The Books That Shaped Me (Pre Conversion and Early Christian Life)

 The Books That Shaped Me (Pre Conversion and Early Christian Life)

What God used to bring me from skepticism to surrender was mostly a few key relationships with people who had a clear understanding of the Gospel, and it showed in how they talked to me and treated me, and prodigal who had abandoned the faith. There were also a lot of sermons, more than I can recall, from men like Tim Keller, John Piper, David Platt, and Kevin DeYoung, that opened my eyes to the God of the Bible and the truths of the Gospel in ways I had never seen before. 

But before I found men to disciple me, or learned the names of well respected pastors and preachers to look up on YouTube, there were four books that I read as I came to Jesus, and in the year or so after I became a follower of Christ. I have read and reread all of these, and I cannot describe how important they have been in my understanding of God, and what it means to be loved by Him and walk in love with Him.

1. Radical by David Platt

One of the reasons I had become an atheist in high school was that there was a wide gap between what people said and how they actually lived their lives. If the lives of Christians are one way people see the credibility of the faith, then there was a mountain of evidence that God was not real, at least not the God of the Bible.

This was the first Christian book I ever read that did not come from a legalistic vein within the American Church. It may have been the first time I heard the pure Gospel of free grace explained. It also gave me an understanding of how Christians ought to live, and where the power for that life comes from.  

Radical by David Platt

2. Help My Unbelief by Barnabas Piper

After reading Radical, someone recommended I read Piper’s book. I was told that he was a pastor’s kid who had had major struggles with Christianity. As someone who grew up in a missionary family, I resonated with the author’s story. 

It is not a difficult or heady book, but helped me immensely with a framework of “it's ok to not be ok. That's what the Gospel is for” that I did not have beforehand.

It wasn’t until a year or so later that I discovered who the author’s father was…and that changed my life forever.

Help My Unbelief Barnabas Piper

3. Out of Solitude by Henri Nouwen

Henri Nouwen introduced me to the idea that the Christian life is not merely about doing for God, but being with God. I had grown up in churches where the emphasis on prayer fell on confession of sin, and asking for wisdom and power to do good works. The idea that one could enjoy talking to God, and that all other prayer flows out of an understanding of God’s love for His children, was foreign to me.   

This short book helped me take steps of faith in my disciplines related to prayer. It is a short book, and does not say everything that is to be said about prayer, but it starts in the right place.

Out of Solitude by Henri Nouwen

4. Knowing God by J.I. Packer  

Packer’s Knowing God was my first taste of something like systematic theology. I found it challenging to read at first, but the work of finding the rhythm of how Packer writes was well worth the reward. 

Truths that I had heard before took on more robust and full meaning. I soon realized that the tools and scales I had used to measure God and His work in Christ were too small and weak to reckon with the “bigness” of God. 

I had never heard of “Big God Theology” before, but I knew I had stumbled into something that was more than I could ever hope to handle, and yet drew me in over and over again. 

Packer’s chapter on the doctrine of adoption is worth the price of the book alone.  

Knowing God by J.I. Packer