Top Books I recommend from 2016

I reviewed over a hundred titles on our blog in 2016.  So here’s the top books from that list.  My categories is as follows: Best Book on the Bible, Best book on Theology, Best book on Apologetics, Best Practical Christian book, Best General Non-Fiction, Best Comic Book and Best Audio Book.  Each category has a link to my original review.

Best Book on the Bible

The Flow of the Psalms by O. Palmer Robertson

This was the best book I’ve ever read on the organization of the Psalms and how it contributes to our interpretation of it.  This is years of serious research and reflection on the Psalms.  I believe it would be a resource I would use as a reference for a long time and perhaps worth reading more than once!

Purchase: Westminster | Amazon

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Pre-Rose Parade Evangelism Report: Discussion with a Pantheist who attacked Christianity

I am all wired up from evangelizing on the Rose Parade route tonight, its something the folks at my church have been doing for almost 10 years now.  People camp outside and we just set up a table to engage in evangelistic conversation.  Believe it or not there are still people who are willing to stop and listen and hear the Gospel.  We need to pray for those opportunities and present the Gospel clearly and faithfully with both passion and compassion.

Contrary to the theme of the blog, in my evangelism these days I rarely go on apologetics’ rabbit trail when I share the Gospel.  Most of the time I focus on the Gospel being understood by the person I’m talking to.  I am a Presuppositionalist in my apologetics but I think even some within my own camp of apologetics can forget the self-evidencing power of the Gospel.

Tonight I did have someone looking for trouble that came to our evangelism table.  In person, I can tolerate quite a bit of personal attacks on myself; but I have a harder time when someone attack one of my brothers or sisters in the faith who was trying to honestly and humbly share the Gospel to the individual.  Something just irks me.  Most of the time I find that a gentle answer does turn away a lot of wrath but once in a while you have a young hammerhead that just wants to bully Christians.  They assume gentleness is a sign of weakness.  They just love to belittle Christians and show themselves to be morally and intellectually superior than those who are talking to them.  Pharisees are non-denominational and exists in many worldview camps.  So when a Christian brother gets picked on I just have to have to enter the conversation.

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