Paul: An Outline of His Theology, Herman Ridderbos
The Cross of Christ, John Stott
Counted as Righteous, John Piper
Love Undetectable, Andrew Sullivan
The Justification Reader, Thomas Oden
Jesus Wars: How Four Patriarchs, Three Queens, and Two Emperors Decided What Christians Would Believe for the Next 1,500 Years Philip Jenkins
The City of God, Augustine
The Atonement and the Modern Mind, James Denney
The Reformed Pastor – Richard Baxter
I am also listening to a couple of series from The Teaching Company. One is on Byzantium and the other is on the history of Asia Minor, which was the cradle of early Christianity as it made its move west.
I am seasoning this with reading the Bible in large draughts. I more and more delight in the penal substitutionary model of the atonement and find in it that explanation of what Christ did on the cross that gives my soul true rest. Every once and a while I get angry at those who in fact take away the assurance for troubled souls by throwing this in doubt or who have explanations that are miles long with multiple rotaries to negotiate that at the end leave no real answer to the question of the Philippian jailer, “how can I be saved?” This is my trouble with NT Wright. By the time he argues his explanation of “the righteousness of God,” no one is listening anymore. And, as Piper often comments, it does not pass the “hospital bed test.” Those who are soon to pass to the other side can find nothing there as an anchor for the soul as the pastor fumbles to restate the NT Wright’s view of salvation. It doesn’t mean he is wrong. It just means that if what he says is what the Bible means, then surely only a few are going to be saved – no troubled soul will find it “graspable.”
