Many Christians have testified to the power of good Christian books and how the Lord has used them in their lives. In this episode of the CCL podcast, Peter Orr talks to Jane Tooher about the different Christian books that the Lord has used in her life.
We hope you find it encouraging. You might be prompted to read some of the titles that Jane mentions, or to think about different areas of your Christian life where it would be helpful to read a Christian book.
Links referred to:
- The Priscilla & Aquila Centre
- Books and resources mentioned in this episode:
- The Pursuit of Holiness (Jerry Bridges)
- Living Holiness: Willing to be the legs of a galloping horse (Helen Roseveare)
- The Hiding Place (Corrie ten Boom with John and Elizabeth Sherrill)
- Memoirs of the Life of the Rev Charles Simeon (Charles Simeon)
- God Has Spoken (JI Packer)
- Taking God At His Word: Why the Bible Is Knowable, Necessary, and Enough, and What That Means for You and Me (Kevin DeYoung)
- Seasons of Sorrow: The Pain of Loss and the Comfort of God (Tim Challies)
- Why Does God Care Who I Sleep With? (Sam Allberry)
- What God Says About Our Bodies (Sam Allberry)
- Men and Women in the Church: A Short, Biblical, Practical Introduction (Kevin DeYoung)
- God’s Good Design: What the Bible really says about men and women (Claire Smith)
- Embracing Complementarianism (Graham Beynon and Jane Tooher)
- If It’s Not Too Much Trouble: The Challenge of the Aged Parent (Ann Benton)
- To the Word Bible reading plan (available through YouVersion, Olive Tree, etc.)
- Be Thou My Vision: A Liturgy for Daily Worship (Jonathan Gibson)
- Our May event: Casual sex or sacred sexuality? with Philip Kern (22 May 2024)
- Support the work of the Centre
Runtime: 31:22 min.
Transcript
Please note: This transcript has been edited for readability.
Introduction
Peter Orr:
[Music]
Peter Orr: Many Christians have testified to the power of good Christian books and how the Lord has used them in their lives. In today’s episode, I’m talking to Jane Tooher. Jane is going to speak with us about the different Christian books that the Lord has used in her life.
I hope you find it encouraging. You might be prompted to read some of the titles that Jane mentions, or to think about different areas of your Christian life where it would be helpful to read a Christian book.
Enjoy the episode!
[Music]
PO: Hello and welcome to this episode of the Centre for Christian Living podcast. Today, I’m very pleased to be joined by my friend and colleague, Jane Tooher. Jane is lecturer in Ministry and Church History at Moore College, and Director of the Priscilla & Aquila Centre.
Jane, it’s great to have you with us. You’re going to be talking about books that you have found helpful in the Christian life.
Jane’s testimony
PO: Before we dive into that, I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about how you became a Christian yourself.
Jane Tooher: Sure. Thanks Pete! It’s great to be here. I became a Christian—I grew up going to a Roman Catholic church every week. I had no assurance of salvation—kind of classic Roman Catholic. I always believed in God. Then, in the first week of school, a woman I’d met who had become a Christian the year before at a Billy Graham Crusade, invited me along to the Christian group at school. It was there I started studying the Bible for the first time, and in God’s mercy, I came to understand that I could have assurance of salvation. I really loved the fact that Jesus was my saviour. I didn’t really want him to be my Lord, because I didn’t really understand God’s character. That took a bit more time. But I became a Christian by someone asking me along, basically, to read the Bible.
PO: Wonderful!
The Pursuit of Holiness (Jerry Bridges)
PO: Obviously as a Christian, you’ve grown over the years. You’re now lecturing at Moore College. We want to talk about books that you have found helpful in your Christian life. You’ve brought a few along. What’s the first book you’re going to tell us about?
JT: I found a lot of books helpful. What I’ve decided to do today is choose some over the course of since I became a Christian at age 12. That was a long time ago. These are all popular-level books and they’re all really accessible.
