As we turn the final pages of 2021, I once again offer my list of favorite reads for the year. As always, this is not a list of my favorite books published in 2021, but books read in 2021, whatever the publishing year. If a book is on the best of list, I recommend you give it a read in 2022.

As seems to be the case every year, in 2021 I read a number of good books, a few great books, some why-the-big-deal books, and a couple of why-was-this-ever-published books (I partially read these). As is always the case, this was another great reading year with many happy hours invested in the “Big Three”: good music, good coffee and a good book.

NOTE: I am not a fad reader: fad reading breeds fat minds. Many fad books remind me of the great Ambrose Bierce quote:

“The covers of this book are too far apart.”

When people tell me, “You just have to read this latest-and-greatest book” I generally run – the other way. I am just not a follower of fads when it comes to books and authors. I’ve often said I’d like to compile a list of each year’s “must read” books and then tracked their “must read” status in the years to come. With limited time and resources at my disposal, I wait for the dust to settle before putting my money down on a book that may be a great investment of my time and money or a waste of both.

Rather than follow the latest-and-greatest, I follow the sage counsel of C.S. Lewis, who said,

“It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between.”

It’s advice I follow with joy as rereads of previously read books are like visits with the oldest and best of friends. Every reading of them brings even deeper riches.

And Lewis again:

“I can’t imagine a man really enjoying a book and reading it only once.”

HOW THIS YEAR’S READING IS PRESENTED:

This year’s reading is presented in four lists:

1. The complete list of books I read;

2. Old friends I read again;

3. Books that help us better understand American culture today;

4. The most important reads of 2021.

THE COMPLETE LIST OF BOOKS READ IN 2021 (LISTED ALPHABETICALLY):

• 40 Questions About Christians and Biblical Law – Thomas R. Schreiner. 2010. 256 pages

• A Clear and Present Word: The Clarity of Scripture – Mark D. Thompson. 2006. 196 pages.

• A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles. Thomas Sowell. 1987. 243 pages.

• A Resilient Life – Gordon MacDonald. 2005. 243 pages.

• A Sabbatical Primer for Pastors – David C. Alves. 2014. 130 pages.

• Autopsy of a Deceased Church – Thom S. Rainer. 2014. 102 pages.

• Biblical Economics – R.C. Sproul Jr. 2008. 218 pages

• Character Still Counts – James Merritt. 2019. 251 pages.

• Coaching for Leadership – Goldsmith, Lyons, and Freas. 2000. 396 pages.

• Dedication and Leadership – Douglas Hyde. 1966. 156 pages.

• Dominion and Dynasty – Stephen Dempster. 2003. 268 pages.

• Entrepreneurs of Life – Os Guinness. 2001. 255 pages.

• Escape From Reason – Francis Schaeffer. 1968. 94 pages.

• Faith Coaching – Chad Hall, Bill Copper, Kathryn McElveen. 2009. 205 pages

• Fool’s Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion – Os Guinness 2015. 270 pages.

• Five Masculine Instincts – Chase Replogle. 2021. 208 pages.

• Going Deep – Gordon MacDonald. 2011. 384 pages.

• Humility – C.J. Mahaney. 2005, 174 pages.

• John Wesley – John Pollack. 1989. 264 pages.

• Le Meurtre de Roger Ackroyd – Agatha Christie. 1927. 196 pages.

• Lead – Paul David Tripp. 2020. 242 pages.

• Love Thy Body – Nancy Pearcey. 2018. 336 pages.

• Luther: Biography of a Reformer – Frederick Nohl, 2003. 2019 pages.

• Mark (Commentary) – Ronald Kernaghan. 2007. 351 pages.

• Making Sense Out of Suffering – Peter Kreeft. 1986, 184 pages.

• Martin Guitars: A History – Richard Johnston and Dick Boak. 2008, 240 pages.

• Maverick: A Biography of Thomas Sowell – Jason Riley. 2021 250 pages.

• My Handmaidens Shall Prophesy – Kasen Fanning. 2020, 304 pages.

• Spiritual Mentoring – Keith R. Anderson and Randy D. Reese. 1999. 191 pages.

• The Dog Next Door – Callie Smith Grant. 2011. 224 pages.

• The Beatles, God, and the Bible – Ray Comfort. 2012, 261 pages.

• The Chronicles of Narnia – C.S. Lewis. 2009, 800 pages.

