2023 Book Recommendations

Welcome to the Whole Council Podcast. I'm Jon Snider and today A .C. Floyd is with me and if you ever write in an email with questions for Media Gratia, A .C. is probably the guy that will be giving you your answer.

So A .C., thanks for being with us for our festive holiday book suggestion podcast. It's not a Christmas podcast. It's Festivus podcast. Now if you are just listening to us and you're not watching, then you might hear festive noises coming from A .C.'s head, and that's the jingle bells on his elf hat.

All right, these are one-size-fits-all, which are demonstrated to be inaccurate because I have a peanut head and it would swallow my head and it only sits on the top of A .C.'s, kind of like one of those Jewish caps.

So.

Yamika? Yeah. Yeah, A .C. has a larger than normal human head.

And if you want to see this, watch the YouTube channel.

Yeah, you can watch the YouTube channel if you want to see A .C.'s head, and I'll try to get Teddy to swell your head up really big, you know, so that... Is that possible? Yeah, sure. Anything's possible.

AI, man. All right. Well, we've got some book recommendations and we hope that it will get to you in time for Christmas or maybe for the New Year. But we've limited ourselves severely. We're only going to mention three books each.

So, A .C., why don't you lead us off with your book and why you think it's helpful?

Commentary on Charles Bridges' Proverbs and the Value of Biblical Wisdom

All right. The first book that I picked to recommend to everybody was Charles Bridges' Commentary on the Proverbs. Charles Bridges was a pastor, an Anglican pastor, in the 1800s. He was ministering around the time, or during the time, of J .C. Ryle.

So they ministered together, were friends, were involved in influential and important events in the Anglican Church at that time. So he's a prominent figure in that century, and evidently, he was also a very great preacher and a good Bible commentator.

So in this book, this Commentary on the Proverbs, it was originally published in 1846, but the Banner of Truth picked it up and published it in 2007. It's a 660-page book, so it's quite a read, but it's well worth your time spent.

The reason why I love this book and the reason why I think everybody listening to this podcast should purchase a copy is that Bridges' Commentary unlocks the Proverbs. It unlocked the Proverbs for me.

I always knew that the Proverbs were God's Word and that I had much to learn from them, but I always struggled to know what to do with it and how to make sense of it. But when I picked up Bridges' Commentary, he just so helpfully pulls all of the scriptures through the Proverbs, much like William Gurnall did in his book The Christian in Complete Armor.

You feel like at every turn he's showing you how this particular proverb is applied through the gospel, and how you as an individual believer, as a household, as a church, can apply these things. So he helps you to see where the wisdom of the Proverbs are in all the scripture.

Old Testament, New Testament, Pentateuch, Gospels, the poetry, and Paul's epistles. So he covers everything. So, so helpfully. As far as the availability of this book, unfortunately, it's not available at the Banner of Truth right now.

Okay, let's stop there and say that we are hoping that the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future will haunt John Rollinson at the Banner until he gets this back in print. Agreed. This is a book that must be published.

But if you can't find an older copy elsewhere, like a books or thrift books, then you can go to Crossway. They actually have it on sale right now. If you're a Crossway Plus member, you can purchase it for $14 .39.

Otherwise, you'll have to purchase it for $23 .99. Yeah, yeah, so it's available there. Yeah, so I think this book is perfectly suited, you know, not just for a pastor, but it is certainly suited for a pastor.

It's suited for lay people alike of all ages. It's well worth your time.

Biography of Daniel Rowland and the Welsh Revival

All right, my first book is the biography of Daniel Rowland, and so this is just out from Banner of Truth. It was written by a man named Avian Evans, who was Dr. Evans, was an academic and also a pastor and a writer.

He was also a friend of mine, which is unusual that I get to recommend a book from a man that was a friend of mine. He helped me when I was in Wales researching the 18th century and 17th century, because he had done work in both of those centuries.

I think his PhD was in the theology of Richard Baxter, 17th century Puritan, who had some great theology and some not so good theology. Evans is passed away now. His book on Daniel Rowland is the most complete biography in the English language of this famous Welsh preacher, who preached at the same time as George Whitefield, but unlike his co-worker Hal Harris, Rowland spent almost all of his time in the little principality of Wales.

He experienced an extraordinary blessing in his ministry, nearly 50 years of the Lord using him as a minister. What's unique about Rowland's ministry is that while Whitefield was traveling the world and preaching and seeing large crowds gather and people impacted, Daniel Rowland tended to stay in his church, and he traveled some throughout Wales.

So people would come to Rowland to hear the preaching, and we have accounts in the 18th century of elderly people making a, you know, two or three day journey down to Llangaetho, a little village where Rowland pastored, and to hear him preach on special occasions and being persecuted, rotten fruit and things thrown at the elderly ladies as they made their way to the to the services because they were considered Methodists or kind of regurgitated Puritans, and that wasn't a popular movement at that time.

