Books I Read in 2017 — Things of the Sort

Dec 29

Dec 29 Books I Read in 2017

It's the time of year for lists. Here are the best books I read in 2017 as well as the rest I read throughout the year, categorized, but in no particular order.

The Best

The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ by Fleming Rutledge

Rutledge’s 600-page work was all the rage this year, and I understand why. It’s beautifully written, theologically serious, and richly devotional. She highlights the utter depersonalization and bloody humiliation of Jesus’ crucifixion and the cosmic influence of it all the stretches down to today and into eternity.

Key Quote:
“If Jesus’ demise is construed merely as a death—even as a painful, tortured death—the crucial point will be lost. Crucifixion was specifically designed to be the ultimate insult to personal dignity, the last word in humiliating and dehumanizing treatment. Degradation was the whole point.”

Wolf Hollow by Lauren Wolk

This was the first book I read in 2017. It was also one of my favorites. I was interested as soon as I saw it compared to To Kill A Mockingbird. While I wouldn’t go that far, it is a great book. It centers around an eleven-year-old girl named Annabelle living in a rural Pennsylvania town during the height of Wold War II. While the war rages on thousands of miles away, she must fight her own battle with the new girl, Betty. Then, mysteriously, Betty goes missing. Everyone points to the local homeless man, Toby (the Boo Radley of the story, as it were). Annabelle believes Toby is a good man, even if no one else does. And she’s right.

Wolk’s novel, though one intended for a youthful audience, brings to light issues of injustice in ways similar to Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird. But whereas Lee’s focus was on the injustice done in the sphere of racism, Wolk’s is done in the sphere of classism. Thoroughly relevant for our times, this book is beautifully written and one of my favorites of the year.

Key Quote:
“And I decided that there might be things I would never understand, no matter how hard I tried. Though try I would. And that there would be people who would never hear my one small voice, no matter what I had to say. But then a better thought occurred, and this was the one I carried away with me that day: If my life was to be just a single note in an endless symphony, how could I not sound it out for as long and as loudly as I could?”

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

My favorite post-apocalyptic novel last year was Station Eleven. My favorite this year was McCarthy’ The Road.

The Road is the story of a father and son making their way down a dangerous road, avoiding cannibals, thieves, and other assorted bad guys. It’s a simple story, really—one of survival. But deeper than that, it’s the story of a father’s love for his son, and a son’s love for his father. McCarthy’s writing is piercing at this point, plunging to the deep parts of the heart. There were many times I had to stop reading for a while. I have three boys of my own, and the writing was so moving, I couldn’t bring myself to continue until the sun rose on the next day.

Key Quote:
“There were times when he sat watching the boy sleep that he would begin to sob uncontrollably but it wasn't about death. He wasn't sure what it was about but he thought it was about beauty or goodness. Things that he'd no longer any way to think about at all.”

Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners by John Bunyan

I try to take an author each year and read all of his or her works. This year, I attempted to read all of Bunyan’s books. But life got too busy and Bunyan wrote too much for me to keep up. So I abandoned this dream. But I didn’t abandon it before I read Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, and I’m so glad I didn’t.

Bunyan’s testimony of God’s grace is told in beautiful prose and heart-piercing honesty. Bunyan understood what it was to be lost, and he understood what it meant to fight for assurance. In fact, for a long time, Bunyan didn’t see how God could love him. He believed he had committed the unpardonable sin and God was therefore just to condemn him. But God didn’t condemn. God covered his sin with grace. Where Bunyan’s sin abounded, God’s grace abounded more. How did Bunyan know this? By wrestling with God. And in the end, God blessed him and all of us who read his words.

Key Quote:
“Sinner, thou thinkest that because of thy sins and infirmities I cannot save thy soul, but behold my Son is by me, and upon him I look, and not on thee, and will deal with thee according as I am pleased with him.”

Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen

In the day we sweat it out on the streets of a runaway American dream
At night we ride through the mansions of glory in suicide machines
Sprung from cages out on highway nine,
Chrome wheeled, fuel injected, and steppin' out over the line
H-Oh, Baby this town rips the bones from your back
It's a death trap, it's a suicide rap
We gotta get out while we're young
`Cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run

You know the rest. Born to Run is a classic American rock song, and Springsteen is a classic American rocker. I’ve always admired his writing through song, and here he gives us his writing through prose in his story. As he says, “Writing about yourself is a funny business…But in a project like this, the writer has made one promise, to show the reader his mind. In these pages, I’ve tried to do this.”