• The Divine Conspiracy – Dallas Willard. 1998, 419 pages.

• The Gathering Storm – Albert Mohler. 2020, 214 pages.

• The Great Salvation – Thomas Williams. 1892, 199 pages.

• The Legacy of William Carey – Vishal and Ruth Mangalwadi. 1999. 159 pages.

• The Nine Tailors – Dorothy Sayers. 1934. 280 pages

• The Permanent Revolution – Alan Hirsch and Tim Catchim. 2012. 368 pages.

• The Rabbit and the Elephant – Tony and Felicity Dale. 2009. 221 pages.

• The Radical Disciple – John Stott. 2010, 142 pages.

• The Renegade Pastor – Nelson Searcey. 2013. 168 pages.

• What Great Ministry Leaders Get Right – Jimmy Dodd and Renaut Van Der Riet. 2021. 300 pages

• Who is Jesus? – Greg Gilbert. 2015. 144 pages.

• Younger Next Year – Chris Crowley. 2019. 400 pages.

OLD FRIENDS READ AGAIN

This year I reread these old friends. Most would make my “Best Reads of the Year” list in any year:

• A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles. Thomas Sowell. 1987. 243 pages.

• Escape From Reason – Francis Schaeffer. 1968. 94 pages.

• Humility – C.J. Mahaney. 2005, 174 pages.

• Le Meurtre de Roger Ackroyd – Agatha Christie. 1927. 196 pages.

• Mark (Commentary) – Ronald Kernaghan. 2007. 351 pages.

• The Chronicles of Narnia – C.S. Lewis. 2009, 800 pages.

• The Divine Conspiracy – Dallas Willard. 1998, 419 pages.

• The Nine Tailors – Dorothy Sayers. 1934. 280 pages

• The Radical Disciple – John Stott. 2010, 142 pages.

UNDERSTANDING THE TIMES BOOKS

Several of the books I read this year are important reads for the times in which we live. They deal with the foundational issues that help us understand the changes taking place in America. Books by Guinness, Pearcey, and Schaeffer are always essential reads on church and culture. Read anything by them you can find. Books by Sowell are essential reads on culture; I reread at least one Sowell book every year.

• A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles – Thomas Sowell.

• Biblical Economics – R.C. Sproul Jr.

• Escape From Reason – Francis Schaeffer.

• Entrepreneurs of Life – Os Guinness.

• Fool’s Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion – Os Guinness.

• Five Masculine Instincts – Chase Replogle.

• John Wesley – John Pollack.

• Love Thy Body – Nancy Pearcey.

• Luther: Biography of a Reformer – Frederick Nohl.

• Maverick: A Biography of Thomas Sowell – Jason Riley.

• The Gathering Storm – Albert Mohler.

THE BEST READS OF 2021

In alphabetical order, A “Baker’s Dozen” of favorite reads for 2021. Each title is followed by the author’s name and a brief description of the “what” and the “why” that lead to the book making our list. Enjoy.

Of particular note: If there is one author whose writings meant the most to me this year, it is Gordon MacDonald. Each of his books is a personal spiritual retreat. On the philosophical and cultural side, I continue to recommend Nancy Pearcey and Os Guinness as essential reads. I only wish there was more Pearcey to read. As I said of her last year: “Her content is rich and her writing clear, a far cry from the pop theology that fills so many ministry shelves. Highly recommended.” The same is also true of Guinness.

You can always find our list of recommended books online in the Journey Library. Check out our shelves at journeypastoralcoaching.com/the-jpc-library/

• A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles – Thomas Sowell

While many regard differences in politics and governmental policies as merely different labels on the same packages, Sowell shows this to be far from the truth. He demonstrates that different politics arise from different worldviews and from different visions for the future. What a person believes about ultimate reality is on display in his politics.

Sowell writes that there are, generally speaking, two opposing worldviews and visions at war for American culture: the constrained view and the unconstrained view. The constrained view sees the limits of mankind and seeks to develop a society accordingly. The unconstrained view sees a human race without limits, but only for those who hold institutional power. As higher souls, it has fallen to them to form and “perfect” mankind in their image.

From these two views arise the great cultural battles that we now see. Would you like to understand the timeless fundamental battles we see in America today? Read Sowell. Always timeless.

