Tim’s Top Ten Books
Stuff You Ought to Consider Reading
When I was in second grade, I was held back another year because I couldn’t read. It was a shattering experience. All my friends had moved on while I was stigmatized as being “dumb.” By fourth grade, I still wasn’t a reader. I remember visiting the school library to select stories, such as the Cowboy Sam series, by Edna Walker Chandler. They were the first sizable books I read. In another aspect, I picked up on words—spoken words. In my fourth-grade world, I picked up on the word “ethnocentrism.” There’s an anecdotal story tied to this word, which I share in my new book: 100+ Words I’ve Not Lived Without. (see below) I quickly moved on from Cowboy Sam to the series of Alfred Hitchcock and The Three Investigators.
In Junior High, it was mandatory to read books such as: When the Legends Die, Animal Farm, Lord of the Flies, The Scarlet Letter, and The Outsiders. Earlier, my parents read to us. Thus, a love of books existed in our home. By the time of ninth grade, I was supplementing the educational system’s litany of tripe with stuff like John A. Stormer’s—None Dare Call It Treason, or A. Ralph Epperson’s—The Unseen Hand. While my contemporaries were losing themselves in the banality of Stephen King, I was bending my mind around subjects of greater consequence.
I’ve continued reading over the years, though admittedly, I’m not reading nearly as many books these days. Vision has become a hassle. I’ve discovered audiobooks, which in some cases are engaging.
I want to share one of my “Top Ten” lists. It’s a way of opening up, biographically speaking. It is also practical for others to find out how or why certain books have been impactful in my life. I hope you will consider these 10 books as they have proven to be the most substantive I’ve ever laid eyes upon—next to the Scriptures.
Number One: —The Reformers and Their Step-Children
—Having grown up in the shadow of A.W. Tozer, I was in an environment of deep religious thought already. However, when I read The Reformers and Their Step-Children, it was as if I had been knocked into another universe. I couldn’t buy this title at the “Christian Bookstore”—even though it was published by Eerdmans. I read this book, which was recommended by two mentors: Jon Zens and Winkie Pratney. Reformers—along with The Pilgrim Church by E.H. Broadbent—provided me with an understanding of an era in church history few seem to know. Leonard Verduin, a Dutch Reformed minister, struck upon this content in his own spiritual journey. He discovered dissident faith—something which has proven more dynamic than anything in the progeny of the Protestant magisterial Reformation. The groups that Verduin highlights paid an insane price to stand and articulate what they lived. Between 6,500 and 10,000 of these brethren were summarily hunted, tortured, and murdered—not just by Catholics—between 1527 and 1649. John Calvin, Ulrich Zwingli, and Philip Melanchthon, along with countless of their henchmen, brutally liquidated these other people. Verduin gives primary source content that would set any serious follower of Jesus on fire. If you haven’t read this book, even if you’ve a Master of Theology or Doctor of Ministry—not to be unkind—but your education is incomplete.
Number Two: —The Labyrinth of the World -and- The Paradise of the Heart
—In a word, this book is jaw-dropping! I first read this title in the early 2000s. E.H. Broadbent’s book, The Pilgrim Church, mentions that J.A. Comenius wrote a Christian allegory. I’m a sucker for allegories, so I couldn’t not look into this one. I first got it through interlibrary loan. I devoured this thing like it were chocolate cake. I’d grown up reading Pilgrim’s Progress. I always felt it fed an escapism from the world within Christian culture. However, Labyrinth of the World depicts living within the nasty now and now. Comenius’ allegory is a story. But is Comenius a story himself. Labyrinth of the World predates Pilgrim’s Progress by 55 years. In all likelihood, had Labyrinth not been written, Pilgrim’s Progress may never have existed. Labyrinth features a main character, Pilgrim, along with a diverse cast of personalities, each with character traits for their names. Two antagonists—one of whom is a carbon copy of John Bunyan’s Mr. Worldly Wiseman. Labyrinth also features a tour through the world, a salvation message, and is told in two parts, all features that are reflected in Pilgrim’s Progress. Isn’t that coincidental? Labyrinth is incredibly contemporary. Comenius appears to understand people timelessly, and his message is as relevant today as it was then. I was so impressed with this title that in 2021, I adapted a new edition from three of the last four translations to make it more approachable to the average reader: see here. Labyrinth is one book every follower of Christ ought to read.
