeing people I�m looking for. There are a number of people I�m looking forward to seeing.

So seeing people, interacting with them and whatnot. I mean there are times where I hear something new and stunning and challenging and then there�s all the rest of them.

Steve Cooley There are times I actually go to sessions. Kevin� Yeah, I know. Sometimes you can squeeze them in.

Steve Cooley I try to go to the main sessions. Kevin� I�m sort of waiting to see if we�re going to have to rotate in and out like we did a few years ago and I�m really hoping not.

Steve Cooley That�s going to be bad. I might have to pull my master�s seminary adjunct faculty card.

You know where the faculty gets to sit over there? I�m sitting there. I did last year. I�m doing it again. Kevin� The adjunct faculty note.

Is it adjunct or adjunk? Steve Cooley It�s adjunct when it comes to adjunct.

Maybe that�s why I don�t get asked back for the public speaking class. I�m teaching people how to enunciate and alliterate.

Allow me to elucidate you. I was learning about whatever gets you through the night song written by John Lennon.

He had Elton John help him with that and it was Lennon watching some prosperity preacher,

Reverend Ike on TV that talked about whatever gets you through the night and he took that and turned it into a song.

That was his first number one. He was the last solo Beatle to get a number one song and that was it.

Kevin� Well, he kept writing songs for Ringo Starr. See, I don�t know too much about the Beatles. If you go to Ringo�s first solo album, his first really big one called

Ringo, all written by the former Beatles, Harrison, McCartney, Lennon, and then they all performed on the album.

It was like really a Beatles album except they were never all in the studio together. Interesting.

Mike Abendroth, Steve Cooley, thanks for listening. Why don�t you tell your friends No Compromise Radio. You can get us at iTunes and tune in radio and the website.

See you soon. Right on route 110 in West Boylston.

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