I know my Trinitarian formulations back and forth, and I get a geeky thrill thinking about how to accurately express truths about God as Trinity. It's the same sort of rush I used to get from solving long algebra equations. It is important to get our trinitarian formulations right, but the Trinity is so much more than formulations. According to Mike Reeves, the Trinity is what makes God delightful; it's what makes him good and loving and desirable.

Delighting in the Trinity consists of five chapters, each showing how the Trinity makes our God more beautiful than a single person God would be. The God who is Trinity is considered as he exists in eternity, in his work in creation, in his work in salvation, and as he works in the life of the believer. Then, in the last chapter, Reeves considers what he calls the "words we use to describe God," specifically examining God's holiness, wrath, and glory and how the triune being of God "brightens and defines them."

Michael Reeves' passion for the doctrine of the Trinity comes through on every page of this book, so it is a joy to read. It's obvious that for him, the doctrine of the Trinity is not dry, irrelevant, or embarrassing, but the central truth of Christianity, "the truth that shapes and beautifies all others." His enthusiasm is contagious; if you read Delighting in the Trinity and it doesn't make you more passionate about the Trinity, you might be dead.

This is a short book, conversationally written, so I can recommend it for almost any Christian. Reeves doesn't assume that the reader has a background in Trinitarian theology, so it is an excellent choice for a student or new believer. And his passion for the subject makes it a good choice even for those who consider themselves well-studied in the faith. None of us are beyond more delight in the Trinity.

I have two small peeves: the humour--it was mostly fun, but sometimes a bit annoying; and the structure--the text occasionally seemed disorganized. I have a hunch both of these things are there because the book is written with students in mind, so I wouldn't ask that anything be changed. I mention them only to warn other uptight sourpusses not to be put off by them. Keep reading; you'll be glad you did.

The sermon that changed my life was one explaining the doctrine of penal substitution. I was a little girl, listening to words and seeing the face of Jesus on the cross, dying in my place, suffering the wrath of God that should have been mine on account of my own sin. This is the picture that captured my heart and turned me into a Christian.

That Christ's death on the cross was a penal substitutionary atonement might be the most precious truth I know. When this doctrine is mocked, belittled, or questioned, it breaks my heart; first, for Jesus' honor, stolen from him; and second, for the one who scoffs or doubts. What must it be to not see glory in Christ's penal subsitutionary death on the cross?

It was in Bible college that I first knew someone who claimed to be a believer but challenged the doctrine of penal substitution. Then, I saw it as honest questioning, a quest to find the real truth of the cross taught in the Bible. Looking back, I'm more cynical; I see the objections as disguised distaste for God's truth. Later, in my Christian discussion board days, I saw young men join up with one purpose: to open threads titled "Jesus Did Not PAY for Your Sin!!!!" (or something similar) so they could argue/rail against a penal substitutionary atonement. Right now, I know people who have read books by doubting troublemakers and are confused, questioning, and maybe even rebelling against this doctrine.

Among the books I am reading, there is almost always one on Christ's death, first, because it's a subject I love, but also because I want to be able to explain and defend it as all that it is. I want to be able to make a better case now than I did back in Bible college and on the discussion boards, so when Pierced for Our Transgressions came out a few years ago, I bought it and started to read. But it's the kind of book that takes determined focus and I had to set it aside. This spring I took it up again.

This book is divided into two parts. The first "sets out the positive case for penal substitution," showing us the biblical evidence for it, the theological framework undergirding it, its pastoral importance, and its place in church history. Explaining the theological framework is especially significant, I think, because objections to penal substitution are often not primarily scriptural, historical, or even pastoral, but theological (like the legal fiction objection, for instance, or the universal salvation objection). Without the proper theological foundation, penal substitution won't make much sense, and the majority of objections to it grow out of theological systems that clash with it.

The second part of Pierced for Our Transgressions contains responses to specific arguments made against the doctrine of penal substitution. The authors "outline every objection we have been able to find... and respond to each in turn." I enjoyed this part because I love analyzing arguments and responding to them. You may or may not enjoy it as much as I do, but either way, this section will be a valuable reference when you run into one of the arguments in a book or article--or maybe even from a real person.

What surprised me about the objections to penal substitution was how often they came from misunderstandings or mischaracterizations of the doctrine. This may be because it has been explained poorly (I've heard incomplete explanations that could give false impressions.) or, more likely, because it's downright difficult to see a doctrine with clear eyes when you don't like it much in the first place.