Number Three: — Hearing God
—In 1988, Peter Lord, pastor of Park Avenue Church in Titusville, Florida, published Hearing God. Having grown up in a semi-Charismatic background, I was wary of anyone saying that “they heard from God.” The next thing you know, they would lay on you some heavy detail that was more self-indulgent than necessary. Lord’s book is deeply personal about how we can learn to hear God in our everyday life, applying scripture to guide us and protect us, among other things. This intensely personal journey of hearing God is about developing a relationship with Him on the journey He has planned for you. Thirty-seven years later, this title continues to sell briskly. Lord shows how God always intended to speak with us. He wasn’t muzzled by a completed book. For sure, Charismatics have made a mess in this area. They've provided much reason for cessationists to gag God or poo-poo the notion that we can hear from God; and flippantly asking if He communicates through a Charlton Heston voice… Lord shares personal stories and recounts how God has guided his family. Lord demonstrates that hearing God is not a delusion. Nor is it something that can be achieved if we aren’t looking to Him to do it. I heard Lord speak several times on this subject. It is clear, Lord was a practitioner not a religious theorist. If you don’t know God’s clear and gentle voice, you likely don’t have a relationship with Him, and might be working at trying to save yourself. This is a practical book.
Number Four: — Hope in a Time of Abandonment
—One of my favorite authors is Jacques Ellul. This book, I read much later than most of the other titles of his I’ve studied. Hope In A Time of Abandonment considers how our hurriedness prevents God from revealing Himself. How God must allow our busyness to find its uselessness so that we might be still and listen. God waits for us to see our need. This book is a reflective read, perhaps contemplative. Ellul posits that God makes Himself scarce so that we might pursue Him. God allows the doors, options, and solutions to dry up so that we might see our need. Ellul’s thoughts are haunting. Take the following quote as one example among many that I extracted from this book.
“When man is not made hopeless by God’s silence, it is because he man has destroyed his awareness, to the point of wanting nothing better than to be identified instead of identifiable.”
Ellul’s ideas are not just profound. They are also remarkably relevant to a modern world. He serves as a kind of prophet, delivering hard truths to a world and religious community that prefers comfort, indulgence, and to be spoon-fed. I appreciate his incisive thoughts and his exactitude in calling out the superficiality that often pervades our religious discourse.
Number Five: — The False Presence of the Kingdom
—When an author seeks to illuminate a subject, they usually don’t start in the negative: —what something is not. Yet, in this stand-alone volume, that is precisely where Jacques Ellul goes. Five years prior, he wrote the converse to this title, which I also read.
In The False Presence of the Kingdom Ellul contends that the kingdom of God is being conflated with a political agenda, but is co-opted by it. His view is prescient. We’ve seen—since this book—that billions of dollars have been flushed down the toilet of politics in the behest of “bringing America back to God” or whatever it is that Conservatives and New Apostolic Reformation types think they are achieving.
“The whole Bible tells us that these people in the world are enslaved by the world. They belong to it. They are slaves of the political, economic, and intellectual forces. The Church is there to proclaim and to bring them freedom. But if she is an agent of those forces, and shares in them herself, she cannot be for people at all.”
—Ellul pulls no punches. I’ve gleaned about 15 quotes, such as the one above. Ellul wasn’t an isolationist. However, he was acutely aware that Jesus can’t be draped in a flag or twisted by a political party, but what His message is made useless. This book is a pungent read.
Number Six: — The Divine Conspiracy
—I remember picking this title up at Barnes & Noble. Christian bookstores had long since stopped carrying books of gravitas. Its size was detractional for me. But I was drawn in because discipleship took a sharper definition. The adage “spiritual formation” was taking shape in religious circles. Yet, Dallas Willard’s approach seemed deeper than most others using this verbiage. His work addresses the problem: How do we become more like Christ? Willard’s style is similar to Jacques Ellul’s, but not as tart. The Divine Conspiracy was another quote harvest for me.
“New Testament passages make plain that this kingdom is not something to be ‘accepted’ now and enjoyed later, but something to be entered now.”
At the core of Willard’s teachings is the belief that the kingdom of God is not a distant future, but a present reality. Discipleship, he argues, is not a mere religious self-improvement program, but a transformative journey into becoming the alternative to the world’s systems. This hopeful message encourages us to see discipleship not as a burden, but as a path to a more fulfilling life. This is a radical departure from the traditional views of Luther’s Magisterial Reformation. Willard’s book is approachable, despite its thickness. You’ll not be sorry you embarked upon it.