• A Resilient Life – Gordon MacDonald

From the publisher: “It makes little difference how fast you can run the 100 meters when the race is 400 meters long. Life is not a sprint; it is a distance run, and it demands the kind of conditioning that enables people to go the distance.” Gordon MacDonald

Whose heart doesn’t leap at the sight of a beautifully conditioned runner, effortlessly gliding along, stride-by stride, mile-by-mile? And what runner gets to this place without a thankless—and often lonely—regimen of strategy and self-denial?

Isn’t this the perfect metaphor of what your heart is longing for—running life’s race with intentionality and grace? With strength and focus?

You can.…You must develop resilience—the courage and ability to get up when you fall, to keep running when you’re bone-weary, and to keep your eye on the goal even in the murkiest moments. Using the backdrop of his own experiences as a champion runner, MacDonald demonstrates how resilient people:

1. Practice spiritual self-discipline to build stamina and grit;
2. Know what’s up ahead, what obstacles they will likely face; and
3. Bond with special friends who share their commitment to finishing well.

NOTE: If you only read one book in 2022, make it this one. A classic that will help you build soul strength with every chapter.

• Entrepreneurs of Life – Os Guinness

From the Introduction: The issue of purpose and fulfillment is one of the deepest issues in our modern world. At some point every one of us confronts the question: how do I find and fulfill the central purpose of my life? Other questions may come logically prior to and lie even deeper than this one. For example, who am I? What is the meaning of life itself? But few questions are raised more loudly and more insistently today than the first. As modern people we are all on the search for significance. We desire to make a difference. We long to leave a legacy. We want, as Ralph Waldo Emerson put it, “to leave the world a bit better.” Our passion is to know that we are fulfilling the purpose for which we are here on earth.

In “Ages of Faith,” Alexis de Tocqueville observed, “the final aim of life is placed beyond life.” That is what calling does. “Follow me,” Jesus said two thousand years ago, and he changed the course of history. That is why calling provides the Archimedean point by which faith moves the world. That is why calling is the most comprehensive re-orientation and the most profound motivation in human experience the ultimate why for living in all history. Calling begins and ends such ages, and lives, of faith, by placing the final aim of life beyond the world, where it was meant to be. Through calling, the entire meaning of our lives lies in the future that is waiting for us. Answering the call is the way to find and fulfill the central, entrepreneurial purpose of your life.

• Escape From Reason – Francis Schaeffer

From the Publisher: Truth used to be based on reason. No more. What we feel is now the truest source of reality. Despite our obsession with the emotive and the experiential, we still face anxiety, despair, and purposelessness. How did we get here? And where do we find a remedy? In this modern classic, Schaeffer traces trends in 20th-century thought and unpacks how key ideas have shaped our society. Wide-ranging in his analysis, Schaeffer examines philosophy, science, art and popular culture to identify dualism, fragmentation and the decline of reason. Schaeffer’s work takes on a newfound relevance today in his prescient anticipation of the contemporary postmodern ethos. His critique demonstrates Christianity’s promise for a new century, one in as much need as ever of purpose and hope.

• Fool’s Talk: Recovering the Art of Christian Persuasion – Os Guinness

From the publisher: In our post-Christian context, public life has become markedly more secular and private life infinitely more diverse. Yet many Christians still rely on cookie-cutter approaches to evangelism and apologetics. Most of these methods assume that people are open, interested and needy for spiritual insight when increasingly most people are not. Our urgent need, then, is the capacity to persuade―to make a convincing case for the gospel to people who are not interested in it.

In his magnum opus, Os Guinness offers a comprehensive presentation of the art and power of creative persuasion. Christians have often relied on proclaiming and preaching, protesting and picketing. But we are strikingly weak in persuasion―the ability to talk to people who are closed to what we are saying. Actual persuasion requires more than a one-size-fits-all approach. Guinness notes, “Jesus never spoke to two people the same way, and neither should we.” Following the tradition of Erasmus, Pascal, G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, Malcolm Muggeridge and Peter Berger, Guinness demonstrates how apologetic persuasion requires both the rational and the imaginative. Persuasion is subversive, turning the tables on listeners’ assumptions to surprise them with signals of transcendence and the credibility of the gospel.

This book is the fruit of forty years of thinking, honed in countless talks and discussions at many of the leading universities and intellectual centers of the world. Discover afresh the persuasive power of Christian witness from one of the leading apologists and thinkers of our era.