So you can get this Daniel Rowland. It's now in print again by banner of truth after many years of being out of print. So really a stirring biography, and it touches not only on Rowland, the greatest of the Welsh preachers, but on those men that worked alongside him.

Mercy Revealed and the Miracles of Christ

My next book is Mercy Revealed by Dr. Gerald Bilks. Mercy Revealed by Dr. Gerald Bilks. This book, it's called Mercy Revealed, A Cross-Centered Look at Christ's Miracles. It was published in 2015 by Reformation Heritage Books.

It's a short book, 168 pages. It's broken up into 23 brief chapters, and each chapter has some hopefully thought-provoking and soul-stirring questions for the reader. It was written by, like I said, Gerald Bilks.

He's now the vice president of Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary. He's also a professor of homiletics and biblical studies there. I think that as well, he's one of the pastors of the Free Reform Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

So he's a seminary professor, but he's also a pastor, and I think that that really comes through in this book. You know, looking at the miracles of Christ, sometimes I think they can be confusing, sometimes they can be misunderstood, but I feel like Dr. Bilks does a great job of laying them out in simple, clear ways that help the reader benefit from them.

He loves Christ. He desires all those who hear his sermons or lectures to love Christ as well, and I think that really shines through in this book. He speaks in clear and direct language. You could give this book, I think, to a preteen, and they could easily understand every word of it and understand that it is meant for them as well, not just adults.

The thing that I appreciated most about this book is that he applies each of these miracles to the heart of the reader. Just take, for instance, some of his words regarding Christ silencing the storm.

I think his pastor's heart really shines through. He says,. And since he is directly instrumental in ordering this circumstance, he must be well aware of our present distress. Jesus's words imply a safe arrival on the other side of the sea.

He knew that they would reach the other side. Present-day disciples should also be comforted by this truth. If you're a child of God, there's another side to your sickness, your family problem, to your convicted conscience, or to your heartache.

There is another side even to death, which Jesus himself brought to light in his resurrection. Jesus will ensure your safe arrival on the other side. So it's things like that that are just all through the book.

And I found it to be a real encouragement, a real conviction, but a real stirring of my soul as well. So I recommend it to everybody who's listening today.

Revelation as Warm and Evangelistic Exposition

Yeah, thanks. My second book is by Dr. Joel Beakey, and it is his commentary on the book of Revelation. A number of years ago, we were both at the same conference, and I was preaching through Revelation, and he was writing this commentary, and he talked to me about the commentary, and he was asking me which books I had found most helpful in Revelation.

And I fully expected this massive, kind of fairly academic, you know, monstrous tome on the revelation of John, and it wasn't. It came out, and my wife has been reading through this. She's about two-thirds the way through this.

She's much more consistent in her reading than I am. It's part of a series of expository commentaries on the New Testament called the Lectio Continua. And that sounds really daunting, the Latin, but it's not a daunting book.

It's not at all what you might think it would be if you were thinking the way I was. It is a book of his.

Warm.

Sermonic.

Applications of Revelation. It's written not only to be warm and applicatory to the soul of the reader, but also as a good guide to young ministers who are preaching. How do you preach? And the book really serves as a model.

It is amazing how evangelistic it is, how he drives home again and again the hope that's in Christ, the hopelessness that is found everywhere else. You know, he calls men and women, old and young, to run to Christ in faith.

And so you'll find this is quite a surprisingly soul-benefiting, mind-feeding book. Revelation by Joel Beeky.

All That Jesus Commanded and the Demands of Christ

Well, my last book to recommend is a book called All That Jesus Commanded by John Piper. I think most everybody listening knows John Piper. He's founder and lead teacher of Desiring God, a chancellor of Bethlehem College and Seminary, and he was the pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church for 33 years in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

I first came across this book, I think it was eight or nine years ago, when we were going through a ministerial class here at Christ Church.

And.

I remember seeing it thinking, oh, this is such a big book, and it's full of commands. It seemed really daunting, and it almost kind of turned me off a little bit. Why are we going to read this? But then once I got into it, I couldn't help but kind of imbibe, but feel, some of John Piper's intensity for this book.

Or not for this book, but really for the subject of the book, but for Jesus's commands. He lays everything out biblically, succinctly, and passionately. So that was, for me, so stirring. As we were reading through that book so many years ago, I kept thinking to myself, I must know the commands of Jesus.

I must. And I think in this book, we see that the commands of Jesus, they're not heavy burdens intended to crush the reader, but they are the revelation of God about himself, and how he commands both his creation and his church to live before his face.

So,.

Very, very stirring book. I just want to read a brief part to give you a taste of it. Regarding the new birth, Dr. Piper writes, We must be born again, but this is a gift. Look away from yourself. Seek from God what he alone can do for you.

