Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Reformed Theological Seminary's Recommended Reading

You can find Reformed Theological Seminary's Recommended Reading List for aspiring seminarians here. The top three books are J.I. Packer's Knowing God, Vaughan Roberts' God's Big Picture: Tracing the Storyline of the Bible, and O.S. Guiness' The Call. I've only read one of those (Knowing God), but I plan to read Roberts' book next month with a group.

A very much extended recommended reading list is found here. There are dozens of books on the list, divided up into categories like Systematic Theology and Apologetics, with further divisions of Essential Reading, Further Reading, and Advanced Reading under each category. Even if you just read the Essential Readings, you would have 60 books... so this list would be quite an undertaking. Overall there are 186 books on that list, and I've read a whopping 10.

It does seem the list is heavily biased towards newer books, though, with a few exceptions (like Bondage of the Will by Martin Luther, Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin, or Confessions by St. Augustine). For instance, how about some older books in the Church History list, e.g. Fox's Book of Martyrs or Fair Sunshine? But to be fair, the list is really meant for people preparing to study at RTS, as is obvious by the large amount of books by RTS professors.

ALSO: The Church Report today released a list of the Top 50 Most Influential Christians in America, as chosen by its readers. I'm sure the #1 pick will be a blessing to your heart...

2 comments:

allofgrace said...

Knowing God is a must read for everyone. Excellent book.

Anonymous said...

wow...a blessing to all of our hearts, indeed....tisk tisk...