• Five Masculine Instincts – Chase Replogle

Note: Five Masculine Instincts is due to be released March 1, 2022. I was privileged to read early drafts. Disclaimer: the author is a member of Journey Pastoral Coaching. However, I do not recommend this book because of this. I highly recommend it because of the content. Christian book shelves are filled with sugary feel-goods, self-help therapy, theology-light, and even attacks on biblical doctrine. Five Masculine Instincts is the kind of content and writing that must come back to Christian publishing and Christians’ bookshelves. It is a solid, biblically-based examination of a desperately needed topic, one that Christian publishers are often afraid to talk about in this current climate. This book is not only an essential read for every man and woman, but for the church.

From the publisher: Don’t trust your instincts—there is a better path to becoming a better man. It’s no secret: today’s men face a dilemma. Our culture tells them that their instincts are either toxic or salvific. Men are left with only two options: deconstruct and forfeit masculine identity or embrace it with wild abandon. They’re left to decide between ignoring their instincts or indulging them. Neither approach helps them actually understand their own masculine experiences nor how those experiences can lead them to become better men of God.

The Bible doesn’t shy away from the reality of masculine instincts nor all of the ways those instincts can lead to destruction. Examining the lives of five men of the Bible, The 5 Masculine Instincts shows that these men aren’t masculine role models or heroes but are men who wrestled with their own desires and, by faith, matured them into something better.

Through this book you’ll discover your own instincts are neither curse nor virtue. They are the experiences by which you develop a new and better instinct—an instinct of faith. By exploring sarcasm, adventure, ambition, reputation, and apathy,  The 5 Masculine Instincts shows you how to better understand yourself and how your own instincts can be matured into something better. This is the path by which we become better men.

• Going Deep – Gordon MacDonald

From the publisher: What is a deep person? If you’d like to become one, would you know how? Would you like to help others become deep? If so, you have come to the right place.

In this fascinating book, best-selling author Gordon MacDonald discovers that his small New England church could be headed for trouble. Why? Because of a serious  shortage. There are plenty of good people, well-meaning people, sincere people—but not enough deep people.

In his celebrated and engaging style, Gordon transports you back to the fictional setting from his critically acclaimed book, Who Stole My Church? He identifies the crucial missing component in his community: people of true depth, people of real influence. And he offers unforgettable insights on how to cultivate spiritual maturity and exhibit life-altering faith.

As it turns out in Gordon’s town—and probably yours—what’s needed is people who are willing to seek Christ passionately with a hunger to go deep. This may be exactly what you’ve been looking for.

Note: The American institutional church is in trouble. Study after study continues to reveal the weakening faith of Christians and the failure of the church in its mission to make disciples of believers, much less this nation (Matthew 28.18-20). Christians demonstrate a shrinking commitment to the current church model. Among the principle factors are the lost sense of belonging to a true faith community. Followers of Jesus, hungry to know and grow in “the faith that was once for all time handed down to the saints” (Jude 3), no longer find that faith being taught; it has been replaced by every wind and wave of doctrine. Followers of Jesus, hungry to know and grow in life-giving relationships with other Christians are unable to find these relationships in their churches. Going Deep presents a real solution to both problems, an up-to-date expression of the Acts 2 church that will leave the reader wondering where he or she can find a church like this. Pastors, it will leave you dreaming of pastoring a church, a biblical church, like this.

• Lead – Paul David Tripp

From the publisher: The church is experiencing a leadership crisis.

What can we do to prevent pastors from leaving the ministry?

For every celebrity pastor exiting the ministry in the spotlight, there are many more lesser-known pastors leaving in the shadows. Pastor and best-selling author Paul David Tripp argues that lurking behind every pastoral failure is the lack of a strong leadership community. Tripp draws on his decades of ministry experience to give churches twelve gospel principles necessary to combat this leadership crisis. Each of these principles, built upon characteristics such as humility, dependency, and accountability, will enable new and experienced leaders alike to focus their attention on the ultimate leadership model: the Gospel.

• Love Thy Body – Nancy Pearcey

Note: Here are the publisher’s notes that Amazon and even some online Christian bookstores don’t post:

Why the call to love my body? To counter a pervasive hostility toward the body and biology that drives today’s headline stories.

• Transgenderism: activists detached gender from biological sex. Is this affirming or does it demean the body?

• Homosexuality: advocates disconnect sexuality from biological identity as male or female. Is this liberating or does it denigrate biology?

