Books!

In the college Sunday school class, we recently finished an overview of church history. As we sped through church history, every now and then we came to a book that had an important place in church history, usually accompanied by my gentle encouragement, “You must read this!” The following is a list of some of those books. Take this list as an encouragement to investigate history theologically and theology historically, not necessarily as an endorsement of every book listed. Plus, now more than ever, the accessibility of these books renders the church even more excuse-less for being not being historically minded.

1. Mark Noll, Turning Points (this is the book we used as our outline for the class)
2. Nick Needham, 2000 Years of Christ's Power, vol. 1-3 (a good, readable overview of church history)
3. Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews - great for knowing the historical context of the gospels
4. St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation - absolutely indispensable. Also, a great book to read on Christmas holiday. Free online version here.
5. St. Augustine, Confessions and City of God and On the Trinity
6. St. Benedict's Rule
7. St. Patrick's Confessions
8. Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way - An in-house overview of Eastern Orthodoxy.
9. Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ
10. Martin Luther, 95 Theses and Bondage of the Will
11. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion
12. Iain Murray, Wesley and the Men Who Followed
13. Philip Jakob Spener, Pia Desideria
14. John Murray, Redemption, Accomplished & Applied and Song in the Public Worship of God
15. J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism
16. Abraham Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism
17. Greg Bahnsen, Always Ready: Directions for Defending the Faith (re: Cornelius Van Til's presuppositional method of apologetics)
18. Francis Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live? and Collected Writings

What books might you add as being important pieces of Christian history?