Book Recommendations Part 1

By Anthony:

I don't have a lot of time these days to write book reviews so instead I thought it would be fun to simply share book recommendations. I purchase a lot of books and read a few of them 😄 The books below are books I think are important, helpful, or interesting to read. 

My disclaimer is that I don't necessarily endorse 100% of what is in each of these books. I have my disagreements with some, so I'll give one sentence about each book sharing what I think.

Tim Keller books

I recommend any and all Tim Keller books and sermons, as they are some of my favorite, but these books I think were particularly good.

1. The Freedom of Self Forgetfulness - This one is incredibly helpful in terms of understanding God's grace and justification by faith, and learning how to resist falling into both pride and shame. I try to read this at least every other year. It's short!

2. The Reason for God - This is a basic apologetics book, looking at issues about the Christian faith that draw critics and skeptics. I found it incredibly helpful for my own thinking about hard issues. 

3. Prodigal God - A great articulation of gospel truths about God's grace. It is really helpful for understanding God's love and avoiding legalism and works righteousness. A life changing book.

4. Counterfeit Gods - A very insightful book that helps us to analyze what idols of the heart we are each uniquely susceptible to. 

5. Walking with God through Pain and Suffering - This one is more heavy and a bit more academic than the others. But he covers this topic in depth, facing the hardest questions about the Christian faith and suffering.

6. The Meaning of Marriage - An excellent book about the deeper theological meaning of marriage, and lots of great practical wisdom for our marriages as well.

7. Forgive - How to understand forgiveness and why it is so hard in our modern culture.

8. Preaching - Tim Keller had a real skill in preaching Christ-centered and gospel-centered sermons. This is a great book for improving in this skill for those of us who preach.

9. Timothy Keller: His Spiritual and Intellectual Formation by Collin Hansen - This is obviously not written by Tim Keller, but it's a great biography of his life and teachings. I'd say it's somewhat more about the teachers who taught Tim Keller than Keller himself. Well worth the read.

On Caring for the Poor

This area is my main ministry focus so there are a lot of books to recommend. I encourage you to challenge yourself to read at least one new book from this list.

1. The Tragedy of American Compassion by Marvin Olasky - It is an excellent book analyzing Christian efforts and American government efforts at caring for the poor throughout American history. It traces changes in thought and practice, and especially critiques the move to trying to help people universally and equally, through major government programs, without regard for work ethic or uniqueness in each person's situation, which ended up creating a lot of dependency. 

2. When Helping Hurts by Brian Fikkert - Life changing book for me, and my curriculum: Helping Without Hurting in Africa, is based on the principles from this book.

3. Helping Without Hurting in Church Benevolence by Brian Fikkert - Excellent instruction for a local church's benevolence ministry that every church council should study together.

4. Poverty Cure Video Series with Rethink Missions book - Christian curriculum teaching about having more than just good intentions in poverty alleviation, looking at economic development, rule of law, developing businesses and much more. Very interesting stories.

5. Doing Good Better: Effective Altruism - A secular book and there are plenty of things I disagree with as my view of poverty alleviation is much more holistic. But it has fascinating calculations about using money in the most effective way to make the greatest impact among the most people. This challenges many assumptions. 

6. The Challenge for Africa by Wangari Maathai - Great book by a Kenyan activist who made a big impact herself. It's all about Africa rising up to get away from dependency and to take ownership of its own development process.

7. Toxic Charity by Robert Lupton - Challenges churches to stop creating dependency through their efforts to help.

8. The Bottom Billion by Paul Collier - Secular book, but I remember finding it fascinating. Also, many interesting stories. He looks at the big macro issues affecting Africa, such as war, trade, corruption, etc.

9. Becoming Whole: Why the Opposite of Poverty Isn't the American Dream by Brian Fikkert - The title says it. Great book looking at the real goal of our poverty alleviation efforts as Christians. Good reminders for all of us about the true meaning of life.

10. The Field Guide to Becoming Whole by Brian Fikkert - Companion book to the above. This one is a must read and detailed guide for every organization that is working in the area of poverty alleviation. Good for churches as well.

11. The New Scramble for Africa by Padraig Carmody - Secular book examining how nations outside of Africa are plundering its resources in illegal or unfair ways. Honestly, it's not an easy read and not written well in my opinion. But I have it here because I learned so many crazy things about what is happening in this continent that it was worth it.

12. Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa by Dambisa Moyo - The title sums it up. Good book by an African author.

13. Poor Economics by Abhijit Banerjee - Secular book which tries to dig down to discover why some poverty alleviation efforts work and why some seem so good but then fail. Argues for spending money for investigation, monitoring, and evaluation so that we can know what interventions actually work, rather than just looking like they might be working (overhead costs not all bad).

On Sexuality

1. Sacred Marriage: What If God Designed Marriage to Make Us Holy More Than to Make Us Happy? by Gary Thomas - This principle as shown in the title has been both an important principle in our marriage and what we always try to teach others when we give marriage counseling.

2. This Momentary Marriage by John Piper - I found this a wonderful analysis and devotion about how marriage is really all about Christ and the Church. Link to free download.

3. Jesus, Justice, and Gender Roles by Kathy Keller - Kathy Keller is a complementarian and in this book she weighs into the thorny debates regarding women in church leadership. She is an incredibly gifted and theologically trained leader herself, and I found myself really appreciating how she handled this topic. 

4. Biblical Foundations for Manhood and Womanhood by Wayne Grudem - Free pdf download. Regardless of your views on women in church leadership, if it's a topic you want to study, this book is helpful to understand the complementarian side. Link to free download.

5. Slaves, Women, and Homosexuals by William Webb - Looks at biblical trajectories of these three controversial issues. This can help you to understand many of the arguments in favor of women in church leadership today. Notably, he argues that the biblical trajectory type of argument does not work in the case of homosexuality. I really appreciated this book, though I disagree with trajectory hermeneutics for reasons that would take too long to explain here.

6. Does the Bible Support Same-sex marriage: 21 Conversations from a Historically Christian View by Preston Sprinkle - Powerful, short, compassionate, gracious, winsome, and fully persuasive. Sprinkle is great at steel-manning the arguments he is speaking against.

7. The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert by Rosaria Butterfield - Butterfield's testimony about how she came to Christ. She speaks about her former homosexual lifestyle, but I feel that the book is more about the beauty of hospitality and loving evangelism.

8. Washed and Waiting by Wesley Hill - Personal testimony of a celibate Christian with same-sex attraction. Gives lots of really challenging reflections on living for Christ despite suffering, and the importance of friendship, community and hospitality with single people in the Church.

9. The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self - Very helpful book for understanding the cultural movements of the last few hundred years that have brought us to our cultural moment today regarding identity, sexuality, and personal fulfillment. This is not an easy read with complicated subject matter that can get tedious but it is an important work.

10. What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality? by Kevin DeYoung - Short and concise book, compassionate and gracious, and handles most of the relevant texts and questions really well.

11. Love Thy Body by Nancy Pearcey - Very insightful book analyzing several hot button issues in our culture today and seeing that one common thread amongst them is a devaluing of the human body itself, not viewing the body as part of our true selves, a modern day Gnosticism.

12. The Genesis of Gender: A Christian theory by Abigail Favale - A challenge to modern ideology about sex and gender today.

Nigeria Helping Without Hurting

By Anthony:

In January 2025, we had an excellent HWHIA training in Jos, Nigeria. There were around 65 participants. The discussions were amazing. What a wonderful group of leaders we had.

Getting there and back was not easy. First, I had a day on the bus from Soroti to Entebbe (this bus trip takes between 7 and 12 hours depending on the traffic). Then the next morning I flew from Entebbe to Lagos, Nigeria. Then I had another flight from Lagos to Jos where we stayed. It was a unique experience in the airport while waiting for my immigration paperwork, that a security guard spent 20 minutes trying to convince me to take a second wife.

Unfortunately the flight from Lagos to Jos left early despite my protests, and Jonny missed this domestic flight. It didn't make any sense! We were very annoyed because it meant Jonny couldn't join us until Tuesday evening, when the next flight was available, so I taught the first two days of the training myself. After the training, our plans were disrupted again. Our flight from Jos back to Lagos was cancelled completely. We had to take a five hour drive from Jos to Abujah, and then get a new flight from Abujah to Lagos, and then we could fly from Nigeria back to East Africa. My journey back to Soroti took 3 days. It was an adventure and very tiring, but worth it! Here is some food I got in the airport, fish and a fried egg thing.