• Abortion: supporters say the fetus is not a person, though it is biologically human. Does this demean the quality for women or does it threaten the intrinsic value of all humans?

• Euthanasia: those who lack certain cognitive abilities are said to be human but not persons. Is this compassionate or does it ultimately put everyone at risk?

In Love Thy Body, bestselling author Nancy Pearcey goes beyond politically correct slogans with a riveting exposé of the dehumanizing worldview that shapes current watershed moral issues, arguing that a holistic Christian view sustains the dignity of the body and biology. Throughout the book, Pearcey entrances readers with compassionate stories of people wrestling with hard questions in their own lives – their pain, their struggles, their triumphs.

• Making Sense Out of Suffering – Peter Kreeft

From the publisher:

“God whispers in our pleasures but shouts in our pains. Pain is his megaphone to rouse a dulled world.”

C. S. Lewis

By the time you finish reading this book, many people will have died violent deaths, many others will have supper the ravages of a terminal illness, and thousands of innocent children I’ve been abused by their parents. And it is not only innocent children and others like them who suffer but also you and I. This book is for anyone who has ever wept and wondered, “Why?”

Peter Kreeft observes that our world is full of billions of normal lives which have been touched by apparently pointless and random suffering. He then records the results of his own wrestling match with God as he struggles to make sense out of his pain and suffering.

This account of a real and honest personal quest is both engaging and convincing. It delights as well as informs, much in the style of C.S. Lewis. Written from a deep well of wisdom derived from experience and careful observation, Making Sense Out of Suffering is a book for empty hearts, not full ones. Read it if you are hungry for insight into the mystery of suffering.

Note: The subject is an uncomfortable one for many. For a few, it is off-limits; they think they can live as if suffering is not real – ignoring it, it will go away. Only when heartache walks in the closed door of their lives do they realize that suffering is a human universal. Only then do they wish they were prepared. This book will help you prepare for your encounters with this unwelcome, but inevitable visitor. Far from a dooms-day approach, it promises the presence of God and hope in your trial. Please, read this one.

• Spiritual Mentoring – Keith R. Anderson and Randy D. Reese

From the publisher: Iron sharpens iron, and one person sharpens . . . another. (Prov. 27:17) As we seek God together we come to know him more deeply. That’s the idea behind Spiritual Mentoring.  Spiritual mentoring is an ages-old practice that Keith Anderson and Randy Reese introduce in a way that fits life as we know it today. Spiritual mentoring is not only for pastors or saints. Mentors are ordinary Christians who are willing to enter into a faith relationship with another person who wants to grow. Likewise, those who are mentored are not seminary candidates but simply followers of Jesus who long for guidance in their spiritual journey. In this book Anderson and Reese show you how to mentor and be mentored as they introduce, chapter by chapter, the work of a different classical spiritual writer . . . .

These writers offer timeless insights from centuries past, while Anderson and Reese help you put their teaching into practice today to grow closer to Jesus in the company of another believer. If you want to learn how to help younger Christians grow while stretching your own faith, or if you want to tap into the experience of a Christian friend who is farther along the road of faith, this is the book that will get you started.

Note: If you are a mentor, spiritual mentor, or pastoral coach, you need to read this book. Other books will walk you through the important actions of mentoring and coaching; this one will walk you through the heartbeats of them. Essential read.

• The Divine Conspiracy – Dallas Willard

From the publisher: A renowned teacher and writer of the acclaimed The Spirit of the Disciplines, Dallas Willard, one of today’s most brilliant question thinkers now offers a timely and challenging call back to the true meaning of Christian discipleship. In The Divine Conspiracy, Willard gracefully weaves biblical teaching, popular culture, science, scholarship, and spiritual practice into a tour de force that shows the necessity of profound changes in how we view our lives and faith.

In an era when many questions consider Jesus a beloved but remote Savior, Willard argues compellingly for the relevance of God to every aspect of our existence. Masterfully capturing the central insights of Christ’s teachings in a fresh way for today seekers, he helps us to explore a revolutionary way to experience God by knowing him as an essential part of the here and now, rather than only has a part of the hereafter.

“The most telling thing about the contemporary Christian,” Willard writes, “is that he or she has no compelling sense that understanding of and conformity with the clear teachings of Christ is of any vital importance to life, and certainly not that it is an any way essential. . . . Such obedience is regarded as just out of the question or impossible.” Christians, he says, for the most part consider the primary function of Christianity to be admittance to heaven. But, as Willard clearly shows, a faith that guarantees a satisfactory after life, yet has absolutely no impact on life in the here and now, it’s nothing more than “consumer Christianity” and “bumper sticker faith.”

