As I prepare for and teach through the Brookside Institute "Walking Wisely" class on Christian Ethics, I'm dipping into a number of books. Here are eight books closely related to Christian Ethics that I'd recommend for your consideration. In super-technical fashion, I've listed under the categories of "Longer Books on Christian Ethics" and "Shorter Books on Christian Ethics." (I know many will gravitate towards the shorter books which are indeed helpful, but don't let size scare you away from the others. They have worthwhile stuff to consider!)
Click on either the pictures or titles below to be taken to an Amazon.com site where you can learn a bit more about any of these books. By way of FYI, the "textbook" we are using for the Walking Wisely class is Robert McQuilken and Paul Copan's An Introduction to Biblical Ethics: Walking in the Way of Wisdom, 3rd ed. IVP Academic, 2014.
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In his excellent book on Christian Ecclesiology (Sojourners and Strangers: The Doctrine of the Church), Gregg Allison has some really important stuff to say on the importance and role of Christian education in the life of the church, as part of the church's ministry of discipling its members. The really short way I'd summarize what he says? An intentional, coordinated teaching and educational ministry is really important for the health of a church.
Obviously, there's much in here that both drives and shapes what we do with the Brookside Institute. So let's look at the helpful stuff Gregg Allison has to say. I'll quote him at length, from Sojourners and Strangers, pp. 441-444: Let's face it: We officially live in a digital age. Anyone in America born after 1980 has been "born digital" - growing up in a world with access to the developing technologies of home computers, the internet, social media, mobile devices, and more. And just so we're clear from the outset, I'm a fan of these technologies. I'm grateful for the laptop computer on which I work, my iPhone and iPad - these offer me features and capabilities that would have been unbelievable 60 years ago.
As a pastor and teacher, one of the evident ways these digital technologies touch my world is through the "Bible app." Bible apps and their kin - whether it's the YouVersion Bible, BibleGateway, the ESV Study Bible, or any other of MANY options - offer tremendous opportunity to get God's Word into the hands of lots of people. But there are also dangers that can accompany "mobile device Bibles." My goal in this post is to highlight both two available strengths and two potential pitfalls of mobile device Bibles, so we can leverage the strengths and avoid the perils. It's important for Christians to think about church. The church is important. And as Christians, we're saved out of our sin and its consequences into (among other things) the church. But I wonder how many believers have stopped to really think about what being part of the church means? Does it just mean we lose the chance to sleep in on Sunday mornings? Or is being part of the Church that Jesus is building even better than we often think?
As I've studied the church - what she is, why she exists, and what "marks" should characterize her - I've found the answer is the latter: being part of the Church that Jesus is building is AWESOME. It's awesome because of the PEOPLE that make up the church, the PURPOSES that propel her, and the PRIORITIES that shape her. This "awesomeness" invites further study, so we can better appreciate all that God is doing in and through the church. With this in mind, I want to encourage you to read one book on Ecclesiology (that's the fancy word for the doctrine of the church) this year. If you're looking for suggestions, here's a starter list of 6 to choose from, listed alphabetically by author. (Each is linked to its page at Amazon where you can explore a bit further.) Oh yeah, and don't forget to keep current with Brookside's current sermon series (Aug 16-Sept 6, 2015), "I Love My Church"!
Many of you know that the Brookside Institute is all about building and reinforcing foundations of the Christian faith. A big way this happens is through classes we offer that ground and grow people in the faith - classes where people and Dig Deep, Learn Good, and Launch Well.
But let's be honest: We need a lot more than just classes to do this. One of the additional ways we can build and reinforce foundations of the Christian faith is by instructing our families and interacting with them about Christian truth, values, and behavior. Parents are not a cul-de-sac of equipping, where truth enters but can't proceed. In the biblical picture of families, parents are a conduit of a biblical worldview, "owning" Christian truths and value themselves, and then passing these same truths and values along to their children. (Check it out in Deuteronomy 6:4-9.) All this is why I'm so excited about Kevin DeYoung's new book, The Biggest Story: How the Snake Crusher Brings Us Back to the Garden. 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 - since January 2015..
Did you miss any of these? Click on any of these "Top Posts by Month from January-June 2015" to be taken to the post, and check 'em out! (It's not too late!) Here's a sampling of some of the things I've been reading and reviewing this week. The hope is that these bite-sized sections of books, articles, blog posts, etc will stand on their own and be beneficial (or at least thought-provoking!) in-and-of-themselves. But I also hope that some of you will like these excerpts enough that they pull you into the larger work from which they've been taken.
Let's start sampling: Here's a sampling of some of the things I've been reading and reviewing this week. The hope is that these bite-sized sections of books, articles, blog posts, etc will stand on their own and be beneficial (or at least thought-provoking!) in-and-of-themselves. But I also hope that some of you will like these excerpts enough that they pull you into the larger work from which they've been taken.
Let's start sampling: Here's a sampling of some of the things I've been reading and reviewing this week. The hope is that these bite-sized sections of books, articles, blog posts, etc will stand on their own and be beneficial (or at least thought-provoking!) in-and-of-themselves. But I also hope that some of you will like these excerpts enough that they pull you into the larger work from which they've been taken.
Let's start sampling: Recently I've begun reading Scot McKnight's recent Kingdom Conspiracy: Returning to the Radical Mission of the Local Church. In his third chapter, "Tell Me the Kingdom Story," McKnight draws our attention to an important (and much discussed) topic, the storyline of Scripture.
This chapter grabbed me for a couple of (overlapping) reasons. First, this topic aligns with a major component of the Brookside Institute Bible Basics class, where we spend three sessions diving into the structure and storyline of the Bible. Second, grasping the storyline of Scripture can transform the way we approach and read Scripture - this topic really is that big of a deal. Therefore, I figured it's worth interacting with Scot a bit here about this topic - both to help me think about it more clearly and to leverage some things Scot says I don't want us to miss. |
Tim WiebeChristian. Husband. Father. Pastor. Learner. Contributor. Reader. Categories
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