Perhaps the most enjoyable part for me was the way he related to his band. He was the man. There was no doubt about that. But what makes Springsteen Springsteen is the band standing behind him. It’s Clarence Clemons’s saxophone, Max Weinberg’s drums, Steve Van Zandt’s guitar, Patti Scialfa’s vocals. And you can tell Bruce loves them. To hear this musical genius talk about all the other musical geniuses alongside and behind him (and even those out in front of him that gave him a chance) makes one appreciate the artist even more. Springsteen is a hard-working rock-star what never seemed to take anything for granted. He came from nothing to make his mark on the music world. In America, we think we pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, and many look at Springsteen as a model for that. But like his famous song, Born in the U.S.A., the popular understanding isn’t the truth. The truth is it takes a band—in this case a world class one—to make an American classic.

Key Quote:
“Here we live in the shadow of the steeple, where the holy rubber meets the road, all crookedly blessed in God’s mercy, in the heart-stopping, pants-dropping, race-riot-creating, oddball-hating, soul-shaking, love-and-fear-making, heartbreaking town of Freehold, New Jersey. Let the service begin.”

The Whole Christ: Legalism, Antinomianism, and Gospel Assurance and Why the Marrow Controversy Still Matters by Sinclair Ferguson

Sinclair Ferguson’s book made many top books of 2016 lists. But I didn’t read it until the beginning of 2017. I see now why it made those lists.

Ferguson’s writing is both heart-lifting and educational all at the same time. He explains the controversy in terms any layman can understand without toning down the theological nuances that made it what it was. Every generation has a time when theology starts to feel mushy, when churches and Christian organizations make compromises that cut out the glory of the gospel. Being aware of how this was done in the past helps us see how it might be happening in the present and gives us tools to fight it in the future.

Who knew that a modern book about another, 250-year-old book, Edward Fisher’s The Marrow of Modern Divinity, could be so relevant today and be written in such a way as to inform and transform? Ferguson must have, for he has written it. The key point of contention in the Marrow Controversy was this a common one. What comes first: repentance or grace? Refuting both legalism and antinomianism, Ferguson shows us how we need the whole gospel from the whole Christ to have the whole of salvation.

Key Quote:
“The benefits of the gospel are in Christ. They do not exist apart from him. They are ours only in him. They cannot be abstracted from him as if we ourselves could possess them independently of him.”

Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike by Phil Knight

Some books are surprising. You pick them up out of curiosity and then you find yourself enjoying it so much you never want it to end. This was my experience with Phil Knight’s Shoe Dog. Growing up, I was a big fan of Nike products. I still have a Nike hat I received for Christmas. It has a pocket on the side that I used to tote things around in, mostly my brand new pocket knife. As I grew, I became less brand-loyal, but I’ve always admired Nike’s products and design. Now, thanks to this book, I’m going to be wearing my first new pair of Nike’s in a long time.

The most surprising thing about Shoe Dog is that it stops early in Nike’s story. We never hear how Michael Jordan took the brand to new levels. But we do hear about how Nike started, and what it took to get it to someone like Jordan’s caliber. It wasn’t easy. No business is. But it worked because everyone involved cared enough about the product to make it as good as it could be. They weren’t selling a brand. They were selling, at first anyway, a shoe—a running shoe. And that running shoe was going to be the best in the world. In the end, even if all their racers didn’t win gold medals, Nike won the world.

Key Quote:
“History is one long processional of crazy ideas.”

The Underground Railroad: A Novel by Colson Whitehead

To think the underground railroad was a real thing in this country is sickening. It’s a heart-breaking reality that for so many, the only way to freedom was a tunnel burrowed under the earth, far from the light of day, hidden in secret, protected by bravery and blood. What a shame our country’s story includes these stories. It should have never been and it should never be again.

What

Key Quote:
“If you want to see what this nation is all about, you have to ride the rails. Look outside as you speed through, and you’ll find the true face of America. It was a joke, then, from the start. There was only darkness outside the windows on her journeys, and only ever would be darkness.”