When you asked me about this, it made me think back about the first couple of books that I read as a Christian. The first one is The Pursuit of Holiness by Jerry Bridges. This was the first Christian book I read outside the Bible. I read it with some other people from youth group, and the youth group leaders would guide us in the reading. There was a study guide as well. Basically, it was revolutionary for me that you had this Christian life outside of Sunday—outside of church. We’d meet in someone’s home. It was very normal to talk about Christian things. Apart from the contents of the book in encouraging us to be holy and to take responsibility for our sin, it was also about encouraging each other to be a Christian—basically living out the “one another” commands.
On reading Christian books
PO: Just on that encouraging one another to live the Christian life, but also encouraging one another to read, to jump in at this point, do you want to say something about reading in general and how you found Christian books helpful in your Christian life?
JT: Basically, I think, in reading Christian books, it’s not just me and understanding the Bible the way you’d listen to a preacher and sit under their authority. Christian books are different to that: they’re not your pastor. But it’s like having a Christian brother or a Christian sister speaking to you about different aspects of the Christian life.
Christian books cover such a range of different topics. Some people are experts in a particular doctrine of the Christian life, which is really, really helpful. For some, it’s more personal testimony, or it might be about their missionary experience. I think, in God’s kindness, we’re at a stage in church history and in a country where we have the wealth to be able to buy books or listen to them. It really, really helps us understand what it means to be Christian, understand who God is, have a bigger picture of him, and experience more delight and joy about him. Christian books have really helped me.
But having said that, obviously, you can still be a Christian without any Christian books—apart from the Bible! [Laughter]
PO: Yeah, apart from the Bible. That’s helpful!
Living Holiness: Willing to be the legs of a galloping horse (Helen Roseveare)
PO: Okay, so Jerry Bridges: The Pursuit of Holiness . What’s the next book?
JT: The second book I read early on was Living Holiness by Helen Roseveare. Her books were really big—especially with a number of female friends of mine at the time. I found it really helpful because she was very honest about her sin.
One section—one paragraph, even—has stayed with me for decades: 40 years later, I can still remember the imagery and things that Roseveare said. She was overwhelmed with work. She was tired. She was losing her temper at nurses. For me, I’m thinking, “Wow, this woman’s a missionary!” I thought she had her life all sorted out. But she was just being really honest about her sin.
Yet she didn’t just leave it there; she actually did something about it. A pastor and the pastor’s wife confronted her about her sin in grace and helped her to do something about it, so it wasn’t so overwhelming for her. That was a really, really helpful book.
On holiness
PO: Interesting: the first two books that you read were on holiness. Was there a reason you were attracted to that, or did that just seem to be the books that you ended up picking up?
JT: Yeah, well, I was very sinful. I mean, I am very sinful. [Laughter] But I think that was also quite a bit of a trend at the time. I don’t know. Jerry Bridges was also really helpful for counteracting some of the false holiness issues at the time, or maybe a bit earlier as well. Also, Bridges saying that God’s holiness makes sense of everything else about him has stayed with me. It actually came up in a book I read recently.
PO: Brilliant.
The Hiding Place (Corrie ten Boom with John and Elizabeth Sherrill)
PO: What’s the next book you want to talk about?
JT: Yeah, so I think this one had its 50 thanniversary not too long ago. It’s The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom (with John and Elizabeth Sherrill). Last year, a group of women at college read this book. This was massive when I was younger. Then there was the movie.
Again, like Helen Roseveare’s book, it just helped me understand that, actually, Christianity is all of life. Ten Boom was taking her sin seriously, she was open about her struggles, she compared herself to her sister, thinking her sister was much more loving. But she realised she needed to do something about her sin. Also, similar to Helen Rosevere’s book, ten Boom points out that, actually, there’s going to be suffering now and the glories later. So hold loosely to this world.
In both of those books, the authors were in extreme circumstances. But they still helped me in my circumstances as a young Christian woman in suburban Sydney.
