I love books. I love them so much that I even created a site (www.bestcommentaries.com) to help people find good resources for Biblical studies. A cool part of that site is that affiliate links bring in some gift certificate money from www.wtsbooks.com. To celebrate God’s gift of his one and only Son to us all, I’d like to use some of that gift certificate money to say “Merry Christmas” and “Thanks for stopping by.” So if you’re in need of a book, here’s what to do:
- Go to www.wtsbooks.com, browse around and find a book you like.
- Come back here and leave a comment with the book title, a link to the book, and the reason you want/need the book.
- Vote on who you think should get a free book (hopefully this makes it less random). The comments with the most “likes” as of Saturday, 12/19, will get the book of their choice.
I think I have enough to get 2-3 books, so comment and vote away. Oh and tell your friends.
Update: And the winners are:
- Jason Smathers – Homilies on the Gospel of John (1-40) (Works of St. Augustine A Translation for the 21st Century) (Paperback)
- Sean McGever – The Gospel in Human Contexts: Anthropological Explorations for Contemporary Missions
- Josiah Ritchie – Culture Shift: Communicating God’s Truth to Our Changing World
http://www.wtsbooks.com/product-exec/product_id/6518/nm/The_Meaning_of_the_Pentateuch_Revelation_Composition_and_Interpretation_Paperback_/parent_id/23?utm_source=jdyer&utm_medium=blogpartners
The Meaning of a Pentateuch by Sailhamer
I’m taking a Hermeneutics class next semester and even though this isn’t a required reading for the course I think it would fit in well with my studies for the course. From what I’ve read this is one of the best Biblical studies books to come out in a while.
Do me a favor and “like” my comment so I can win this great book.
Great idea John.
Sailhamer is the awesome sauce when it comes to the Pentateuch. I love his “The Pentateuch as Narrative”
This book is next to my bed, yet hasn’t been opened yet :)
http://www.wtsbooks.com/product-exec/product_id/302/nm/Luke_Volume_I_1_1_9_50_BECNT_?utm_source=jdyer&utm_medium=blogpartners
Great long time resources, well balanced exegetical/expos/historical/commentary. Expensive but great! Love to do a Luke series about Jesus when pastoring at the church in Sacramento and in class at the school. Also, like to have available in the school library.
Thanks for the offer!
NG
These take up about 20% of my bookshelf!
http://www.wtsbooks.com/product-exec/product_id/5730/nm/ESV_Personal_Size_Reference_TruTone_Bible_Forest_Tan_Trail_Design_/parent_id/21?utm_source=jdyer&utm_medium=blogpartners
ESV, Personal Size Reference TruTone Bible (Forest/Tan, Trail Design)
I have chapel twice a week at my school and my biggest excuse as to not carrying a bible is because it’s too heavy. This size will be perfect and allow for me to follow along in a very easy to understand translation. It will also allow me to carry the bible to class because it’s so small and I can study pretty much anywhere on campus.
Take a min and click the like icon below so that I can get this Bible.
Thanks Jon and everyone who clicks that like icon!
Thanks for not choosing the Lamb skin one :)
Martyn Lloyd-Jones, The Assurance of Our Salvation
http://www.wtsbooks.com/product-exec/product_id/3762/nm/Assurance+of+Our+Salvation%3A+Exploring+the+Depth+of+Jesus%27+Prayer+for+His+Own?utm_source=jdyer&utm_medium=blogpartners
I’ve read Lloyd-Jones Spiritual Depression and found it quite helpful in my walk. I’ve seen Assurance around and wanted to read it for similar benefit for some time now. Plus journeying through John 17 with Lloyd-Jones’ knack for applying the gospel to heart- and mind-reform seems quite profitable.
I too appreciated Lloyd-Jones Spiritual Depression. Maybe I’ll get to this one one day as well.