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

Some people are blessed with so many gifts it seems multiple lifetimes would be warranted. Kalanithi was one of those people, and yet the irony is he only had 37 years to do it all. He was a neurosurgeon and, as he was dying, an author. He who once helped bring healing couldn’t heal himself. He didn’t even have time to finish his own book. His wife took the pen and completed his final thoughts. But through these pages he gives us eloquent insight into what it’s like to be a part of a healing plan for a patient and what it’s like to be a patient. It’s the fullness of life and death wrapped in 250 pages.

Key Quote:
“But if I did not know what I wanted, I had learned something, something not found in Hippocrates, Maimonides, or Osler: the physician’s duty is not to stave off death or return patients to their old lives, but to take into our arms a patient and family whose lives have disintegrated and work until they can stand back up and face, and make sense of, their own existence.”

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King

This is the modern classic for writers on writing. The first part is not what you’d expect. It’s a memoir. But it shows the reader on the front end what King is going to explain on the back end. Writing is not easy, and anyone who thinks it is simply hasn’t tried to do it well. Writing well is like emptying your body of your heart and then cutting into the heart to find the stuff that makes you live. How can one do that? Isn’t that what we all ask when we read something well-written?

Key Quote:
“Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open. Your stuff starts out being just for you, in other words, but then it goes ou. Once you know what the story is and get it right—as right as you can, anyway—it belongs to anyone who wants to read it. Or criticize it.”

Supernatural Living for Natural People: The Life-giving message of Romans 8 by Ray Ortlund Jr.

I’ve read parts of this book before and I’ve heard Ray preach through Romans 8. But when I was teaching Romans earlier this year at church, I picked this up to read all the way through for the first time. I knew what was inside but what’s inside of Ray’s books never get old. No one proclaims the truths of God’s grace quite like Ray. Attending Immanuel Church for years, I had the privilege of not only hearing these glorious truths proclaimed but seeing the man who proclaimed them lay hold of God moment by moment. It’s that reality with God Ray has that gives his books even more power. This is not a theological treatise as much as it’s a “can you believe this?!” evangelistic endeavor.

Key Quote:
“In Romans 8 Paul helps us relocate our faith from the dim twilight of man-centered hesitation to the brilliant noonday of God-centered assurance, so that we become whole-heartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him. Confident Christians are battleships surging through the waves. Timid Christians are little corks bobbing up and down and tossed around by every wind and tide. God wants our faith to be steeled with certainty. Romans 8 reasons with us with that aim in view, arguing that God loves us with an invincible love. And when by faith we feel the certainty of his saving love, we are emboldened to live for him.”

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson

Our country’s history is ugly and sad. We may not always get that sense if we pick up the history books of our childhood. But history, as we know, is written by those who win. Our country is in many ways great. But it is in many ways deeply bad. Racism has plagued this country from it’s founding and, it seems, will plague it much longer than any of us want to believe. In this book, Wilkerson takes us along on the journey of some who made their way from the racist south to a new north and west. But what they found there was just as racist as what they left behind. It seemed no matter where they went, their skin did them in.

This book, however, is not all hopeless. The reality of their lives were sad, but the insight into their hearts could help us all as we look beyond ourselves. Wilkerson’s real gift may not be only in the retelling of the massive migration of the twentieth century. It may be in opening the eyes of the majority culture who didn’t even know it was happening. Read it and weep, for the reality of our history is the reality of our future if we refuse to learn and change.

Key Quote:
“Over the decades, perhaps the wrong questions have been asked about the Great Migration. Perhaps it is not a question of whether the migrants brought good or ill to the cities they fled to or were pushed or pulled to their destinations, but a question of how they summoned the courage to leave in the first place or how they found the will to press beyond the forces against them and the faith in a country that had rejected them for so long. By their actions, they did not dream the American Dream, they willed it into being by a definition of their own choosing. They did not ask to be accepted but declared themselves the Americans that perhaps few others recognized but that they had always been deep within their hearts.”

The Imperfect Disciple: Grace for People Who Can't Get Their Act Together by Jared C. Wilson

I can’t get my act together, so this book is applicable to me just from the title. But knowing Jared, I know what he means about not getting one’s act together. In many ways, he can’t either. Who of us can before the holiness of God? But that is not a cause for despair. Jesus comes to all who have given up on their best laid plans and have fallen into his saving grace. He lifts us up and gives us legs to follow him. Discipleship can be a wrong-headed endeavor unless one understands that the discipler is only a disciple of Christ himself. He needs from Jesus the same thing he wants others to have.