PO: So both of those books were very similar, as you say, and written by women in quite difficult situations—Helen Roseveare on the mission field, and Corrie ten Boom in the Holocaust.
On the value of Christian biographies
PO: Just on that second book, that’s a biography. Do you want to say something in general about Christian biographies and how they help us as we seek to live the Christian life?
JT: Yeah. I think, again, it’s like having a Christian brother or sister who is different to you—different in personality, different in gifting, different in church background—and you won’t necessarily agree with everything in their book, but they help you think about what you do believe and why you believe it.
I think they’ve also really helped me by pushing me out of my comfort zone and making me think, “Am I actually choosing to put sin to death? Am I prepared to do such and such for Jesus?”, because this man or this woman is. They’re not in my small Christian group here in Sydney, which is really isolated from the rest of the world.
With Christian biographies, you also have the advantage of going back in time. They may have been written years ago. These two are more recent. But you can go back hundreds of years and read biographies from then. I think it’s just very helpful to do that.
PO: Great!
Memoirs of the Life of the Rev Charles Simeon (Charles Simeon)
PO: Next book on your list?
JT: Again, this is kind of like another biography: it’s the Memoirs of the Life of the Rev Charles Simeon. This has papers by Charles Simeon, but also by his assistant, the Reverend William Carus. This is the oldest book I have on the list: 1846.
I read this book about 20 years ago. I stumbled upon it in the Moore College library and I was just blown away: I ended up becoming obsessed with Charles Simeon. Once again, it’s similar to Helen Roseveare and Corrie ten Boom in that Simeon wasn’t put up on a pedestal. He was quite open about his impatience. He was open about the fact that he was a bit obsessed with liking really nice clothes. You have these personal letters in there. In God’s kindness, God gave him very good friends in terms of Henry Venn, John Venn and John Thornton.
He also underwent a lot of suffering: his church wardens locked him out of his church. But then he preached the Bible faithfully and that just exploded in Cambridge. The impact that that one man—and also the small group of men he worked with—had was massive: they founded the Church Missionary Society (CMS). He was also in the Eclectic Society. They asked the question, “How can we best propagate the gospel for Botany Bay?” In God’s kindness, through him and other men like him, the first chaplain to Sydney was Reformed evangelical. It was very, very moving, reading about what life was like every day for this person who became a vicar at a very, very young age, and how his first years were really awful for him in terms of how he was treated. He was single. But he did have the support of some very good and strong friends, and he remained faithful to the end.
Because of things like CMS and the fact that our diocese is still Reformed evangelical now, more than two hundred years later, mean we have a lot to be thankful for in terms of Charles Simeon. In addition, how he preached and the shape of his preaching has impacted the Christian subculture I’m in greatly. So we have a lot to be thankful for in Charles Simeon.
PO: That’s wonderful, and as you highlight, he was someone who was greatly used by God. We could read that kind of book and think the people are really distant from us. But the fact that, as you say, the book highlights his weaknesses and doesn’t shy away from them (and that seems to be the case in the books you’ve mentioned before) is an encouragement for us, even if we might think of ourselves as ordinary Christians. That’s really helpful.
What’s the next book on your list, Jane?
God Has Spoken (JI Packer)
JT: The next one is God Has Spoken by JI Packer. At the time for a number of my friends, The Cross of Christ by John Stott or JI Packer’s Knowing God was the book where so much clicked for them. For me, the book was God Has Spoken.
Maybe this is not surprising, coming out of a Roman Catholic background. I don’t remember a lot of the details now, because it was a long time ago when I read it—30 years ago. But I remember reading it and just thinking, “Yes! Yes!” and, “Oh, this makes so much sense!” I thought, “This guy’s amazing! How can he explain these things like this?” It just helped me understand the beauty of the authority of God’s word and what it meant to have it as the ultimately authority. He explained it so brilliantly, it just helped me understand that doctrine a lot more, and that has shaped my life and ministry since then.
PO: Again, that’s really helpful. It’s a different type of book. The other ones you’ve talked about are more about looking at someone’s life. Here, I guess that shows the power of a book—where you can drill down in detail, and you’ve got the time to think about and study a particular point of Christian teaching that maybe you struggle with, or maybe because of your background, it’s a bit unclear. Again, that’s a really great encouragement for us to make the most of the books that we have access to.
Taking God At His Word: Why the Bible Is Knowable, Necessary, and Enough, and What That Means for You and Me (Kevin DeYoung)
JT: The next one is similar: it’s similar in that it’s about the doctrine of Scripture. It’s Taking God at His Word by Kevin DeYoung. It’s a much more recent book—although it’s about 10 years old now.
That’s just a brilliant title, isn’t it—Taking God at His Word—because we can take God at his word. It’s even more popular-level and more accessible than Packer’s. It’s a short book, and it’s kind of classic Kevin DeYoung in that it’s really clear. He works through four attributes of Scripture: sufficiency, clarity, authority and the necessity of Scripture. We can remember that by the acronym “SCAN”. One of my friends wants another chapter in there on “truth” as well.
I think this is an excellent book, and the hardcover version makes a really good gift. I’ve given this book away to more than 20 people, because I think it’s such a good basic to have as a Christian. It’s quick to read. If you do a lot of walking or you’re in the car a lot, you can also listen to the audio version. I think it’s a really good basic to have.
On whether a Christian book is worth reading
PO: Just to jump in with a slightly different question at this point, how do we know if a Christian book is worth reading? There are books out there that are labelled as “Christian” books that neither you nor I would recommend. They’re unhelpful teaching. They might take you down a very dangerous path. How do we know? How can we discerning?
JT: Yeah, that’s a really excellent and important question, because some of the biggest sellers of so-called “Christian” books are actually heretical. How do we know?
I think this is where if you walk into a Christian bookshop and you’re unfamiliar (because even some Christian bookshops sell some really unhelpful books), what you should do is ask people at church. Ask your pastor. Ask other people you know.
Most of the books that I’ve mentioned, I either know of the person or actually know the person. That’s helpful. I ask other people about them. Someone like JI Packer is known all around the world as an orthodox theologian and as a pastor. Someone like that is much more straightforward.
If you’ve never heard the name before and your pastor has never heard the name before, then maybe Google—do a search on maybe something like The Gospel Coalition and whether they have reviews of that book, or the 9Marks website or Desiring God. The Gospel Coalition has a look of book reviews and so does 9Marks. Do you have any more comments on that?
PO: No, I think that’s really helpful. We don’t live the Christian life alone; we have Christian friends, we have leaders in our churches, we can have conversations, as you say, and also there’s the resources we have online, which can be really helpful. Great!
[Music]
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PO: The sexualisation of society is not new. But the untethering of sex from all relational foundations has posed new problems. No longer is sex between a man and a woman, or even between a boyfriend and girlfriend, and nor is it even with another person you’ve met through an app; sex can now be with whomever you want, in whatever way you want—even with non-human devices.
Christians may not engage in these practices, but they are still immersed in the same cultural space. Our ideas of sex and sexuality can easily be shaped and changed by the world around us. How do we engage these topics in this new cultural space? How do we cling to what God in his word says is good for sex and sexuality? How do we respond to those who say that it is time to let go of our beliefs in the name of progress?
Join us as Philip Kern, Head of New Testament at Moore College, brings us back to what the Bible says about relationships, our bodies and sexuality.
Philip has been working on a book on what the New Testament says about sex and sexuality, so it will be great to hear his insights on this very important topic.
And now let’s get back to our program.
Seasons of Sorrow: The Pain of Loss and the Comfort of God (Tim Challies)
JT: The next book I have is Seasons of Sorrow by Tim Challies. I read this two weeks ago. I do have the hardcover and I’d had it for a while, but I hadn’t read it, and I ended up listening to the audio. Tim Challies himself reads the audio and it’s quite heart-breaking at times. You’ll probably cry while reading/listening. I really recommend the audio, because of Tim reading it.
The book follows the first year after the death of his son Nick. It’s like a love letter to his son, but foremost, it’s a love letter to God. Many years ago, I remember a friend saying to me that the norm of life is suffering. That was really an “Aha!” moment for me. Initially, I thought, “What’s she saying?” But it made me understand life when she said that: it made sense of everything. I think we need to accept that. We need to understand that. We need to accept that—to really get life—to really understand what this life is about.
This book is helpful: Tim is honest about his grief, but he also says that he really wants to grieve in a godly way. So he’s always pointing us, the readers, back to God and to God’s goodness. “God is good all the time; all the time, God is good” is a phrase he mentions in his book.
Also, life is not about us; it’s about God. People who die don’t ultimately belong to us; they belong to God. Those who die in the Lord are obviously much happier than if they stayed here on earth.
It comes out clearly that comfort in suffering only comes from submitting yourself to God’s will. That is when peace can come as well. Tim says that one of the good things that has come out of Nick dying was that it’s helped pry Tim’s fingers off this life and help him to look forward to heaven more. He can even see goodness that has come out of Nick’s death.
In some ways, it reminded me a bit of reading the Puritans, only a modern-day version of them—that idea of sitting loose to this world and that this world is all about getting ready for the next. I really, really loved this book, and although I don’t have a son, I will never have a son who dies, and I will never go through the grief that Tim and his wife have gone through, I think this book helps us with whatever grief we’re going through. But more than that, I think because the norm of this life is suffering, it helps us generally to be Christian—to continue being Christian. It helps us persevere to the end. I think it’s a very beautiful book. It’s only a short book as well, and again, I think it’s a really good gift.
PO: And it sounds like, again, we’re getting an insight into an experience that maybe we would not go through—or maybe we will, or we are. But in a sense, having a Christian brother take us through the experience is a real encouragement, but also a fortification for when we go through similar times of grief.
JT: Yeah.
Why Does God Care Who I Sleep With? (Sam Allberry) and What God Says About Our Bodies (Sam Allberry)
JT: The next two books are by Sam Allberry: Why Does God Care Who I Sleep With? and What God Says About Our Bodies. We both know Sam.
I read these books just a couple of months ago in preparation for some lectures on body image. Like Kevin DeYoung, Sam is really, really clear: if you’ve ever read anything of his, heard him interviewed or heard him speak, you’ll know. Both these books are really accessible.
They talk about the importance of the physical: how valuable our bodies are. If you have questions about our physical bodies—about sexuality, about sex—then I think both these books are extremely helpful.
It’s typical of Sam as well that they’re full of grace. I think you end up having a more precious view of your body: you’ll want to be godly with your body, and you’ll want to be godly with other people’s bodies.
I think these both these books are really deceptively simple: Sam has this ability to explain deep theological truths in a simple way, and explain the “So what?” of these truths—especially what God has to say about our bodies.
PO: Obviously those issues raise very contemporary issues. Again, they’re a great example of a book helping us to think through what is maybe a pressure point in the world, where it’s hard to think God’s thoughts after him when the world is telling us so many different things.
Men and Women in the Church: A Short, Biblical, Practical Introduction (Kevin DeYoung) and God’s Good Design: What the Bible really says about men and women (Claire Smith)
JT: The next two books are about complementarianism. Complementarianism is quite a bit of my work here at Moore College. Men and Women in the Church by Kevin DeYoung—another book by Kevin—and God’s Good Design by Claire Smith. Claire is a good friend of both myself and Pete.
I’ve included these as just recently in the last couple of weeks, I’ve been reminded that complementarianism is under attack, and that too often, those of us who identify as complementarian don’t do much about it or we complain about what other complementarians are doing.
Both these books work through different key passages. Claire’s is the result of a number of talks that she gave at women’s conferences over the years. Kevin’s was originally for his congregation.
It’s worth reading these books. You may not agree with everything, but both these books will help you to keep coming back to Scripture and work out what you believe and why you believe the things you do about the ministries of men and women. It means you’ll have much more conviction—and much more joy—about it. I think these books work really well together: they’re cousins, if you like.
Embracing Complementarianism (Graham Beynon and Jane Tooher)
PO: There is another very good book on complementarianism called Embracing Complementarianism—written by Graham Beynon and who’s the second author?
JT: That’s not—[Laughter]
PO: I think it’s Jane Tooher.
JT: That’s not why I did this!
PO: I know you didn’t do it. I know you didn’t do it! So Jane, you’ve obviously written in that area. I’m going to embarrass you and put you on the spot: reading books on an area that you know a lot of about and that you’ve even written on, how did you find that?
JT: Well, I’d read both of those books before. Sorry, I read Claire’s before, whereas Kevin’s—was I reading it when we were writing ours? His came out the year before. Yeah. I think the three of them work well as cousins [Laughter] because we’ve all got a slightly different aim. Claire’s is a bit older than Kevin’s, and Graham’s and mine. I appreciate what both of them were trying to do. I think it would be great if there’s more complementarian books out there.
Graham and I were really seeking to help people see what it looks like in practice. Claire’s focus is much more working through the key passages. Kevin’s is as well. I really like Kevin’s in that he’s American, he’s Presbyterian, it’s a different Christian subculture to Claire’s and mine. Graham, who I co-authored with, is independent and English
If It’s Not Too Much Trouble: The Challenge of the Aged Parent (Ann Benton)
PO: Back to your list. What’s the next one?
JT: The next one is one that I don’t think many people have heard of. I want more people to know about it. If It’s Not Too Much Trouble: The Challenge of the Aged Parent by Ann Benton. I remember hearing Ann speak on this topic when I was serving in a church in London more than 15 years ago. I took all these notes and I thought, “I’m really going to need this in about 15 years’ time.” I’m so glad that she wrote a book. The book has been out for a while now.
She wrote this after her father-in-law moved in with them. She says, “I used to think I was a kind person until he moved in.” But then she realised that she needed other people to help her—like, women from church.
The book really helps you have greater respect for your elderly parents, or it might be for your in-laws or an elderly friend, and to remember to treat them as human beings and to not do too much for it—like, take away their capacities. She’s realistic about the difficulties. She gives lots of practical tips, and some of what she says, it comes to my mind when I’m with my elderly mother. It helps me be more godly with my elderly mother. She really encourages and challenges her readers to grow more like Jesus. She’s realistic about the fact that actually, this is a challenging time. It’s challenging for the elderly parent. It’s challenging for you as a carer, or as a son or daughter. But actually, you need to be responsible for your godliness in this situation, and you can be godly. There’s things you can do to help your godliness as well.
I’m not really familiar with other Christian books that help you care for your elderly parents, and I think Ann Benton’s book is excellent.
PO: That’s wonderful. Again, it’s a really helpful example of an area of life that we might be struggling with. You can feel that you’re on your own. Obviously we can talk to our brothers and sisters, and we can get encouragement from people at church. But to spend the time reading a book written by someone who’s thought deeply about a particular issue or a particular topic, again, as you said earlier, we’re so well-served. There are so many wonderful resources. It is an encouragement that if there’s an area of life you’re finding difficult or that you’re struggling with, it’s more likely or not that someone has written a book and has taken the time to think deeply about the issues involved in living as a Christian.
Your final two books?
To the Word Bible reading plan
JT: Yeah. So my final two, this is what I use for my quiet times, so—
[Harp music]
KB: CCL executive assistant Karen Beilharz here. I’m just adding a note that the Bible reading plan that Jane is referring to here is the “To the Word” Bible Reading Challenge. You can access it at totheword.com, as well as through the YouVersion and Olive Tree Bible apps.
[Harp music]
JT: When I’m getting ready in the morning, I use an app that typically reads out six chapters of the Bible. This morning, it was three chapters on Joshua and three chapters on Acts. I’ve been doing this for several years now. It’s the most consistent thing I’ve ever used, and it works through all the Bible.
I do it when I’m getting ready in the morning. I get ready every single morning, so it’s tied to a habit. I’ve found it good to actually listening to the Bible being read.
I originally heard about it from a woman who was trying to encourage young mums who were having this really intensive time with young children. She really wanted to encourage them to read the Bible in the midst of their busy lives, and she said, “Don’t worry if you don’t get every word,” and of course we’ll never remember every word, even if we read it. I decided that even though I’m not a young mum, I was going to start using it, and it’s been absolutely brilliant.
Be Thou My Vision: A Liturgy for Daily Worship (Jonathan Gibson)
JT: Then for prayers, for the last two years, I’ve been using Be Thou My Vision by Jonathan Gibson. He’s a good friend of yours, isn’t he, Pete. I’ve got two copies of this—one on my office desk and one in my desk in my bedroom.
There’s flexibility in how you can use it. I don’t typically use the appendices, which have catechisms and collects. He also includes a Bible reading plan. I don’t typically use that. But I like that it has prayers from a span of Christian history—that you use prayers from different Christians over the ages. They word things in a way I wouldn’t. I can get stuck in a rut with the language I use to pray. Their prayers help me see things and notice things about God in a new way. The outline that Jonathan has keeps teaching and reminding me to praise God, to adore him, to thank God, to confess my sins, and to bring things to him. I think I can more naturally pray for things, thank God for things, and then typically won’t confess, for example. But having that structure is really really helpful.
He’s put out another one for Christmas and another one for Easter time as well. I think they have been really, really good.
What if I’m not much of a reader?
PO: What would you say to someone who said, “I’m a Christian. I love the Bible. But I’m not much of a reader”?
JT: Yeah. That’s the case for many people. But also people’s circumstances: it may be that even if they are a reader, just because of their life stage or because of health reasons, they’re not able to read for different reasons. This is where I think audio books are really, really helpful. I use so many audio books. I think they’re absolutely brilliant. It’s easy for me: I’m often in the car by myself. For you, Pete, you might often have four boys in the car. I don’t know if it would work so well with you, but you go for lots of walks. I do it when I’m making dinner and doing other things like that. You can get through a lot of books that way.
Also, don’t be fazed or worried about missing things. I think we can think, “Oh, we’ll miss more things if it’s read to us than if we read it.” We miss things when we read as well. Obviously we can go back. But you can re-listen to the book. Kevin DeYoung’s one on Scripture, I’ve read that. But I’ve also listened to the audio version a couple of times. I think that’s probably a good place to start. They’re generally much cheaper than print books as well.
But there’s a lot of short, popular books around. Christian publishing companies in the last couple of years have put out a lot of them, because publishing companies were experiencing difficulties financially and that was easier for them. So there’s a lot of good short Christian books around.
PO: Brilliant.
Conclusion
PO: Well, Jane, thank you very much. It’s been very encouraging to hear how the Lord has helped you through different Christian books over the years. Hopefully as listeners, we’ve been encouraged to take up and read, and to think about Christian books that we might like to read.
I hope you have enjoyed the episode and we’ll see you next time.
[Music]
PO: To benefit from more resources from the Centre for Christian Living, please visit ccl.moore.edu.au, where you’ll find a host of resources, including past podcast episodes, videos from our live events and articles published through the Centre. We’d love for you to subscribe to our podcast and for you to leave us a review so more people can discover our resources.
On our website, we also have an opportunity for you to make a tax deductible donation to support the ongoing work of the Centre.
We always benefit from receiving questions and feedback from our listeners, so if you’d like to get in touch, you can email us at ccl@moore.edu.au.
As always, I would like to thank Moore College for its support of the Centre for Christian Living, and to thank to my assistant, Karen Beilharz, for her work in editing and transcribing the episodes. The music for our podcast was generously provided by James West.
[Music]