If your obligations force you to be choosy about the books you read, put this on your reading list anyway. If you are a believer, Christ's death in your place is the object of your faith, whether you understood it fully when you first believed or not. Christ's penal substitutionary death is the grounds for the big "Yes" to all the promises of God that you enjoy. It's the center, the heart, the hinge of your spiritual life. Pierced for Our Transgressions will help you learn it, love it and thank God for it.

If I were to sum up the message of The World-Tilting Gospel in one sentence, I'd say it explains what it REALLY means to be a Christian. That this task takes 300 pages is a measure, I suppose, of how wrong we've got it--and by we've, I'm referring to present-day evangelicals.

Too often, says Phillips, modern evangelicals don't have a biblical worldview. We can't give a proper explanation of what the gospel is and why it's needed, and it's bad teaching that stands in the way.

So what's the solution?

"The greatest need of the church today is a strategic, full-orbed, robust, biblical grasp of the Gospel fo Jesus Christ and its transformative implications. We don't need more glitz or glamour, better marketing or programs, snazzier decor or entertainment. We do need a whole-Bible grasp of the Gospel."

That's what The World-Tilting Gospel gives us: the whole-Bible Gospel in an energetic, easy-to-understand, earnest-but-never-preachy style.

There's nothing more important or profound than what this book unfolds for us. The first part is about us and our big problem. As it turns out, our big problem is us. When it comes to our spiritual condition, we are dead. In other words, we "don't and can't help ourselves." Outside help is our only hope.

That brings us to the second part, which explains who God is and what he has done for us. God rescued His people through his plan and Christ's work, and we contribute nothing.

But how do we get in? How is it that this work of salvation comes to me? The third part explains that it's through saving faith--faith that is itself given to us by God--that "God counts us eternally and perfectly righteous with Christ's own righteousness. We stand before him by grace alone, on the firmest of foundations."

What's more, God's work of salvation transforms our lives (Part Four). This transformation is the work of the Holy Spirit. Yes, it is a miraculous change, but it also involves struggle and discipline and work on our part, work done through the enabling power of the Holy Spirit.

That just a brief summary of The World-Tilting Gospel. There's so much more; it's got the whole story. I suspect it was written with newish believers and young Christians in mind, and it's perfect for them, but it would also be good for almost anyone as a reminder of the unabridged Gospel.

18 Words a collection of essays on keywords from the Bible, words like scripture, the devil, reconciliation, and holiness. That descriptions makes it sound like a book of word studies, but it isn't quite, at least not in the way we usually think of word studies. Rather, 18 Words looks at biblical words not as mere words, but as pointers to biblical themes with the purpose of "spelling out the gospel which is the Bible's central message." It's one way, and an effective one, to get at the core of true Christianity.

I'd not heard of this book, not as God's Words or 18 Words, before I saw it at Amazon and decided to order it.1 It isn't as well-known as Packer's classic Knowing God and that's too bad, because it's similar in quality, style and value, full of sentences and paragraphs to underline, or quotes and clever phrases to remember. Now that I think about it, I'd say it would make a perfect companion for Knowing God, with Knowing God expounding who God is, and 18 Words explaining the biblical themes that ultimately point us to Christ. Together they'd make an excellent two volume Christian Doctrine 101.

The Promised One is intended for use in a study for group of women. It's purpose is to help us see pointers to Christ in Genesis, the first book of the Old Testament. 'You search the Scriptures,' Jesus said to the Jewish religious leaders, 'but the Scriptures point to me!' He was, of course, referring to our Old Testament. So we should expect to see Jesus in Genesis, and this study was written to help us do that.

Guthrie's goal is an important one. The Jewish leaders missed the Messiah because they did not see that Scripture was pointing them to a redeemer who would suffer. They were familiar with Scripture, but failed to see the big picture. We don't want to be like them, and yet, too many of us read the Bible piecemeal (if we read it at all), and don't have a good grasp of the whole storyline.

Included in The Promised One are ten studies made up of three parts each. First, each study has a workbook section with questions on the section's passage to be filled out by each participant in preparation for the group study. Then there is a teaching chapter to explain and apply the passage, including, at the end, a few paragraphs that show us how the themes in the passage that point us to Christ will be fulfilled completely at his second coming, when all the threads that begin in Genesis are tied up into a perfect whole cloth. Finally, there is a discussion guide with questions for use in group discussion.

I've not used this book in group study, but I have worked through each section, filling out the questions, reading the teaching chapter, and thinking about the discussion questions. I asked myself, as I worked through it all, how it would work in a group of the women I know.

As I worked through The Promised One, I saw more of Jesus in Genesis than I'd seen before, more of the patterns that begin at the beginning and are eventually fulfilled in Christ. For instance, I saw the story of the tower of Babel as an explanation for the diverse people groups that fill the earth, which it is, but I'd never thought of it as a parallel (or reverse parallel, really) for Pentecost, when people from all different nations heard the gospel in his own language. What's more, it's a reverse parallel for the what happens in the consummation, when there will be the 'great multitude that no one can number, from every nation ' crying out with [one] 'voice'.' These two events, Pentecost and the great multitude of every nation, come only through the redemption accomplished by Jesus. In this way, even Babel points to Jesus, whose work reverses the results of the dispersion that happened there. Jesus makes the many nations into one when he makes one people from every tribe, people and language.

I'm sure almost anyone who takes the time to do this study will become aware of more ways in which Jesus fulfills the patterns set first in Genesis. No one who wants to learn is going to do this study and come away saying, 'Ho-hum. More of the same old stuff.'

This brings us to a potential problem with using this book in a study for a group of women. It took me about two hours to work through each of the lessons. I love that this study expects women to work hard to discover what God's word is teaching us; however, I know many women who either couldn't or wouldn't spend that much time each week preparing for a Bible study. A group could, as Guthrie suggests, divide each lesson into two parts and take two weeks on it, working through the personal study questions together the first week, and doing the rest of the lesson the second week. If I were leading a study using this book, this is the way I'd approach things, but that makes it a twenty-week study rather than ten, something you'd want to plan before you began. And even at the slower pace, there are women who would find the study difficult, so if you are thinking of using this study for a particular group of women, you will want to work through some of it first to gauge whether it will suit them.

There are other changes I would make if I were using this book for a study group. Some of the discussion questions seemed pointless to me, like the one in the section on Abraham that asks the participants about the pros and cons of either continuing to live near family or moving away to make a new life elsewhere. It may be that these kinds of questions are included to try to get everyone involved in the discussion, but I'd skip sidetracking questions. There are places, too, where I found the connections between the Genesis story and Jesus to be strained, or where things are taught (mostly minor) that I disagree with.

These are all small things, the kind of issues I'd expect to have with any Bible study manual, and they don't take away from the value of The Promised One. There is nothing else like it, as far as I know'no other study set up to help woman see the big story of the Bible, to help them recognize that the Old Testament is always pointing forward to the coming of our Saviour.

Nancy Guthrie has at least one more study like this in the works, one on seeing Jesus in the Old Testament's wisdom literature, and a whole series of studies is planned. I am very pleased that we will eventually have a set of resources like this, because we need them.

I decided to read Counted Righteous in Christ because Piper refers to it repeatedly in the footnotes of his more recent book, The Future of Justification, particularly when he is giving biblical support for the doctrine of the imputation of Christ's righteousness by exegeting relevant passages. Since imputed righteousness is one of my favorite subjects, how could I not check this book out?

While the arguments in it are aimed at all challenges to the doctrine of imputation, this book is a specific response to arguments made by Robert Gundry, because Piper considers him to be 'one of the most courageous and straightforward and explicit and clearheaded' of those who challenge the traditional doctrine. Besides, it was two articles Gundry wrote for Books and Culture in 2001 that served as impetus for Piper to tackle this issue.

Gundry believes that God decided to count our own faith as our righteousness. There is no such thing as positive imputation of Christ's righteousness to those who believe. And justification, according to Gundry, includes freeing the believer from 'sin's mastery,' something that has traditionally been called sanctification and kept distinct from justification.

The middle section and greatest part of this short book (66 of 125 pages) contains Piper's exegetical basis for the traditional Protestant view that justification includes the imputation of Christ's righteousness to the believer, and that it is not faith that is counted as as our righteousness. This bit is difficult reading. I had to work to follow the arguments, and there are sections I've marked to go over yet again. It was, however, worth the effort, because Piper builds what is, in the end, an airtight case for the historical Protestant view of justification as the biblical one.

