10 Most Influential Books

I’m reading a bit of Alan Jacobs these days. Jacobs is a very gifted writer and when gifted writers talk about the books that have shaped them I listen, with both ears, a pen, an open moleskin and with a powered-up mp3 recorder [(if I have one in my backpack (usually the case)]. Here’s his list (see his full blog post here):

Age 6: The Golden Book of Astronomy

Age 10: Robert A. Heinlein, Tunnel in the Sky

Age 14: Arthur C. Clarke, Childhood’s End

Age 16: Loren Eiseley, The Night Country

Age 20: William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom!

Age 22: The Philosophy of Paul Ricoeur

Age 24: W. H. Auden, The Dyer’s Hand

Age 30: Mikhail Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination

Age 35: Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society

Age 38: W. H. Auden, “Horae Canonicae”

Are We Mice or Men?

From J.B. Phillips’ book, Is God at Home?:

Every year in the harvest fields of England there are thousands of little tragedies. The victims are those charming little creatures the harvest mice.

Earlier in the year the growing corn seems to them to be the ideal place in which to settle and bring up a family. Food, shelter and building-material are there in plenty, and everything seems perfectly adapted for their needs. The forest of innumerable cornstalks is their whole world, and in it they court and play, mate and bring up their families. Their happiness seems to be complete.

Until the Harvest. For when the day comes for the owner of the field to reap his harvest, tragedy inevitably begins for the harvest-mouse. The whole world of waving corn which seemed so snug and secure, so specially designed for his comfort and nourishment, comes crashing about his ears. The field which he thought was his world never really belonged to him at all, and the fact that the growing corn was not meant for his food and shelter has, alas, not entered his tiny head.

The life of the harvest-mouse is not a bad picture of the way in which some people live in this world. They too work and play, court and get married, bring up children in the happy belief that it is their world, and that to believe in an eventual ‘harvest’ is old-fashioned and silly. Yet Jesus Christ, who claimed to be the Son of God, said quite plainly that this world is like a field that belongs to God and that it is moving inevitably towards a Harvest. You can read His words about it in Matthew 13:22-43. For this little world is not, as some imagine, a permanent thing at all. When God decides that His great Experiment has gone on long enough, He will reap the Harvest. To quote Christ’s words: “The harvest is the end of the world.”

The field mouse is deceived because for months he is left to his own devices. He never sees the owner of the field and naturally knows nothing of the coming harvest. Many people allow themselves to be deceived because God, the Owner of the world, does not put in an appearance, and for the purposes of the Experiment we call Life does not interfere with man’s power to choose. Many of them imagine that the ‘field’ belongs to man and that there is no such thing as an eventual ‘harvest.’

But if Christ really was, as He claimed to be, God, then His statement about this world being an experimental field with an inevitable harvest should surely be most seriously considered. No one could blame the little harvest-mouse for not realizing the true purpose of the cornfield or the certainty of the eventual reaping. But what are we–mice or men?

[HT: Tom Bombadil]

The Narnian

Alan Jacobs, in an interview with Ken Myers, as recorded in back matter of Jacob’s excellent book, The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C. S. Lewis [(HarperCollins, 2005), page 349,] said:

“…almost everything that Lewis really cared about and that he deeply believed in, almost everything that he thought was vital for us to know, no matter how scholarly, no matter how intellectual, found its way somehow into the Narnia books—to a shocking degree, actually. You wouldn’t think that he would be able to get all that stuff into a series of what are, after all, relatively brief books for children, and yet he did.”

The Theology of B. B. Warfield

For months I’ve eagerly awaited the release of Fred G. Zaspel’s book The Theology of B. B. Warfield: A Systematic Summary (Crossway, Sept. 30, 2010). Over the past two weeks I have been reading a copy of the book and it reminds me how thankful I am for able theologians who can break down the writings of a theological giant. Zaspel is doing this for me with Warfield. Not only is the systematic approach very thoughtful and very well executed, Zaspel also scatters within his summary many rich (and often devotional) quotes from Warfield’s works. Here’s just one example (page 300; from Warfield’s works, 2:434–435):

Christianity did not come into the world to proclaim a new morality and, sweeping away all the supernatural props by which men were wont to support their trembling, guilt-stricken souls, to throw them back on their own strong right arms to conquer a standing before God for themselves. It came to proclaim the real sacrifice for sin which God had provided in order to supersede all the poor fumbling efforts which men had made and were making to provide a sacrifice for sin for themselves; and, planting men’s feet on this, to bid them go forward. It was in this sign that Christianity conquered, and it is in this sign alone that it continues to conquer. We may think what we will of such a religion. What cannot be denied is that Christianity is such a religion.

Beautiful.

