The Year's Best Books for Preachers...Continued from page 5

C. J. Mahaney, founding pastor of Covenant Life Church in suburban Washington, D. C. and the leader of Sovereign Grace Ministries has written two books worthy of the preacher’s attention. Both of these will serve as medicine for the preacher’s soul. In Living the Cross Centered Life (Multnomah), Mahaney argues for a cruciform shape to the Christian life. In Humility: True Greatness (Multnomah), Mahaney argues that the Christian should see humility as our greatest friend and pride as our greatest enemy. As he acknowledges, “In a culture that so often rewards the proud ? a world quick to admire and applaud the prideful, a world eager to bestow the label ‘great’ on these same individuals ? humility occasionally attracts some surprising attention.” Unfortunately, some of this attention misses the biblical point. Mahaney gets right to that point.

Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle has written Confessions of a Reformission Rev.: Hard Lessons from an Emerging Missional Church (Zondervan). Driscoll raises serious questions in this book and offers his perspective on the shape of the church in the future.

Other significant volumes released in recent months include The Sense of the Call by Marva J. Dawn (Eerdmans), Simple Church by Thom S. Rainer and Eric Geiger (B & H Publishing Group), Preaching the Old Testament by Scott M. Gibson (Baker Books), Women’s Ministry in the Local Church by J. Ligon Duncan and Susan Hunt (Crossway), The Ministry by Charles J. Brown (Banner of Truth), and Twelve Essential Skills for Great Preaching by Wayne McDill (B & H Publishing Group). (You’ll find additional information about recent books on preaching in the survey by Preaching’s editor that follows this article.)

In Singing and Making Music: Issues in Church Music Today (P & R Publishing), Paul S. Jones, organist and music director at Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, provides some of the most helpful thinking concerning the role of music in authentic Christian worship.

Michael Duduit, editor of Preaching magazine, has edited an outstanding volume of interviews with leading American preachers. In Preaching with Power: Dynamic Insights from Twenty Top Pastors (Baker Books), Duduit brings together insights from preachers ranging from John MacArthur and Jerry Vines to Ed Young, Jr. and T. D. Jakes. Preachers would be hard pressed to find a more wide-ranging variety of preachers and models of preaching than what can be found in this single volume.

Two important books on Christianity in America and beyond are also worthy of the preacher’s attention. These include The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South by Philip Jenkins (Oxford University Press) and Believers: A Journey into Evangelical America by Jeffery L. Sheler (Viking).

Francis Bacon, famous for his dictum, “knowledge is power,” offers significant advice from the past concerning books. “Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested,” he argued. Wise preachers learn to choose books with care and to plan reading strategically. At the same time, the serious work of reading reveals surprises along the way, and keen readers are always prepared to encounter these as well.

The past year has seen a significant volume of books released, indicating that the book is anything but a dead letter. Preachers may understand this fact better than most, and there is good reason why this is true. Now, who knows what the next year will bring?

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R. Albert Mohler, Jr. is President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY.