Good Books

Here are a few books I/we have read and can heartily suggest to you–I will try to add to this list as I have time.The Bible - read it everyday.  If you only have time for one book, make it the Bible!

Again, this is a very short list of wonderful books.  I’ve left out a lot of favorites, simply because of a lack of time.

Jonathan Edwards: A New Biography by Iain Murray.  It was wonderful.  Iain Murray writes so engagingly, and Jonathan Edwards is a wonderful subject!  Being a biography, it includes details about much more than Edwards.  I learned a lot of history, church history, theology, etc.   I definitely want to try reading some of his writings.  I was hoping that reading this biography would help put Edwards in context for me, so I could better understand what he wrote. 

These are some recently read books we enjoyed and can highly recommend:

Modesty and the Public Undressing of America by Jeff Pollard is a balanced, non-legalistic book about modesty.  It includes an interesting history of the swimsuit!  It is also pretty short and easy to read. 

Ten P’s In A Pod by Arnold Pent III would be a great family read aloud.  The Pent family traveled around America sharing the gospel and encouraging families to read the Bible together.  This is their story.  We loved it and were challenged by it.

Safely Home by Tom Eldredge talks about the history of education and tries to answer the question of what a Biblical/Christian education looks like. 

Assumptions That Affect Our Lives by Christian Overman goes through the history of Greek thought and philosophy and shows how we in the western world are still influenced by a Greek mentality today.  He challenges us to think biblically instead.  Life-changing!

 Shepherding a Child’s Heart by Tedd Tripp rescued us from a sea of confusion when Matthew was a toddler.  We knew we were supposed to train and discipline, but we didn’t know how.  This book presents a loving, biblical approach to discipline, and it strengthened our resolve raise our children in the instruction of the Lord.

Raising Godly Tomatoes by Elizabeth Krueger

Raising Godly Tomatoes is especially great if you have young children, but is also applicable to older ones. The author is a mom of 10 children and her older ones are all serving the Lord. Her approach is to practically apply biblical instruction to the training of young children, and she looks at how God as our Father interacts with us and how that can instruct us as parents in the raising of our own children. She does believe in spanking, but also says that training should be an important part of raising children and that the more you train the less you have to spank.

Her advice has helped us immensely with our babies and toddlers, and has made it possible to enjoy them because they generally obey. A few other good books are Shepherding a Child’s Heart by Tedd Tripp, Don’t Make Me Count to Three by Ginger Plowman and The Duties of Parents by JC Ryle.

Love That Lasts by Gary and Betsy Ricucci is so much better than all the other marriage books we’ve ever read.  The priniciples presented are biblical, rather than psychological, and the focus is on God’s glory in our marriages rather than on our personal fulfillment.  Of course, God being glorified does bring us pleasure too.  This is a God-centered rather than man-centered look at marriage.