Review: Martin Luther’s Works

Reformer Martin Luther was prolific in his output so I’m not surprised that it required 30 years of labor to translate the 55-volume collection of his works into English. Those works are currently available in a variety of formats: as printed hardcovers ($1,600), on the Kindle ($830), and integrated into Logos Bible software ($230). I use the Logos version of the works on a regular basis.

In 1958, in the inaugural volume, the editors admitted 55-volumes could not contain all of Luther’s works—not even close. But that’s okay because, “As he was first to insist, much of what he wrote and said was not that important.” Ouch.

The editors go on to explain the structure of the series:

The first thirty volumes contain Luther’s expositions of various Biblical books, while the remaining volumes include what are usually called his ‘Reformation writings’ and other occasional pieces [e.g. The 95 Theses]. … Obviously Luther cannot be forced into any neat set of rubrics. He can provide his reader with bits of autobiography or with political observations as he expounds a psalm, and he can speak tenderly about the meaning of faith in the midst of polemics against his opponents. It is the hope of publishers, editors, and translators that throughout this edition the message of Luther’s faith will speak more clearly to the modern church.

The 55 titles break down like this:

vol 1: Lectures on Genesis, Chapters 1–5 (1958)

vol 2: Lectures on Genesis, Chapters 6–14 (1960)

vol 3: Lectures on Genesis, Chapters 15-20 (1961)

vol 4: Lectures on Genesis, Chapters 21-25 (1964)

vol 5: Lectures on Genesis, Chapters 26-30 (1965)

vol 6: Lectures on Genesis, Chapters 31-37 (1970)

vol 7: Lectures on Genesis, Chapters 38-44 (1965)

vol 8: Lectures on Genesis, Chapters 45–50 (1966)

vol 9: Lectures on Deuteronomy (1960)

vol 10: First Lectures on the Psalms, Psalms 1–75 (1974)

vol 11: First Lectures on the Psalms, Psalms 76–126 (1976)

vol 12: Selected Psalms, i (1955)

vol 13: Selected Psalms, ii (1956)

vol 14: Selected Psalms, iii (1958)

vol 15: Notes on Ecclesiastes; Lectures on the Song of Solomon; Treatise on the Last Words of David (1972)

vol 16: Lectures on Isaiah, Chapters 1–39 (1969)

vol 17: Lectures on Isaiah, Chapters 40–66 (1972)

vol 18: Lectures on the Minor Prophets, i (1975)

vol 19: Lectures on the Minor Prophets, ii (1974)

vol 20: Lectures on the Minor Prophets, iii (1973)

vol 21: The Sermon on the Mount (Sermons); The Magnificat (1956)

vol 22: Sermons on the Gospel of St. John, Chapters 1–4 (1957)

vol 23: Sermons on the Gospel of St. John, Chapters 6–8 (1959)

vol 24: Sermons on the Gospel of St. John, Chapters 14–16 (1961)

vol 25: Lectures on Romans (1972)

vol 26: Lectures on Galatians [1535], Chapters 1–4 (1963)

vol 27: Lectures on Galatians [1535], Chapters 5–6; Lectures on Galatians [1519], Chapters 1–6 (1964, 1992)

vol 28: Commentaries on 1 Corinthians 7 and 1 Corinthians 15; Lectures on 1 Timothy (1973)

vol 29: Lectures on Titus, Philemon, and Hebrews (1968)

vol 30: The Catholic Epistles (1967)

vol 31: Career of the Reformer, i (1957)

vol 32: Career of the Reformer, ii (1958)

vol 33: Career of the Reformer, iii (1972)

vol 34: Career of the Reformer, iv (1960)

vol 35: Word and Sacrament, i (1960)

vol 36: Word and Sacrament, ii (1959)

vol 37: Word and Sacrament, iii (1961)

vol 38: Word and Sacrament, iv (1971)

vol 39: Church and Ministry, i (1970)

vol 40: Church and Ministry, ii (1958)

vol 41: Church and Ministry, iii (1966)

vol 42: Devotional Writings, i (1969)

vol 43: Devotional Writings, ii (1968)

vol 44: The Christian in Society, i (1966)

vol 45: The Christian in Society, ii (1962)

vol 46: The Christian in Society, iii (1967)

vol 47: The Christian in Society, iv (1971)

vol 48: Letters, i (1963)

vol 49: Letters, ii (1972)

vol 50: Letters, iii (1975)

vol 51: Sermons, i (1959)

vol 52: Sermons, ii (1974)

vol 53: Liturgy and Hymns (1965)

vol 54: Table Talk (1967)

vol 55: Index (1986)

The Logos collection also includes The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, Tappert edition (1959).

