Category: Book Reviews

Making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland

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Just Do Something – Kevin DeYoung

I decided to read this book based on a recommended reading list from the resurgence http://theresurgence.com/books/category/calling, which incidentally is a great resource if you’re looking for recommended reading on a particular subject. Do you know the phrase ‘Never judge a book by it’s cover?’ Well, I do the exact opposite of that.  If the cover…
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Unceasing Worship – Harold M. Best

Unceasing worship by Harold M. Best is a book about what it means to live a life of worship.  There have been numerous christian books written on this subject, many about the fact that we should not limit our worship to a time or place.  Best goes further – the main emphasis of his book…
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This Momentary Marriage (A parable of permanence) – John Piper

Recently, two friends of mine decided to get married.  I wanted to get them a decent book on marriage, but didn’t know if there was anything out there worthwhile or anything that I would be able to recommend.  It was then that I came across This Momentary Marriage by Dr John Piper. The book begins…
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Counterfeit Gods – Timothy Keller

Dr Timothy Keller, founding and lead Pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church, Manhattan, is still perhaps best known for his phenomenally successful first book, The Reason for God. In The Reason for God, Dr Keller provided something of a counterpoint to the writings of the proponents of New Atheism (Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, et al) in…
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Dug Down Deep – Joshua Harris

Joshua Harris, Senior Pastor of Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Maryland, is still perhaps best known for his first book, I Kissed Dating Goodbye (reviewed elsewhere on this site). Harris was raised, and homeschooled, in a conservative evangelical family and came to prominence through his editorship of a national homeschooling magazine published in North America.…
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Scandalous – D.A. Carson

During Holy Week 2010 a few members of the Firwood congregation read a chapter every day from D.A. Carson’s excellent book; “Scandalous – the Cross & Resurrecton of Jesus”. Each evening one of them would post a short blog on the chapter they’d read that day. Whilst not technically a ‘review’, these short posts do…
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John Calvin: A Biography

This is an old book and, understandably then, T.H.L. Parker is now a very old man. Parker is also an authority on all things John Calvin. Parker published his first work of note on the great Reformer in 1954 with John Calvin: A Portrait. A Portrait was intended as a general introduction to Calvin’s life…
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Chosen by God – R.C. Sproul

There are few doctrines as difficult and controversial as the Doctrine of Unconditional Election. As we have seen through our study of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, our understanding of this weighty truth invariably effects the way in which we understand salvation, God’s sovereignty, his activity in this world and his dealings with men and…
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Ephesians – Helpful Resources

Those of you who read my previous blog, Ephesians: His Glorious Grace, or were around on Sunday morning will know that we have just embarked on a sermon series working through Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians (first message in the series available here). I thought it might be useful, then, to highlight some of the…
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The Cross of Christ – John Stott

The Apostle Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthian Church reaches its apex at the beginning of the fifteenth chapter, For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day…
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