Top 10 Books of 2023
In January 2023 I set the goal to read a book a week for the year, a total of 52 books. At the time of writing I’m at 50 with a couple in the hopper ready to be finished. Of the books I finished I picked ten that I would be happy to recommend to the church for edification and enjoyment. Here they are in no particular order:
An Approach to Extended Memorization of Scripture, Andy Davis. You can finish this in 30 minutes, and it can change your life if you put it into practice. I am using this system to work on memorizing larger chunks of Scripture this year.
Age of Opportunity: A Biblical Guide to Parenting Teens, Paul Tripp. Timely for me. Wise, practical, and highly recommended. My encouragement to parents: read this before you have teens, and then read it again when you have teens. And talk about it a lot with your spouse.
Spurgeon the Pastor, Geoff Chang. Part biography, part history, part ecclesiology. I love these kinds of books, and I love Charles Spurgeon. Not everyone would appreciate this, but I sure did.
Planting by Pastoring, Nathan Knight. Church planting simplified. A necessary work that brings biblical balance to a subject overloaded with business concepts and worldly practices.
The Weight of Glory, CS Lewis. This collection of essays contains some paragraphs and sentences that are potent enough to change your life. I go back to them frequently.
The Christian Counselor’s Manual, Jay Adams. If you’re interested in getting grounded in biblical counseling, this would be a good resource for you.
Till We Have Faces, CS Lewis. Marvelous book to make you think. Sometimes it feels like mythology, sometimes like the book of Job, and sometimes a case study in human psychology. Poignant and powerful.
The Epic Story of the Bible, Greg Gilbert. I read most of what Greg Gilbert writes. His stuff is usually written for the local church, and so I love to read it with an eye to giving it away. This overview of the storyline of Scripture would be a great help for those wanting to learn their Bibles.
Strangely Bright, Joe Rigney. Some of us have a hard time enjoying the gifts of God for fear of becoming guilty of idolatry. Rigney’s book helps us learn both the principle of self-denial and of grateful reception of physical pleasures. I really enjoyed this book and hope to read it again. The best thing about it is that it highlights the good beneficence of our God.
A Hunger for God, John Piper. I read this one over sabbatical. Piper does an in depth study on fasting as a part of the Christian life. This book demonstrates that the practice of fasting is both biblically warranted and historically practiced. If you’re curious about the subject, this book is both encouraging and convicting.