Jared’s gospel is a little sweaty and ragged around the edges. It’s well worn. It’s smudged. It’s an old hymn. It broadcasts on a different frequency. It’s been both a welcome mat and a place mat. It’s burning a hole in his pocket. It’s a Narnian wardrobe. It sometimes feels as light as a feather. It’s a handful of crumbs. But, as he says at the beginning of each chapter, it’s much more than all of that. It’s bigger than we imagine and deeper with grace than the grave our sin can dig. No one exults in the gospel like Jared. Trust me. I know. I’ve seen him do it in writing and in person for over a decade.

Key Quote:
“Every day, I wake up into Romans 7. Every dadgum day. My alarm goes off and I sit up in bed, my uncoffed consciousness groggily gearing up for sins—both of omission and of commission. I’m engaged in the flesh before I even get my feet on the carpet.
And yet, right there beside my, laid out like the day’s outfit for school, are new mercies. Romans 8 lies right there, spooning Romans 7 in a full-sized bed, no wiggle room.”

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin

Have you ever read James Baldwin? You have to read James Baldwin. There’s nothing more to say. Buy this book and read it. Today. If you want to understand so much of today’s discourse, from the NFL protests to black lives matter to #MAGA, this book will help.

Key Quote:
“Hatred, which could destroy so much, never failed to destroy the man who hated, and this was an immutable law.”

The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks about Race edited by Jesmyn Ward

When you get done with Baldwin’s book, pick this one up. I wonder if you’ve ever heard of any of the contributors? If not, why not?

Key Quote:
“Walking -- the simple monotonous act of placing one foot before the other to prevent falling -- turns out not to be so simple if you're black. Walking alone has been anything but monotonous for me; monotony is a luxury.
A foot leaves, a foot lands, and our longing gives it momentum from rest to rest. We long to look, to think, to talk, to get away. But more than anything else, we long to be free. We want the freedom and pleasure of walking without fear -- without others' fear -- wherever we choose. I've lived in New York City for almost a decade and have not stopped longing to find the solace that I found as a kid on the streets of Kingston. Much as coming to know New York City's streets has made it closer to home to me, the city also withholds itself from me via those very streets. I walk them, alternately invisible and too prominent. So I walk caught between memory and forgetting, between memory and forgiveness.”

The Message of Galatians (Bible Speaks Today) By John Stott

This year marked the 500th year of the Reformation. And no book was a pivotal during the Reformation as Galatians. Perhaps one would expect to see Luther’s commentary on Galatians in this list. It is a remarkable book, but one I didn’t read all the way through this year. Stott’s commentary is a worthy replacement.

Key Quote:
“If Paul had not taken his stand against Peter that day, either the whole Christians church would have drifted into a Jewish backwater and stagnated, or there would have been a permanent rift between Gentile and Jewish Christendom, ‘one Lord, but two Lord’s tables.’ Paul’s outstanding courage on that occasion in resisting Peter preserved both the truth of the gospel and the international brotherhood of the church.”

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson

Our criminal system is broken. We lock people away for extraordinary amounts of time for small crimes. Something must change. Bryan Stevenson is trying to change it. His story and the stories he tells are inspiring and eye-opening. What can we all do to help?

Key Quote:
“Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.”

You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit by James K.A. Smith

A few people had recommended this book to me and it wasn’t until I was in the middle of sermon preparation one day that I finally picked it up. I was soon sucked in. That wasn’t great for my sermon prep time but it made the sermon itself much clearer. We are what we love. That’s such a simple statement but the truth of it is so profound, only God could reveal it to us.

Key Quote:
“You are what you love because you live toward what you want.”

Dream Team: How Michael, Magic, Larry, Charles, and the Greatest Team of All Time Conquered the World and Changed the Game of Basketball Forever by Jack McCallum

Everyone remembers the Dream Team: the 1992 USA Men’s basketball team that went to the Olympics and took the world by storm. But how well do you really remember the Dream Team? It was made up of all kinds of personalities and talent. I love sports books, and this was my favorite this year. Not the best written one I read, but the one that I, for whatever reason, enjoyed the most.