Culture Shift: Communicating God’s Truth to Our Changing World
http://www.wtsbooks.com/product-exec/product_id/1912/nm/Culture_Shift_Communicating_God_s_Truth_to_Our_Changing_World?utm_source=jdyer&utm_medium=blogpartners
I’m the “IT Guy” at Fellowship International Mission. I’m faced with the daunting task of helping missionaries who have been in the unchanging areas of the world understand the dramatic change that has occurred in the last 4 to 40 years since they left the country. The shock they experience is amazing.
They must learn to merge the way they learned to communicate with US culture with the ever changing expectations of US culture without being in the culture as it changes. This means they sometimes don’t understand email, let alone facebook and twitter.
I’ve also begun to help churches understand these dramatic differences and to help the churches and missionaries of the world come closer together so that the church may once again be influenced and ignited with passion for God’s great commission.
I’ve been searching the web trying to get an idea of how this is communicated by others. I ran across John Dyer as I searched more closely on the Christian understanding of Marshal McLuhan and through the book “The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture” by Shane Hipps. That is a great and fast read. My copy has all sorts of marks in it.
Anyway, “Culture Shift” is a well rated book on this topic that I’d like to use both in my own understanding of the topic and to share with others who are also interested in growth in this area.
Your vote is a vote for missions! (Okay, that’s taking it a bit far.) ;-)
On a side note, Thanks John for keeping the resources rolling by here and keeping my mind running on the spiritual and human impact of technology.
I’d love to hear how that book is. Great find!
Thanks! I’d be glad to share my review of it when I get it. :-)
I will begin teaching verse by verse through the Gospel of John during Sunday evening worship at my local church beginning 12/27.
To aid in my study for my lessons, the book that I would like to win is:
Homilies on the Gospel of John (1-40) (Works of St. Augustine A Translation for the 21st Century) (Hardcover)
Love the choice of Augustine!
If I happen to remain in the lead tomorrow, I saw this book is also available in paperback. Please switch my request to that less expensive version.
The Complete Calvin and Hobbes Box Set
http://www.wtsbooks.com/product-exec/product_id/5903/nm/The_Complete_Calvin_and_Hobbes_Box_Set_Hardcover_/parent_id/54?utm_source=jdyer&utm_medium=blogpartners
I want to enrich my son’s cultural education with this American Classic. The Authoritative… may be my favorite book. Ever.
Good call. No child should be deprived of Calvin and Hobbes
Revelation (NIGTC)
http://www.wtsbooks.com/product-exec/product_id/1529/nm/Book_of_Revelation_NIGTC_/parent_id/9?utm_source=jdyer&utm_medium=blogpartners
I’m preaching a seven week series on Revelation 2-3 beginning the second Sunday of January. That’s one of the commentaries I do not have but have always wanted to get.
I’ve heard Beale’s is one of the best. Good choice!
So many books to choose from …
My choice: God’s Empowering Presence by Gordon Fee
http://www.wtsbooks.com/product-exec/product_id/108/nm/God%27s+Empowering+Presence%3A+The+Holy+Spirit+in+the+Letters+of+Paul+%28Hardcover%29?utm_source=jdyer&utm_medium=blogpartners
I am doing a DMin right now on spiritual formation and Fee’s classic on the work of the Spirit would be a great reference.
Carl, where are you doing your DMin? Sounds like a great topic.
Sorry; little slow on the reply – DMin is at Gordon-Conwell. Am considering doing thesis on the relationship of technology to spiritual formation, but am leaning away from that a little bit. Not because the topic does not interest me, it’s just that the suggestion is to do the thesis in such a way that you can apply it to your local context. And, I have a lot of folks who don’t use computers, etc. Haven’t ruled it out yet, because I realize that it’s about more than that. Will let you know if I do choose that as a topic, as you seem to have thought much about it. Always enjoy the blog.
Shortly after writing that last comment, I realized that I perhaps was thinking too narrowly about technology, e.g. twitter, texting and internet. Technology could also be anything from the telephone (including the old-fashioned ones with wires), cars, projection screens in worship, etc. Which means I could still address the issue, the problem will be narrowing it down enough for a thesis topic and also developing something for which I will be able to create a study and measure some results.