That's good news for me. My faith is unreliable and a pretty wobbly at times, and if it serves (along with Christ's death, of course) as grounds for my justification, how can I be assured of my justification? Christ's righteousness, on the other hand, is rock solid, and anything based on it is certain. As Piper writes, 'the full meaning of justification, as pardon and imputed perfection, has proved to be a mighty antidote to despair for the saints.'

But more than that, writes Piper, the historical Protestant doctrine of imputed righteousness "bestows on Jesus Christ the fullest honor that he deserves. Not only should he be honored as the one died to pardon us, and not only should he be honored as the one who sovereignly works faith and obedience in us, but he should also be honored as the one who provided a perfect righteousness for us as the ground of our full acceptance and endorsement by God."

Counted Righteous in Christ is an important book, one you'll want to read if you're interested in the doctrine of justification, and especially if you've been bothered by the attacks by some evangelical teachers on the doctrine of the imputation of Christ's righteousness to the believer. Be prepared to take the time to study carefully the 66 pages of scriptural exegesis.

This is another book in the excellent 40 Question Series edited by Benjamin Merkle and published by Kregel Academic & Professional. This time round, the subject is biblical law--a tricky subject, if you ask me.

According to Tom Schreiner, it's also an important one, because the way we put the whole Bible together depends on our understanding of the law. What's more, ,those who study the law can better evaluate the theological systems. In addition, the law relates to justification, so how we understand the law affects how we understand salvation. And last, those who want to please God need to understand how the law relates to them as believers.

To work through these issues Schreiner answers questions about:

--The Law in the Old Testament
--The Law in Paul (This section makes up over half the book, because "Paul's theology of the law is the most crucial in determining one's view of the law canonically....")
--The Law in the Gospels and Acts
--The Law in the General Epistles
--The Law and Contemporary Issues

Schreiner is not a typical Covenant Theologian when it comes to his view of the law. He argues that while the categories of civil, ceremonial and moral law may be useful in some ways, the scripture doesn't divide the law this way, and sometimes exact distinctions are difficult to make. He disagrees with the common view that the ceremonial and civil law have been done away with in Christ, while the moral law remains binding, teaching instead that the whole Mosaic law is no longer in force since the coming of Christ. Some readers will disagree with Schreiner on this point, but you'll still want to read his careful scriptural reasoning and consider it. He's spent a long time building a theology of the law and it shows.

While it's true that, as the preface says, this is not a technical book, it's not exactly an easy read either. Difficult subjects take work and it took work for me to make my way through 40 Questions About Christians and Biblical Law. Unlike 40 Questions About Interpreting Scripture which I recommended for almost any believer including teens with questions, this book was written with "pastors, students, and laypeople who have an interest in biblical theology and the Scriptures" in mind.

In Saving Leonardo, Nancy Pearcey evaluates secular worldviews on the basis of the fact/value dualism at their core, and shows it is a Christian worldview that successfully integrates the two. (If you've read Pearcey's previous book, Total Truth, you have a head start by already knowing what the fact/value split is.) Her purpose is for the reader to "learn to recognize and resist secular ideas in science, philosophy, ethics, the arts and humanities." She seeks to accomplish this by examining "the concepts and events, the thinkers and artists who led the way step by step in creating worldviews that undermine human dignity and liberty. And we will demonstrate that the only hope lies in a worldview that is rationally defensible, life affirming, and rooted in creation itself."

There are two parts to Saving Leonardo: Part 1, which describes how growing global secularization affects everyone everywhere, and Part 2 (the bulk and meat of the book), which following the advance of secularization in history, tracing the two threads of secularism--the Enlightenment thread, focusing on "the fact realm"; and the Romanticism thread, focusing on "the values realm"--especially as they influence the arts and culture.

Finally, there's the epilogue, in which Pearcey urges Christians to become involved in culture in a thoughtful way--to fulfill our cultural mandate. "Christian art," writes Pearcey "should grow out of the robust confidence that nothing is unredeemable--that Jesus himself entered into the darkest levels of human experience and transformed them into sources of life and renewal. A full-orbed work of Christian art should include all three elements of the biblical worldview: creation, fall, redemption. It should allude to the beauty and dignity of the original creation. But it should also be transparently honest about the reality of sin and suffering. Finally, it should always give hints of redemption. No matter how degraded or corrupt a character may be, he or she should be portrayed with the dignity of being redeemable. Some ray of hope should penetrate the darkness."

