The Bible doesn't make BuzzFeed's list of books that could make the world a better place

I don't spend a lot of time on BuzzFeed, but every once in a while a link will catch my attention. Like "21 Books That Could Make The World A Better Place." Here are the books that made the list:

1. Reason for Hope by Jane Goodall
   
2. Sold by Patricia McCormick
   
3. Night by Elie Wiesel
   
4. A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah
   
5. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
   
6. Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela
   
7. The Big Necessity by Rose George
   
8. Room by Emma Donoghue
   
9. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
   
10. The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch
    
11. The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz
    
12. Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer
    
13. If I Just Had Two Wings by Virginia Frances Schwartz
    
14. His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
    
15. Quiet by Susan Cain
    
16. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
    
17. How to Lie With Statistics by Darrell Huff
    
18. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
    
19. Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
    
20. The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff
    
21. Walden by Henry David Thoreau

Naturally, the only book that actually could make the world a better place didn't make the list.

How to give fairy tales a more Christian ending

20 free ebooks from R. C. Sproul

Last year, Ligonier Ministries made the ebook editions of R. C. Sproul's Crucial Questions series free. There are currently 20 titles available for download. Check them out here.

Free eBook: Sermons and Essays from the Works of B. B. Warfield

Download this free ebook from Monergism.com.

Joel Osteen: Lazy Author or Marketing Genius?

(from my "cartoon" blog White Noise)

Trailer for N. D. Wilson's Latest Book, 'Death by Living'

Unpublished Journals from Spurgeon's Early Years

Desiring God's Tony Reinke recently interviewed Spurgeon scholar Tom Nettles, the Professor of Historical Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. Nettles is the author of the forthcoming book Living by Revealed Truth: The Life and Pastoral Theology of Charles Haddon Spurgeon.

Also interviewed was theologian and author Christian George, the Jewell and Joe L. Huitt Assistant Professor of Religious Education at Oklahoma Baptist University. It was while he was studying in London a few years ago that George discovered 11 journals kept by the Prince of Preachers during the early years of his ministry. The journals contain unpublished sermons and various drawings of birds, showing Spurgeon's artistic side:

Professor George is currently transcribing Spurgeon's journals for publication.

You Saw 'The Bible' Mini-Series, Now Read the Book

No, not that Book. I mean, why bother reading the Bible when you can just read the novel based on the mini-series that was based on the Bible?

America: A Nation of Heretics

New York Times columnist Ross Douthat has written a book entitled Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics. In it he describes the sad state of religion in America, from how we twist the gospel for our own prosperity to the "messianic" status we assign to our political leaders.

Douthat, a conservative Catholic, discusses his book in this NPR interview:

Two Free Audiobooks by John Piper

Think:

John Piper's newest book will help Christians think about thinking. Focusing on the life of the mind helps us to know God better, love him more, and care for the world. Along with an emphasis on emotions and the experience of God, we also need to practice careful thinking about God. Piper contends that "thinking is indispensable on the path to passion for God." So how are we to maintain a healthy balance of mind and heart, thinking and feeling?

Piper urges us to think for the glory of God. He demonstrates from Scripture that glorifying God with our minds and hearts is not either-or, but both-and. Thinking carefully about God fuels passion and affections for God. Likewise, Christ-exalting emotion leads to disciplined thinking.

Think is Christianaudio's free selection for the month of October.

Let the Nations Be Glad:

Why do we do missions? We are told, by Jesus, to preach the gospel and make disciples of all nations. So missions is duty, right? Wrong. If you do missions purely from a sense of duty you will not honor those you are reaching out to, nor will you truly honor God. Duty is the wrong place to look, so where do we find the answer to why we do missions? We turn, according to John Piper, to worship.

In our worship of God we encounter God's glory. The overflow from our worship is a desire to share God's glory with others (the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever), and we naturally become missional. When Jesus was asked what the kingdom of God was like, he compared it to a pearl so valuable that one would sell all they owned simply to possess it. Does that seem like duty to you? Instead, Jesus calls us to a new mindset, which flows from the mindset that worship creates in us. Thus, according to Piper, does worship become the goal of missions and the fuel which makes missions possible.

Just enter GLAD11 as the coupon code when checking out to download it for free.

Only the Bible Is a "Must Read"

A tweet from John Piper:

Amen!

Sometimes a Book Review Says More About the Reviewer Than the Book

I love perusing reader reviews on Amazon.com. I almost always click on the one-star reviews first because those tend to be the most interesting.

Like this review for Robert Whitlow's The List:

I read this book, not knowing that Robert Whitlow was a christian author. I read the back and it seemed interesting (how I choose most of my books). I was overwhelmed, and not in a good way. The born-again christianity hidden within what would have been a decent story, turned me off. It made me doubt my very existence, and I think that should have been mentioned somewhere on the dust jacket. Don't misunderstand me, I was raised Catholic, and am not anti-religion, or anti-christian in any way, but the feelings that the characters described as hearing God were unrealistic, and for those of us who apparently lack this "calling" it made me feel like I was worthless, and frankly had a very negative reaction to the book with a severe emotional breakdown. Please don't try to "save" me. I just wanted to give a warning to anyone considering purchasing this book.

I had never heard of The List before, but now I kind of want to read it.

Jonathan Edwards Library Online

Everything Jonathan Edwards has written is available online...for FREE! Check it out here.

(HT: Adrian Warnock)