In his recent book, Preaching: Communicating Faith in an Age of Skepticism, author and pastor Timothy Keller summarizes the storyline of the Bible - climaxing in the sending and sacrifice of Jesus Christ - in a helpful way. And all in about 300 words. (306, to be exact.) 

His summary is too good to pass up. I've included it here (from p. 58 of his Preaching book): 

If you ever check out either the Library or the footer of this site, where we highlight the top 5 posts of the previous month, you'll have seen "What's Good about Having the Bible on Mobile Devices? And What's Dangerous?" has been on this "Top 5" streak for a while (a long while!). And it's understandable why.

We should WANT to make the Bible accessible in all of the ways we can. Getting God's Word into the hands of as many people as possible is a good thing. But we should also want to be aware of any dangers that can accompany recent trends - not so we avoid the trend itself (and all its benefits!), but so that we can mitigate against particular dangers and have them on our radar screen.

If you've not checked out the post, you can do so here.

So as a nod to the popularity of this post, I'm officially going to "retire the jersey." I'll leave the post just as it is on the site and will include it in the "retired jersey" category of this site's "Library" page. However, moving forward I'll no longer include it in numbers 1-5 of each month's top posts (even though it continues to rank highly among the website "hits" for individual posts), thus allowing room for other posts.

Interested in other posts that have gotten a lot of traffic on this site recently? Click here to check 'em out!

I love to teach. I believe that a healthy teaching ministry is vital to the life of a vibrant local church. And I want to emphasize a healthy, deeply-understood gospel centrality as I teach. 

Since that's the case, I'm grateful for how Trevin Wax - Bible and resource publisher at Lifeway Christian Resources - articulates what gospel-centered teaching looks like in this brief (less than 3 min) video clip. I'm including it here, both to circulate good content via this site, and to keep it for handy reference for the future! :)

There are all sorts of ways to engage the Bible. We want to be reading it daily. We hear it preached. Both of these are good things. And, I would even say, they're the most common and frequent habits we want to encourage. But these two disciplines - hearing and reading - aren't the only "tools in the toolbox" for how we engage God's Word.

Here's where the time-tested "word hand" developed by the Navigators is a helpful overview of the various methods we want to use as we get into the Bible. The five methods outlined in this "word hand" are (1) Hear, (2) Read, (3) Study, (4) Memorize, and (5) Meditate. As we engage the Bible over a lifetime, we don't want to limit ourselves to only hearing and reading. We want to discover the benefits that EACH of these habits offers as we follow Jesus.

In this post, I want to briefly touch on the third method mentioned above, studying the Bible. ​

Based on the number of "hits" each month, here are the top 5 posts here on the Brookside Institute blog for the last six months - July 2017 through December 2017.

​Take a minute to scroll through the list below, and either catch up on things you may have missed or revisit things that were especially helpful.

Looking for some of the best biblical and theological books to read in 2018? Below I've collected and listed five "sources" that are worth listening to for some worthwhile reads.

My hope is that as you scan these lists, you'll find at least 2-3 books that strike your interest enough for you to pick up the book and dig in.

Click on either the image or the title below and you'll be taken directly to a page where you can see which books are on that particular list.

Below you'll find a few other links to related posts. Happy reading! 

• How to R.E.A.D. Books Well
• The "Ministry" of Recommending Books
• Building a Biblical and Theological Library? Here are 4 More Books for the Shelves.
• My 2016 Top 5 "Top Reading Lists of 2016"

A couple of years ago, I wrote a short post advocating the idea of building a biblical and theological "library" of books - a shelf (or shelves) with trusted books that can relied on to guide you in reading the Bible and navigating theological topics. Some of these are books to read straight through; others are books to keep handy as reference books and turn to on an as-needed basis. All of them are worthwhile.

I'm still a fan of the books I recommended in the initial post - even as I figured it's time to add a few more books to the list. If you're looking to slowly start building or adding to a biblical and theological library yourself, here are four books to add to the shelf:

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

• Starting to Build Your Library of Biblical and Theological Resources? Here are 8 Books to Get You Started
• How to R.E.A.D. Books Well
• The "Ministry" of Recommending Books

As the Brookside Institute champions the value of biblical literacy, we don't do this in some abstract or indifferent way. We want to value biblical literacy so that we're transformed by the Bible.

If that's the case, that means there's a whole lot riding on whether the Bible is a trustworthy book. Some version of "Can I trust the Bible?" is being asked in lots of ways today, and so responding to this question is important. Here's why: The greater our confidence IN the Bible, the more we'll base our lives ON the Bible. We'll never base our lives on something we don't have confidence in.

This last weekend, I spent about 30 minutes responding this question, "Can I trust the Bible?" Check out the video below to see what I said.

• 4 Great Resources to Boost Your Confidence in the Bible
• Come Hungry to the Bible
• How to Study the Bible on Your Own​

Something big happens in Acts 2 - it's one of THE pivotal events of the Bible. 

Before Acts 2, things are fairly still. We find Jesus’ first disciples huddled in an Upper Room. After Acts 2, we find Jesus’ disciples spreading out through Jerusalem, into the larger region, and even getting to Rome! (Which is a long way, especially when there aren’t airplanes or cars.) Something happens in Acts 2 that changes the playing board and Jesus’ followers go from huddled together to spreading out on mission!

Before Acts 2, we know that the sum total of Jesus followers was about 120. That’s not a lot of people! By the time we get to the end of Acts 2, we learn that number has multiplied to 3000 people - and then if you keep reading into Acts 4 you find that pretty quickly that number jumps from 3000 to 5000! Something happens in Acts 2 that catalyzes this exponential growth !

Something happens in Acts 2 where the gate opens up and the picture changes from preparation and anticipation to one of bold movement and fresh life! There's no way to exaggerate how pivotal of a turning point Acts 2 is in the story of the church!

​So the question we should all be asking now is this: “What happens in Acts 2?!” What happens that propels the early church forward in all of these ways?  And what does all this mean for our lives TODAY?

To dig into these questions, check out this sermon I preached on "The Gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:1-47) earlier this year.