The epilogue also contains a discussion of the use of ghost-writers in the Christian publishing business. This is one of my pet issues, because I know that this happens more often than the most readers realize and it just isn't right. I'm delighted, then, to see this addressed as the unethical practice it is: "When Christians accept such exploitive practices, they are broadcasting to the world that they do not value creative or intellectual work, no matter what they may say."

Summing up, let me say first that Saving Leonardo is pretty to look at and engaging to read. It's made me curious to know more about the history and philosophy of artistic expression. I understand, too, that it's important to learn to recognize and resist secularism and I'm thinking that reading this book is, at the very least, a good start to that.

A couple of months ago I listened to a lecture by D. A. Carson and heard him recommend this book, so when I was making my January reading list, I added it. The brief comment by Carson didn't tell me much about the content of Marks of the Messenger, so I began reading not knowing exactly what to expect.

What I found was a book focused on developing believers with a mindset for evangelism, or growing Christians with heart for the gospel. I'd half-expected a "how to evangelize" book, which tend to leave me feeling guilty and paralyzed; but instead, this little book is all about knowing, loving and valuing the true gospel so that the gospel soaks into and out from our lives.

In the process, Stiles corrects some of the common misconceptions about the gospel. He tackles issues like pragmatism in evangelism, legalism, easy-believism, assuming the gospel, making social issues more important than the gospel, and more.

One of the strengths of Marks of the Messenger is it's format. It's short; it's chapters are short; and it's very easy to read. The style is conversational and each chapter starts with a story. After church on Sunday I was talking to someone who was also reading this book (on a Kindle--and this is a perfect book for your Kindle), and he said it was almost "light reading," and that's exactly right. But he also called it "deep," and that's right, too. You could hand this book out indiscriminately to believers (not a bad idea) and know it would be appropriate for all of them.

In Marks of the Messenger, J. Mack Stiles helps us identify the gospel and put it in its rightful place in our lives and in our world. This book will help the believer be emboldened by the gospel in order to share the gospel, and that's an excellent thing. For that reason especially, it gets my seal of approval.

Robert Plummer wrote this book with a college or seminary Bible course in mind. "Ideally," he writes, "it would serve as a textbook..." but would also "be beneficial to any curious Christian." His goal "was to be accessible without being simplistic and scholarly without being pedantic, while always keeping an eye to practical questions and real-life application by the Christian reader." He succeeds, I'd say. I don't know of any other introductory book on interpreting scripture that would be as useful for any Christian who desires to better understand the Bible as 40 Questions About Interpreting the Bible.

40 Questions has 326 pages, which might sound long, but it's made up of 40 short stand-alone chapters. It'd be perfectly fine for you to look at the list of questions and jump right in to those that interest you most and skip (but hopefully not forever) those you're less interested in. And there are plenty of charts and lists to keep things uncomplicated and enough humour and stories to keep things unstuffy. (I started reading it while traveling and its format is perfect for that.)

The book is divided into four sections. The questions in Part 1 concern the text, the canon, and the translation of scripture; in Part 2 they're on the general interpretation of the Bible; Part 3 includes questions on interpreting the various literary genres in scripture; and Part 4 has questions about some contemporary issues in hermeneutics.

That last section, by the way, is the one I found least helpful. I ignore discussions of contemporary issues in almost everything because so many things turn out to be nothing much in the end. Seminary students probably need to know this stuff, but I don't, at least not yet. And this is the section of the book that's going to feel outdated too soon as "contemporary issues" change.

One heads-up about Plummer's book: He takes a few jabs that are likely to annoy dispensationalists, who would, if you ask me, be wise to simply overlook those remarks on account of the value of the book as a whole.

I've already said that I'd recommend 40 Questions for any believer, but more specifically:

+If you want to learn how to study the Bible for yourself, this would be an excellent tool.
+If you have a few serious questions about the Bible, this may give you the answers you seek.
+If you teach a Bible study, this will make you better at it.
+If you've come across interpretations of the Bible that confuse you...or give you the heebie-jeebies, this may clear thing up for you or help you find just where an interpretation went wrong.
+If you work with (or have your own) teens or young people, this would be an excellent resource to help you answer some of their questions about the Bible. Or you could just give them this book and let them find the answers for themselves.

Here's the bottom line: Your home library should have a copy of 40 Questions About Interpreting the Bible and so should your church library. No if, and, or buts.