Buy 'em Books and Buy 'em Books...

I just ordered another bunch of books to add to my library. It's been about six months so it was time to make another mass purchase. So here's the latest additions to the shelves in my office, that should arrive in the next couple of weeks.

• The Complete Sermons of Martin Luther - This is a seven-volume set that includes all the sermons the reformer ever preached along with some of his other writings. I am enjoying my set of Spurgeon's sermons, I am sure I will also enjoy reading Luther's messages.
• The Portable Seminary - This is a one-volume summary of a masters-level seminary education. It includes "courses" on a variety of seminary topics, like surveys of the Old and New Testaments, systematic theology, church history, apologetics, missions, ethics, Christian education, and more. "Taught" by authors like Norman Geisler, Carl F. H. Henry, Mark Noll, John R. W. Stott, Alistair McGrath, Ravi Zacharias and many others. It looked interesting.
• Institutes of the Christian Religion - This classic work by John Calvin was written and added to over much of his life in ministry. It formed a standard of reformed doctrine and practice in the early Calvinist traditions and is still a solid reference work today. I have it on my computer already, but there's nothing like having a work like this in an 1100-page volume to sit down and ponder.
• The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World - This is a recent work that is a compilation of essays by a variety of theologians and pastors, edited by John Piper and Justin Taylor. It includes works by D. A. Carson, David Wells, Tim Keller, Mark Driscoll and others. Providing varying perspectives on the truth of the Gospel of Christ and its relevance to the postmodern worldview that surrounds us.
• And finally three books by David Wells, the first three in his series that has spanned many years. The titles are: No Place for Truth: Or Whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology?, God in the Wasteland: The Reality of Truth in a World of Fading Dreams, and Losing Our Virtue: Why the Church Must Recover Its Moral Vision. I already have and have read the last work in this series, Above All Earthly Pow'rs: Christ in a Postmodern World. This series, which started with the first release in 1993, gives a great critique of the challenges of our contemporary church and evangelicalism, from a master of theology, philosophy and culture. In fact, my son Mike got to hear Wells lecture several times last week during the Truth & Life Conference at The Master's College. Yes, I again am jealous. But I've got the books!

So, I think these should keep me in reading material until the spring thaw. Or a little beyond. I'm currently re-reading a book on church history by Bruce Shelley. I am not a historian by any stretch, but I find that so many of us modern Christians are completely ignorant of the history of the development of our faith, the struggles and battles and heresies and corruptions and reforms that took place over the 2000 years between our Savior walking on this earth, dying and being resurrected, and where we are now. A key to understanding the church of today is knowing where it came from. And as I read this history I find that there are no new and unique challenges to the church of Jesus Christ in these postmodern times, only new versions of old challenges, old heresies, old adversaries.

So what are you reading these days? Comments, please.