One of the great blessings of this training was the connections I had with different participants. We had people from World Renew Nigeria there, and people from Resonate Global Mission in Nigeria. Here is a photo with some of them at their office.

My friend from the Christian Reformed Church of Nigeria, Kefas came. I had met him when taking my first Timothy Leadership Training in the USA. Here is Kefas in the middle with me and Jonny.

I also got to see Warren and Tami Johnson, missionaries from SIM from Sara's home church in Midland. They were living in Jos at that time though they have now moved back to the US. They were incredibly helpful in mobilizing many other people to come to the training, including fellow missionaries with SIM. It was a blessing to see them and learn about Nigerian life from them. They also gave us rides every day to the training site.

One of my first impressions of Nigeria was noticing all the billboards advertising prosperity preachers. Many of the richest pastors in the world live in Nigeria. Unfortunately many of them manipulate the poor to give the little they have to make these pastors rich. Their judgment is coming. 

I'm sure many of the pastors on billboards are not prosperity preachers. But the culture of advertising titles and credentials is over the top. The signs were not shy in hyping up anointed men of God by saying things like "Bishop Dr. Apostle Prophet John Smith." 

Colonialism and its ongoing effects are an important topic of discussion in every training. I was reminded of this when I was leaving the airport and someone wanted to carry my luggage and he called me, "master", and not as a joke. Feelings of inferiority compared to Westerners even among educated Africans is still very real. Of course this doesn't affect every person in the same way. But it's a common issue. And sort forms of neo-colonialism are very real as well.

But it's a complicated issue, just like the issue of race in the United States. In this training, one Nigerian said that it's time for Nigerians, and Africans, to stop complaining about the slave trade and colonialism which were long ago. He said surely those were evil and caused unspeakable harm to the continent lasting up to today, but he argued that it is no longer helpful to keep repeating the same laments about the past. He said the real problem they have today is Nigerian leaders who replaced the colonial masters, but are mistreating their own people. He said so many African countries achieved independence only to mismanage their countries. They have leaders today who are corrupt and stealing from the people. Instead of crying about the past, he wanted people to focus on bringing reforms and better leadership today.

Another Nigerian talked about how Nigerian church planters today make the same mistakes as the colonial masters did in the past. They push new cultures and even clothing on to the people they are evangelizing. Instead of only focusing on the Gospel, they are trying to get people to adopt their cultures as well.

Not directly related but interesting, there was also a comment about how missionary compounds and theological schools started by missionaries look very different today now that they are run by Nigerians. He was an older man who said that those properties used to look so beautiful. The environment was well taken care of with trees, grass, and flowers everywhere. He said going to those places was like going to a paradise for him back then. But now every inch of grass has been planted with yams and maize and other crops. I think he wasn't criticizing Nigerians for this. He was trying to see how our mentalities are different, and that it is good to have a balance of practicality and beauty.

Nigeria has such a different context compared to most of East Africa. There is a lot of tension between Muslims and Christians. And this makes evangelism much more serious. I encourage you to listen to my two from Nigeria if you haven't yet (one and two). This issue came into every discussion we had. Significantly, part of the outreach by Christians to Muslim communities is in the form of word and deed together. There is a lot of focus on community development and caring for the poor as they also share the Gospel and try to plant churches.

When we were talking community development, there was a lot of vented frustration. How do you develop communities, plant trees and develop farms when bandits and gunmen come and routinely steal or ruin everything? Particularly Muslims of the Fulani tribe were mentioned often as those who attack and kill Christians. There are no easy answers about how to develop poor communities in such a violent context. We talked about showing love, not taking revenge, and peace-making. But many of these brothers and sisters live in very tough areas.

One participant shared a story about a pastor in his region. This pastor was tired of his Christians being targeted and their things being stolen. He convinced his church that they needed to defend themselves and not wait for the government to protect them. So the pastor obtained guns for himself and the church, but that made the Fulani target him and he was found killed. Please pray for your brothers and sisters in Nigeria.

Last, I will note that Nigerian food was tasty. They use chili, which I like, in every single dish and even in the snacks that you have at tea-time. I don't think I've ever had so much chili at once in my life.