Books about megachurch pastors are so discouraging. The success stories of how they built a church of thousands from a Bible study in their living room sell lots of books, to be sure, but they also hold up a worldly measure of ministry achievement, and promote an ungodly desire for celebrity status among pastors. For … Continue reading Learning from Spurgeon the Pastor
A church is a family. That’s the main lesson in Megan Hill’s new book for kids, Meg is Not Alone (Crossway, 2022). Inspired by a real-life event in the childhood of the author, Hill tells the story of a little girl named Meg whose parents miscommunicate and accidentally leave her at church one Sunday morning. … Continue reading Teaching Kids About the Beauty of God’s Family
Here at Reading For the Glory, we’re usually reviewing books, but every now and then we want to step back from reviews to help you in the actual task of reading for God’s glory. If you never read digitally and are a print-book purist, this post is not for you. If, however, like me, you … Continue reading Rediscover What You’ve Read with READWISE
One of the final sentences in our Bibles is a prayer for the second coming: “Come Lord Jesus.” (Rev. 22:20) In his newest book Come, Lord Jesus: Meditations on the Second Coming of Christ (Crossway, 2023), John Piper takes a deep dive into Scripture to examine everything God has revealed to us about the return … Continue reading Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!
I’m a Bible nerd and I think you should be too. In my years as a pastor, I have often heard people trying to distance themselves from the “nerdy” stuff when it comes to studying the Bible. Sure, reading the Bible is for the normal, everyday church member. But Greek? Translation differences? The history of … Continue reading How Did We Get The Bible?
I am a pastor serving full-time at a church. Every January, as so many are contemplating new years resolutions, I take a step back and re-analyze my productivity. After the holiday season, things tend to slow down for a time, and it’s a wonderful opportunity to reset and re-focus on how I get my work … Continue reading The Pastoral Aim of Productivity
There are two equal but opposite errors we tend to make when we come to the book of Revelation. One is being obsessed with it. This is the doomsday prophet approach. You eagerly watch the news and try to decode the events of today according to all the prophetic images. Of course, in this scenario, … Continue reading Experiencing the Promise of the Book of Revelation
November 4, 2020“In all the years I’ve been writing, I have never had to type words more difficult, more devastating than these: Yesterday the Lord called my son to himself—my dear son, my sweet son, my kind son, my godly son, my only son.” So begins Tim Challies’s new book Seasons of Sorrow (Zondervan, 2022). … Continue reading Trusting the Lord in Seasons of Sorrow
“I don’t like music. I love it.” So writes pastor, church-planter, and hymn-writer Chris Anderson. Man oh man, I love it too. Don’t we all? Needless to say, he hooked me from the start. In his new book, Theology That Sticks: The Life-Changing Power of Exceptional Hymns (Church Works Media), Anderson seeks to compel every … Continue reading The Life-Changing Power of Hymns
Do we really need another book on apologetics? With hundreds of quality Christian resources to choose from already, what can one more actually contribute? Why should we spend the time to read this one in particular? I would like to give you three reasons why Neil Shenvi’s Why Believe? A Reasoned Approach to Christianity (Crossway, … Continue reading A Reasoned Approach to Christianity
I must be honest, most Christian leadership books turn me off. They strike me as little more than worldly wisdom baptized in spiritual jargon. Manuals on how to do the Lord’s work in the world’s way. They turn the work of the Holy Spirit into a formula, as if we could reverse-engineer “successful” churches. In … Continue reading A Tale of Three Kings
Did you know that Jesus had female disciples? That would come as a surprise to most people, and many (if not most) Christians. This is likely because we tend to confuse the disciples with the Apostles. All twelve Apostles were men, but those twelve were not his only disciples. In Jesus Through the Eyes of … Continue reading Women Were Key Witnesses to Jesus’ Ministry