As with any works on the Logos platform, the series has been transformed into an incredibly handy reference work. Searches are brisk and I can easy parachute into a forest of text and find what I’m looking for. One of my advisers/editors recently encouraged me to study Luther on the exercise of faith and the invisible promises of God. Luther was, as I expected, quite helpful on this theme. Here are a few excerpts I found in about five minutes of searching:

From vol. 3:

Faith alone lays hold of the promise, believes God when He gives the promise, stretches out its hand when God offers something, and accepts what He offers. This is the characteristic function of faith alone. Love, hope, and patience are concerned with other matters; they have other bounds, and they stay within these bounds. For they do not lay hold of the promise; they carry out the commands. They hear God commanding and giving orders, but they do not hear God giving a promise; this is what faith does. … Faith is the mother, so to speak, from whom that crop of virtues springs. If faith is not there first, you would look in vain for those virtues. If faith has not embraced the promises concerning Christ, no love and no other virtues will be there, even if for a time hypocrites were to paint what seem to be likenesses of them.

From vol. 5:

This is the constant course of the church at all times, namely, that promises are made and that then those who believe the promises are treated in such a way that they are compelled to wait for things that are invisible, to believe what they do not see, and to hope for what does not appear. … God does this in order to test our hearts, whether we are willing to do without the promised blessings for a time. We shall not do without them forever. This is certain. And if God did not test us and postpone His promises, we would not be able to love Him wholeheartedly. For if He immediately gave everything He promises, we would not believe but would immerse ourselves in the blessings that are at hand and forget God. Accordingly, He allows the church to be afflicted and to suffer want in order that it may learn that it must live not only by bread but also by the Word (cf. Matt. 4:4), and in order that faith, hope, and the expectation of God’s help may be increased in the godly.

From vol. 8:

…the flesh neglects God when He threatens and when He promises liberation. For because He delays and defers His help, He is despised. No one wants to become accustomed to the exercises of faith, but men want to live without faith and to enjoy the things that are at hand. They want the belly to be full. But they reject the sure promise. Even though this promise concerns invisible things, yet these things will surely come to pass.

My next step will be to return to these excerpts and study their context carefully.

To have Luther’s works in a searchable platform like Logos is a blessing. The electronic version of Luther’s works will ensure that the message of Luther’s faith will remain affordable; it will ensure that Luther’s voice will be clearly heard by the modern church; and it will help ensure that that Luther’s voice retains its appropriate prominence. For all his flaws, we need him yet.

PS: Here is a final word from Luther: “I make the friendly request of anyone who wishes to have my books at this time, not to let them, on any account, hinder him from studying the Scriptures themselves.”

The Ring and the Cross

From Peter Kreeft, The Philosophy of Tolkien: The Worldview Behind The Lord of the Rings (Ignatius, 2005), page 224:

“The most fundamental Christian symbol is the Cross. This also is perfectly opposite to the Ring. The Cross gives life; the Ring takes it. The Cross gives you death, not power; the Ring gives you power even over death. The Ring squeezes everything into its inner emptiness; the Cross expands in all four directions, gives itself to the emptiness, filling it with its blood, its life. The Ring is Dracula’s tooth. The Cross is God’s sword, held at the hilt by the hand of Heaven and plunged into the world not to take our blood but to give us His. The Cross is Christ’s hypodermic; the Ring is Dracula’s bite. The Cross saves other wills; the Ring dominates other wills. The Cross liberates; the Ring enslaves.”

Royal Self-Disposal

P. T. Forsyth (1848-1921), The Cruciality of the Cross, page 38:

“…the person of Christ would be dumb and inert for us in the world’s last crisis, apart from its active assertion and cosmic triumph on the cross. The cross was no martyr passivity of the finest prophet, led like a lamb to the slaughter; it was the work of a Messiah king with power over Himself. Christ never merely accepted His fate; He willed it. He went to death as a king. It was the supreme exercise of His royal self-disposal. The same great picture which presents the sheep before the shearers dumb deepens before its close to one who poured out His soul unto death. And when we obscure that, when we pity where we should worship, melt where we should kneel, or kneel where we should rise to newness of life, it is no wonder if faith become a mere affection, or a mere ethical ritual of conduct, and cease to be the absolute committal of ourselves to communion with Him for ever.”

Do It Again

G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, Chapter 4:

“A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, ‘Do it again’; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, ‘Do it again’ to the sun; and every evening, ‘Do it again’ to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.”