Moral improvement of the old you is not what you need. New life in Christ is what the whole world needs. It is radical and supernatural. It is outside our control. The dead do not give themselves new life.

We must be born again. Not of the will of the flesh nor the will of man, but of God. That is what Jesus commands of us and from all the nations of the world. So, a small sampling to hopefully whet your appetite to see that this is a book well worth your time.

Currently, this book is backordered at Crossway, but you can get it at Westminster Theological Seminary Books for $28 .09. So, if you are looking for it, that's the best place to go as far as the price.

I forgot to mention Mercy Revealed. So, this book is available at Reformation Heritage Books right now, and it's on sale for $9.

Christian Contentment in the Face of Providence

My final book is a book by the Puritan Jeremiah Burroughs, and it comes in this boxed set that we've talked about before in the book recommendations. By Banner of Truth, and the book is The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment.

We've just recently worked through that in the church. We break up for small groups a couple of times a year, and we offer different books at times. This time, we offer different books. Sometimes we all read the same book.

And one of the classes offered Burroughs on contentment, and I filled in one of the weeks. I wasn't the teacher for that class. I was teaching Psalm 119. So, I filled in for one of our elders there in that class when he was out of town, and I was so encouraged by the chapter that I was teaching, and so I read some more.

My wife, again, has been reading it, and she's been very encouraged, and I hope that I can teach one of the classes next time we do it, or at least attend one of them on Burroughs. Let me give you just a bit of background information about Burroughs.

Burroughs was considered not only a great theologian and a very popular pastor in his day, but also he was extraordinarily gentle, and you have the combination. The Banner of Truth website says he had the combination of what is often considered incompatible qualities, fervent zeal for purity of doctrine and worship, and a peaceable spirit, which longed for Christian unity.

And that's strange because throughout his adult life, he suffers persecution for his religious beliefs. So, he goes to Cambridge University, to Emanuel College, which was really kind of the epicenter of Puritan theology at that time in the early 1600s.

He was born in 1599. While he's at the college, he develops very clear biblical views. His conscience is clear about how church ought to be done, and he disagrees with some of the things that the archbishop at the time, Archbishop Laud, who was a very unpopular archbishop with many of serious Protestants, leaned a little Roman Catholic, wanted to kind of remove the Puritan minded men out of the Church of England, and eventually was able to do that.

Laud was in power, and because of that, and because of Jeremiah Burroughs' views, he was removed from the college there. He ended up pastoring a short time. He pastored in a couple of churches in East Anglia, where, again, it was an area where Puritan preachers had been well known, so there was a general acceptance of their doctrine.

But later, Archbishop Laud, because of his influence through the king, he gets Puritans removed from those churches as well, and so Jeremiah Burroughs goes to Holland, to Rotterdam, and in Rotterdam, he becomes a professor at the university there, a professor of theology, and he becomes a pastor of an English speaking church, and he stays there for some time.

Now, when the political tide turns and the parliament is in power instead of the king, who is beheaded, after the civil war, then we have freedom for the Puritans, and he comes back to England, and he joins the Westminster Assembly of Divines.

We don't use the word divines usually today. We would say theologians. So he joins kind of the chief theologians of the land, and he is an independent or a congregationalist, not a Presbyterian when it comes to church polity.

So he and a few others, like John Owen, are kind of the odd men out at the Westminster Assembly, but they made a significant impact. They brought a lot to the table, and they were able to work with their Presbyterian brothers who were in the majority.

There were also Anglicans there. Now, while he was working with the Westminster Assembly to put together all the documents there, he was a pastor of two churches in London, and they were the two largest churches or among the largest churches in England at that time, and he worked alongside another Puritan, William Bridge, very popular throughout his life.

He wrote a number of books. Most of his books are collections of his sermons, but his books have never been combined into a definitive set of the works of Jeremiah Burroughs. But what we do have is a number of his significant works, and The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment is one of them.

So it is a book that describes where do we find such satisfaction and rest in our soul that regardless of whether we are prospering unusually or suffering affliction, how can the Christian say, like Paul, that I have learned to be content, a godly contentment, not the ungodly contentment that is willing to be happy without God, and not the ungodly discontentment where we grumble about our circumstances, we grumble that we're not more holy perhaps, we grumble about our government, always complaining like the world.

So how do we follow the path of Christ in finding contentment? And Paul helps us. In a sense, we follow the follower there. So you can pick that book up as a part of this big set, or you can pick it up as one of the Puritan paperbacks that's been recently republished.

Well, thanks for joining us, and we hope that you have a good New Year. And if you listen to this before the Christmas season, pray that you would be able to, with all the opportunities that we have, to speak of Christ, to speak of Christ to your family, speak of Christ to co-workers, you know, speak of Christ in your churches, and pray that God would use that to make Him irresistible to those that hear you.

We will see you again in a week.