Willard refused this fire escape mentality by exploring the true nature of the teachings of Jesus, who intended that his followers become his disciples, and taught that we have access now to the life we are only too eager to relegate to the hereafter. The author calls us into a more authentic faith and offers a practical plan by which we can become Christlike. He challenges us to step aside from the politics and pieties of contemporary Christian practice and inspires us to reject the all too common Luke warm faith of our times by embracing the true meaning of Christian discipleship.

Note: This is a classic on discipleship. The “Master Class for Life” mark is well-deserved.I’ve read it twice and refer often to it. Forget the “Five Classes and You’re a Discipleship” approach. This is a book you will sit and reflect over even more than you read its text. Would that more books read like this!

• The Gathering Storm – Albert Mohler

From the publisher: The president of Southern Seminary reveals how secularism has infiltrated every aspect of society and how Christians, equipped with the gospel of Jesus Christ, can meet it head on with hope, confidence, and steadfast conviction.

Western civilization and the Christian church stand at a moment of great danger. Facing them both is a hurricane-force battle of ideas that will determine the future of Western civilization and the soul of the Christian church. The forces arrayed against the West and the church are destructive ideologies, policies, and worldviews deeply established among intellectual elites, the political class, and our schools. More menacingly, these forces have also invaded the Christian church.

The perils faced by the West and the church are unprecedented:

1. threats to religious liberty
2. redefinitions of marriage and family
3. attacks on the sacredness and dignity of human life 

How should Christians respond to this multifaceted challenge?

Addressing each dimension of this challenge, The Gathering Storm provides answers and equips Christians both to give an answer for the hope that is within them and to contend for the faith that was once and for all delivered to the saints.

FINAL THOUGHT

As is always the case, the listing of a book above is not an endorsement of all of the ideas contained in its pages. This should not be surprising: the wise minister of the Gospel makes it a point to read outside of his echo chamber.

A minister who is afraid to read outside of his own predilections remains childish in his insistence that his world be preserved, while a minister who is willing to choose carefully and read critically, even outside of his personal tastes, remains a child in his passionate pursuit of God’s truth and its application.

In his book, Under the Unpredictable Plant, Eugene Peterson describes the result of this mindset. In his case, it was the people he pastored. How much sadder, and dangerous, it is when it describes those charged with handling the Word of God and watching over the souls of God’s people (Hebrews 13.17).

“The people who gathered to worship God under my leadership were rootless and cultureless. They were marginally Christian. They didn’t read books. They didn’t discuss ideas. All spirit seems to have leaked out of their lives and have been replaced by a garage sale clutter of clichés and the stereotypes, securities and fashions…It was a marshmallow culture, spongy and without substance.”

And so, to encourage – and challenge – you to quality reading in 2022, ten quotes on the value of reading. And thinking. All are from authors mentioned above. May these quotes stir you to grow in the knowledge of God’s Word, the knowing of God, and the wisdom of living God’s Word and Ways in this world:

1. “At its core, early Christianity was a religion concerned with books.” Andreas Köstenberger and Michael J. Kruger

2. “Those who read little other than the Bible do so to the detriment of themselves and to the diminishing of the radiant glory of God who is the fount of all knowledge and truth.” James Sire

3. “The newest books are those that never grow old.” Holbrook Jackson

4. “The fight to find time to read is a fight for one’s life.” D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

5. “If you want to stay alive to what is great and glorious and beautiful and eternal, you will have to fight for time to look through the eyes of others who were in touch with God.” John Piper, Brothers, We Are Not Professionals

6. “The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.” Mark Twain

7. “What we become depends on what we read after all of the professors have finished with us. The greatest university of all is a collection of books.” Thomas Carlyle

8. “The real purpose of books is to trap the mind into doing its own thinking.” Christopher Morley

9. “In my library I have profitably dwelt among the shining lights, with which the learned, wise, and holy men of all ages have illuminated the world.” Richard Baxter

10. “The failure to read good books both enfeebles the vision and strengthens our most fatal tendency – the belief that the here and now is all there is.” Allan Bloom

Be sure to read our 2020 Best Reads of the year article, available here.

Here’s to more great reading in 2022, should the Lord delay His coming.

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