The Priority of Divine Words

Carl F. H. Henry, God, Revelation, and Authority, 6:50-51:

“The Bible at the very beginning emphasizes that God is not merely an acting God of deed-revelation, but a speaking deity also who shapes language as a medium of intelligible communication with man made in his image. Words are the means of transmitting ideas from person to person: it is not centrally in symbols and visions, but especially in words, that the Old Testament focuses its account of divine-human relationships. Moses the lawgiver reports the Word of God; the prophets impart the revealed Word of Yahweh. The Gospels record three occasions on which the invisible God spoke from heaven to acknowledge Jesus as his unique Son: at his baptism (Mark 1:10; cf. Matt. 3:16 f.; Luke 3:21 f; John 1:32 f.); at his transfiguration (Matt. 17:5; cf. Mark 9:7; Luke 9:35; cf. 2 Pet. 1:17); and shortly before the crucifixion (John 12:27–39). Jesus Christ, moreover, commissioned disciples to “preach the word” (Matt. 10:7, 20, 27:20; John 6:63). The secret of Christianity’s expansion was growth of the apostolic word (Acts 6:7, 12:24, 19:20). The orally proclaimed biblical truth, together with the subsequently published Gospel of Christ or teaching of the Bible, was the message of the early Christian church (Rom. 10:17; Gal. 3:2 ff.); the authoritative source of that message was, is and forever remains the transcendent God (1 Thess. 2:2, 13; Gal. 1:11 f.).”

Sdrawkcab Gnitirw: A Word to Writers (and Preachers)

One way to add creativity to your writing (or preaching) is by writing backwards. Not like I have done in the title of this post, but by writing backwards in the linear development of your thoughts.

We naturally develop thoughts from left to right and from top to bottom so it requires a little practice to train you brain to write from the bottom up, from the close to the start, from the main point to the supporting arguments, from the punch-line to the background. But it’s worth a try.

I sort of taught myself to do this after I discovered that my penchant for premature punch-lines was a problem in my prose. I am one for getting straight to the point in conversations, in emails, and if you’ve read this blog for more than a month you know this is true in my blog posts. I get to the point quickly (normally in the first sentence) and while this makes my point clear and obvious it can also limit my logic and suffocate creativity. I’ve learned that I need to slow the progress down, build a little more, anticipate questions, prepare the reader, and provide more background. So sometimes I write backwards.

Let’s say I set out to write a short blog post with one point: only in Christ will sinners find their hope. But I don’t want to get to the point too abruptly, I want to follow a creative path.

Writing backwards asks a simple backwards-looking question: What point leads to this point?

So what point leads to a reader to appreciate the hope we have in Christ? In this case, the objective truth of the gospel will need to be explained first before the hope will be concrete hope. What point leads to this point? The hopelessness of a lost world will need to be explained from Scripture. What point leads to this point? Perhaps the idea of man’s hopelessness from the writings of a non-believer would work. Perhaps I would pull a quote from Joseph Conrad’s writings. What point leads to this point? I should introduce Conrad’s realism that he brought to literature and his role in shaping modern English literature. I’ll stop here although I could continue working backwards.

Now turn it around. When I actually write I then say something like this: Joseph Conrad is a key figure in the development of 19th century English literature. He is known for his honesty about the deep hopelessness in the human heart. [Choose one example and insert here.] Then something about the fact that even realistic non-Christians can see the hopelessness of the human condition. Joseph Conrad could see the darkness. So what’s the cause of Conrad’s hopelessness? Sin. Here I would add a biblical explanation for sin, the death and resurrection of Christ, and then arrive at the punch-line: our only hope is found in Him. I’d title the post: Conrad’s Hopelessness (or some theme pulled from the intro).

This practice of writing backwards benefits my writing in four ways:

• Creativity. By writing backwards I tap into the creative side of my brain. It allows me to chase an endless trail of connected ideas. You could have arrived at the same point through a million different paths.
• Logical development. By writing backwards writers can often more carefully think about how supporting material contributes to the linear progress up to the main point. Sometimes it’s easy to understand the point but difficult to see the path to that point. Writing backwards exposes gaps in my logic.
• Introductory options. This style often helps the writer understand where to begin. Because the intro is the last thing that is written and you can continue working backwards until you can go no further. In my post I could have gone even earlier than the perceptions of a non-Christian fiction writers. I could have talked about my early disdain for fiction. I could have lamented by education. You can run out a long tail of connected ideas and then choose where to cut the tail (ie where to begin your intro).
• Conclusion focus. This writing style helps me build everything else around the main point. The main point is always at the center of my thinking. It keeps my post focused but prevents me from stating it too quickly.

Preachers can use this, too. Sermon points can often develop backwards off one another. And each sermon point can be developed backwards for improved logical flow and enhanced creative elements (like illustrations).

There are a number of other uses for writing backwards. I think it’s a nice little trick every writer should consider using at least once and especially if you, like me, are too quick to the punch-line.