Carl,
I think a DMin in the area of technological usage in the church would be a fantastic help to the church. You’re right that “technology” is a very broad concept (see my latest post), so you would definitely have to narrow it down a bit. I wonder if you could do something like a study similar Willow Creek’s reveal on people and churches using Mars Hills’s “The City” website tool.
http://www.wtsbooks.com/product-exec/product_id/1531/nm/Epistle_to_the_Hebrews_NIGTC_?utm_source=jdyer&utm_medium=blogpartners
Epistle to the Hebrews (NIGTC) by Paul Ellingworth
BECAUSE HEBREWS IS AWESOME
I have this one… it’s a nice short commentary. And I agree, Hebrews is awesome.
http://www.wtsbooks.com/product-exec/product_id/436/nm/Valley_of_Vision_A_Collection_of_Puritan_Prayers_and_Devotions_Leather_Gift_Edition
I found John Baillie’s book “A Dairy of Private Prayer” to be a big help in expanding my prayer vocabulary. I would like to have a copy of “Valley of Vision” to serve a similar purpose.
http://www.wtsbooks.com/product-exec/product_id/6506/nm/The+Psalms+as+Christian+Worship%3A+A+Historical+Commentary+%28Paperback%29
The Psalms as Christian Worship–Waltke and Houston
I’m a OT PhD student lacking commentaries in my home library on the book(s) of Psalms. And what better author could there be on the subject than Bruce Waltke? I own his Old Testament Theology, and read it on the couch next to my wife some evenings. I have to stop sometimes just to take it in, since I’m occasionally overwhelmed! I sometimes close the book and begin to laugh with tears in my eyes out of sheer joy.
–and right now, you’re probably thinking what my wife does: ‘How can you get that much out of an Old Testament book?’
The answer is twofold. First, as virtually everyone knows, studying the OT can be difficult and even frustrating amid the critical theories, the location of cities, the identity of the pharaohs, and those really, really fun genealogies! Waltke deals seriously with the important issues and makes his points very clear. Second, he writes things so beautifully and honestly, they touch my heart. He doesn’t exegete a passage to death to reveal truth and tell the reader he must accept it, but rather exegetes and then woos the reader to see the beauty of the truth.
I hope you see, then, why his brand new commentary on the Psalms intrigues me so much.
…and thanks for a great offer!
Jeremiah (NICOT) by J.A. Thompson
http://www.wtsbooks.com/product-exec/product_id/1526/nm/Jeremiah+%28NICOT%29
Jeremiah was the first book I read after being saved a little over two years ago. I quote more from Jeremiah (along with Romans) than any other book and I so love the promises that God said in that book.
It is a wonderful book on love, heartbreak and shepherding.
There are so many great books to choose from! I’m tempted to choose a commentary to add to my library but I want the most bang for your buck right now.
I’m drawn to “The Gospel in Human Contexts: Anthropological Explorations for Contemporary Missions”. I’ve worked in evangelism full time for the last decade. I’m also fascinated by the deconstruction of traditional practice with the emergence of technology, social networking and the like. I think this book could shed some light on the core issues we are re-experiencing in evangelism and communication.
Oh btw here is the link :)
http://www.wtsbooks.com/product-exec/product_id/6318/nm/The_Gospel_in_Human_Contexts_Anthropological_Explorations_for_Contemporary_Missions_Paperback_/parent_id/48
Credo: A Historical and Theological Guide to Creeds and Confession of Faith in the Christian Tradition
http://www.wtsbooks.com/product-exec/product_id/6127/nm/Credo%3A+Historical+and+Theological+Guide+to+Creeds+and+Confessions+of+Faith+in+the+Christian+Tradition+%28Paperback%29
I would love to have this book. I’ve always had a love for historical creeds and confessions and I’d love to learn more about them.