Number Seven: — Resident Aliens
—Stanley Hauerwas is another firebrand I enjoyed reading. He also avoided the typical false dichotomy of left-right theological ideals. As the title suggests, Hauerwas was writing about being present to the world, but as if from the perspective of aliens—a metaphor used to describe detachment from belonging to be an otherness within a context of fellow citizens. This understanding runs 180 degrees opposite of nearly 1700 years of religious indoctrination. The church has always focused on being “the establishment.” Hauerwas reminds us of Christ’s teaching and Paul’s. The verse about “aliens, and strangers, sojourners” and the like weren’t accidental or loose comments. These fell into a much larger collection of New Testament passages. The religious community is allergic to influencing society through doing what God wants. They much prefer various forms of domination and manipulation through the agency of politics. Hauerwas calls for a more holistic, first-person approach to truth in an environment of degradation. His view is similar to that of 16th-century Anabaptists, which is odd because his tradition is completely unconnected from theirs. This book is a serious call for the application of the New Testament.
Number Eight: —The Presence of the Kingdom
—We’ve already visited Jacques Ellul and his inverse discussion about the kingdom of God. The Presence of the Kingdom is just as good. First published in 1948, Ellul launches into a call for radical presence in the world, but as an outsider. If a sinking boat is to be helped, it will be from the outside. This book also provided many quotes that were databased, such as:
“In consequence of the claims which God is always making on the world, the Christian finds himself, by that very fact, involved in a state of permanent revolution. Even when institutions, the laws, the reforms which He has advocated have been achieved, even if society be re-organized according to His suggestions, the believer still has to be in opposition, he still must exact more, for the claim of God is as infinite as His forgiveness.”
For 1948, and for Europe just emerging from the rubble of WW 2, along with liberal theologians wanting to sit around and wonder what had just happened, Ellul is a clarion voice of substance and vitality to the paralysis of analysis in Christianity. The gospel of the kingdom is first transformative for the believer, and then the believer ventures out into the world’s culture to set it ablaze, because it can’t achieve what is seen in the follower of Christ. What a contemporary message that is more applicable today.
Number Nine: —The Waldensian Dissent: Persecution and Survival
—Usually, when you read a subject, you might think the author behind the material is receptive to whom they’re writing about. However, French historian and academic Gabriel Audisio is—not—that figure. First, he was Catholic, but then he was an academic historian. He admits that he wasn’t enraptured with the Waldensians. However, it is clear he was impressed by them, and who wouldn’t be? The Waldensians were a dissident Christian faith group originating from Lyons, France. They were summarily cast from the Catholic church in AD 1184 for translating the bible into the mother tongue of the people. That’s 310 years before William Tyndale was a glint in his father’s eye! While there are exceptionally few documents written by the hand of a Waldensian. Their inquisitors tell their story for them. Between 1184 and 1215, Catholic hate went from expulsion as “heretics” to a full-court press—hunt and kill operation. This book illustrates how Waldensians thrived during the 350-year inquisition against them. Their resilience is without question. Their conviction is unequaled for another 400 years. Martin Luther was initially dismissive of them. However, later in his life, he recognized their colossal significance to true faith by saying, “We are all Waldensian.” Catholic inquisitors noted their smallness, but power, by saying, “There is not a region in the known world that isn’t impacted by them.” They were quasi-Calvinist in perspective. They were laypeople, much like 16th-century Anabaptists. You ought not miss this diamond. Even though this book is published by Cambridge Textbooks, it is incredibly approachable.
Number Ten: —Reformation in Foreign Missions
—You might think Reformation in Foreign Missions is “low-level,” and why the ardor? The prevailing thought concerning missionary work is about as antique as the use of leeches in medicine. It’s not that the need for missionary work is unnecessary. It’s that the systems and approach are so antique and unnecessary that current agencies are more of a self-feeding third wheel. They are blood sucking bureaucratic systems that fleece both the supported and supporters. The reason I know this to be valid is that in 2000, our family entered into missions work and where “YWAMed” by the missionary group Youth With A Mission. This book gave me hope that someone understood the corruption of mission agencies. Not only this, but Bob Findley, the author, shares a resoundingly impactful technique in cross-cultural work where anyone never needs to leave their backyard—until relationships open the door. Before we left for YWAM, we’d been involved with his ideas quite successfully, I might add. But, church “think” being what it is about “missionary work” we were tempted to become involved with the antique way. This book is not just encouraging, empowering, and approachable. It’s also enlightening, as it critiques traditional missionary systems and raises awareness of the need for change. You can be a missionary right now as commanded in Matthew 28:19-20.
Conclusion:
I don’t mean to be long in these posts—just meaty. I hope these titles make you salivate. You are what you read. May the tribe of substantive readers grow! I would like to encourage you to share your top ten books in the comment section. Share why they are essential to you. Your contribution helps make community and raise the bar. More top-ten features will come.
Timothy, thank you for these suggestions. I already have two of the ten (both by Ellul) and just ordered “The Labyrinth of the World and The Paradise of the Heart”. Right now I am reading “the Judgment of Jonah” by Jacques Ellul. If you haven’t read it I recommend it.