Isaiah By The Day: A New Devotional Translation by Alec Motyer. I have been using this book alongside my personal reading of Isaiah. It is a uniquely helpful book. Motyer has studied Isaiah over many years and has written his own translation with additional translation notes and devotional comments. He clearly understands and loves not […]

Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus. A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity Sometimes I grab a biography from our secondhand bookshelves as some ‘light’ reading. This one proved to be more than just a biography, this is an indepth analysis of the historical accuracy of the Quran against the historical accuracy of the Bible. Nabeel, a devoted Muslim […]

Upheld: A Widow’s Story of Love, Grief, and the Constancy of God If you have never read anything of Christine Farenhorst’s writings, you need to! She has a storytelling way with words that is quite unique: a meditative, thoughtful meander through word meadows which leave you wondering. Most of what she has written is historical […]

Pain of a Particular Kind by Peter Barnes The loss of a child… there are few things that a parent fears more. Here Peter Barnes writes from personal experience: the loss of a grandchild. He writes from the heart, there is no sugar coating of the intensity of the pain. As a Christian the grief […]

Thoughts on Religious Experience by Archibald Alexander The new year seemed like a good time to get stuck into a meaty book again after some easy-reading picks in the busyness at the end of last year. So far this one is proving to be worthy of slow, thoughtful reading. What an enormously complex subject of […]

The Pastor’s Soul – The Call and Care of an Undershepherd by Brian Croft and Jim Savastio, published by Evangelical Press (2018). Conrad Mbewe suggests that this book should be read by pastors at least once a year as a spiritual health check. I agree. Especially Part One where Paul’s command to Timothy (1 Timothy […]

Pause – How to enjoy God, find hope & bear fruit through midlife and the menopause by Sarah Allen (10Publishing, 2024) I’m must admit to being rather dismissive when I first saw this book being publicised. I mean, really? Do we really have to have a Christian book about every stage of life… even the […]

Covenant Foundations by Alec Motyer, published by Christian Focus Publications (2024) This is well written, and in as simple language as it can get when the topic is Covenant Theology! It gives some truly enlightening explanations of Bible passages. It traces the backbone of God’s covenants running through the whole Bible, and thus it confirms […]

Love the Ones Who Drive You Crazy: Eight Truths for Pursuing Unity in your Church by Jamie Dunlop We all know the familiar texts on the importance of brotherly love and unity in the church. But are we honest with ourselves about our commitment to this? Especially unity with ‘those people’ – the ones who, […]

Sermons by William Gadsby (Gospel Standard Publications, 1991) Many have testified to the Christ exalting nature of William Gadsby’s sermons. It is to these that I have turned this week, and this extract from a sermon on ‘The Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad’ (Psalm 126:3) illustrates Gadsby’s forthright style. […]

Through Water & Fire by Matthew Wainwright (Wakeman, 2023). Matthew Wainwright has written another brilliant historical novel! Through Water & Fire is set in the exciting times of Tudor England when Tyndale’s translation of the New Testament is being smuggled illegally into the hands of the common man and the truths of the Reformation are […]

Evangelical Pharisees by Michael Reeves, (Crossway, 2023) In Evangelical Pharisees Michael Reeves is writing to Christian believers on the theme of hypocrisy. He writes out of a concern to see orthodoxy in doctrine not just remaining as head knowledge, but leading to a change in heart and life. In the first chapter, ‘Beware of the […]