Struck: One Christian's Reflections on Encountering Death by Russ Ramsey

What a beautiful book. For all who suffer, this book will take you inside the mind and heart of a sufferer to find that God is nearer than ever. Ramsey encountered a serious illness a few years ago, and out of the crucible of that affliction came the beauty of this book. Only God could use such things.

Key Quote:
“I also needed what God has brought. I needed to lose control. I needed a broken heart. I needed to be dipped in the crucible of suffering. Why? I may never fully know. But the God who brings his children low does not do it for spite. He does it to awaken desire, like a pang of hunger in the newly risen phoenix that makes it unfurl its wings to fly. He does it to give us new eyes so that we might see the world in a new light. He does it to stop us from continuing down the path we’re on and to set us on a new one. He grants us weakness so that we might not trust too much in our own strength. “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”

None Like Him: 10 Ways God Is Different from Us (and Why That's a Good Thing) by Jen Wilkin

Jen Wilkin is such a gifted Bible teacher. My wife has benefited from her, and over the Thanksgiving break I picked up this book and read it in one day. Wilkin finds a way to say eternal things in fresh ways. She doesn’t have any new ideas but explains God’s ideas very well. If you want a book that takes you inside of who God is, this book will do it.

Key Quote:
“The Bible begins with a time stamp, “in the beginning,” and then spends sixty-six books describing the God who decrees seasons and times but is not bound by them in the least. Free to act within time as he wills, he exists outside of it. He is simultaneously the God of the past, present, and future, bending time to his perfect will, unfettered by its constraints. The past holds for him no missed opportunity. The present holds for him no anxiety. The future holds for him no uncertainty. He was, and is, and is to come.”

Supernatural Power for Everyday People: Experiencing God’s Extraordinary Spirit in Your Ordinary Life by Jared C. Wilson\

This book isn’t even out yet, but I found a copy in Jared’s office when I was visiting this fall and he told me to take it. I’m glad the world will soon receive this gift. We all want to live in the power of Christ. How do we do it? This book will help us see that it’s really not as mysterious as we want to make it. God has given what we need.

Key Quote:
“We think, If I try hard enough, if I do well enough, if I just accomplish this or achieve that, then I will finally be satisfied. And it never works, does it? It never works because the things we’re trusting in don’t work. But they also never work because the things we’re trying to satisfy aren’t our biggest problems. Most of us just want health and security. Meanwhile, God wants to rescue us from corruption and condemnation and reconcile us to himself as beloved children of the King.”

Married for God: Making Your Marriage the Best It Can Be by Christopher Ash

Marriage books are in no short supply. I’ve read many of them, and this one is near the top of the list. Ash helps us see the importance of having God at the center of our marriage. If he isn’t, we will certainly be, and we know how well that turns out, don’t we?

Key Quote: “We ought to want what God wants in marriage. Or, to put it another way, God’s why matters more than my why.”

Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life by Tish Harrison Warren

Warren’s book won the Christianity Today Book of the Year award. It’s well deserved. No book I read this year helped me personally as much. It caused me to slow down, to notice God, and to worship him in the everydayness of my life. It’s not a complex book. The simplicity of it is what’s so striking. It’s honest and devotional. I loved it.

Key Quote:
“Christ didn’t redeem my life theoretically or abstractly—the life I dreamed of living or the life I think I ideally should be living. He knew I’d be in today as it is, in my home where it stands, in my relationships with their specific beauty and brokenness, in my particular sins and struggles.”

Humble Roots: How Humility Grounds and Nourishes Your Soul by Hannah Anderson

I noticed this book making the rounds when it came out. Anderson is a wonderful writer in the line of Wendell Berry. Her style is easy to read. Her insight into Jesus’ humility and our union with him as the way toward humility is practically helpful at every level. If we aren’t right at the root, we’ll never be right, and the only way to get right at the root is to be uprooted from this world and rooted in Christ.

Key Quote:
“If we are to find rest from our stress, if we are to have any hope of escaping our pride, we must be grafted onto the one who is humility Himself. We can no longer simply be content to attempt to imitate Him; we must become part of Him in order to reflect Him.”