The “gospel” (or good news) is the message of what God has done to save sinners through Jesus. It is the message of salvation, the center of the Christian faith. What is the Gospel? by Greg Gilbert provides a concise and helpful overview of the gospel message. Whether you aren’t yet a believer and are looking to get introduced to what Christians believe, you’re a new believer seeking greater clarity, or you’re a more mature believer looking for a refresher, this book is a valuable resource.
In addition, you can download my study guide for the book.
This month’s book recommendation at CrossWay Milwaukee is the New City Catechism, a modern-day catechism that helps teach the essentials of the Christian faith in a helpful question and answer format.
Habits of Grace: Enjoying Jesus through the Spiritual Disciplines by David Mathis is a practical introduction to the regular habits and rhythms of the Christian life that God uses to grow us into Christlikeness. They are channels to experience God’s sanctifying grace and access more joy in Jesus.
In addition, you can download my study guide for the book.
Hymnals are a great resource for both personal and family devotions. The hymns are “catholic,” songs of the universal church. They connect us to our past, showing us that our faith is a historic one. Many of the hymns are lyrically rich and able to teach us great theology. And their melodies have staying power, able to get lodged into our memories for life.
The speed at which the recent sexual and gender identity revolutions have overtaken culture is staggering. How did we get to the point where, for instance, a statement like “I am a man trapped in a woman’s body” can now be spoken and understood, whereas even a generation ago this string of words wouldn’t have been seen as intelligible? Yet now we all know what is meant. What conditions laid the groundwork for such ideas to take hold–and not just take hold, but so quickly?
In 2020 Carl Trueman released his award-winning book, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to the Sexual Revolution. And now he has published a shorter and more accessible treatment of this topic, Strange New World: How Thinkers and Activists Redefined Identity and Sparked the Sexual Revolution (March 2022). In these two books, Trueman guides us through both the philosophical trends and societal factors that have moved our modern culture toward this era of “expressive individualism.” He shows us that the sexual revolution and its accompanying identity politics are just the most recent symptoms of these larger shifts in how we’ve come to conceive of human nature.
Kirk E. Miller 