Speaker 1well this is a special interview Alex it's not really an interview is it more of a discussion
Speaker 2really this is your show man you want to do an interview a conversation a debate you told me
Speaker 1well we can debate you told me that you wanted to talk about books on the show well here's the thing
Speaker 2I've been here for the weekend and I've had a most lovely time and Decatur where it's greater am I right sure yeah I mean Decatur is incidental to my pleasure but no I just feel when I'm with you Sean the second the second my feet hit the ground we could drive to California and there would not be a single lull in the conversation we're talking over each other we're chasing rabbits and and the we we talk about you know we're talking about books and what we're reading yes did you read this did you read this what did you think of it and I just told you a moment ago that you have been so successful with book recommendations that you may get you know SCI level security clearance and what does SCI
Speaker 1stand for it's
Speaker 2that's the president's highest level of clearance something compartmental compartmented intelligence or something okay but it's the highest clearance well look okay so so uh my wife gets a little upset with me I don't watch a lot of shows or movies yeah it's not really my thing but I watch some and she will recommend a show to me oh Alex you got to watch the crown or you got to watch uh um whatever and sometimes like yeah okay I'll watch it sometimes I don't and she gets a little upset because then sometimes my brother uh Zach will call me say hey Alex you got to watch the crown and then I watch it and she's like well why what happened when I recommend I said well hon you know you bet only like 600. hmm anything like six for ten Zach's like 10 for 10. he never says that line you gotta watch with without me you know agreeing well Sean you're you're just about that with books oh if you tell me Alex I won't say the title of the book but off off script a minute ago you told me some book by an author that I have zero interest in and I'm thinking oh if I if anyone sent me that I would just think no way yeah but because it's you Sean yeah you'll give it a chance
Speaker 1but I want you to know I don't put that in the same register as some of my other recommendations like stoner yeah I got it I
Speaker 2think it's a good stoner by John Williams yeah which I've not read but will purely on your recommendation thank you
Speaker 1yeah it is a book that I genuinely as I've gotten to know you think you would enjoy
Speaker 2should we say the name of the book no okay yeah
Speaker 1but we did say stoner yeah and we did say John Williams who has written two of my top 10 novels of all time what was the other one around me uh Butcher's Crossing which was shamefully I mean it's just a tragedy it was turned into a movie starring Nicolas
Speaker 2Cage was he looking for clues
Speaker 1you're so good at these micro impressions oh my goodness another clue can you do Pacino I don't
Speaker 2think so can you do De Niro I'm not no I can't do these
Speaker 1things on can you do Caleb
Speaker 2Morel yeah brother I I love books that's good talk about books brother can you do me
Speaker 1no you know what I've never met anyone who can do a me impersonation
Speaker 2yeah no yeah you do have a sort of unique Cadence to your speech really yeah
Speaker 1I've never heard that before yeah okay yeah I hear myself sometimes like if I ever have to go back and check out the podcast apart from the tragedy of the way I look which is I'd like to say I have uh the head of an MMA fighter in the body of a Guatemalan construction worker in the hairline of an Eastern European vampire you
Speaker 2have good hair Sean when I when I see you I would you know we don't we don't live in the same state obviously when I see you I I think oh here come great takes on books and
Speaker 1he's aging well oh yeah well I do declare Mr Boer God uh okay well what are we gonna talk about in
Speaker 2regards to books man I would love to hear Sean because I again there are so many uh uh just you read so widely Sean uh you have kind of eclectic I I guess that you gotta follow what you're interested in the moment or friends recommend I was gonna ask is there any method to the Madness because we've talked about biography cultural commentary classic literature obviously books of theology and pastoral ministry so is it just like look if if someone recommends that I'm interested in I just go and and you buy it download it whatever
Speaker 1yeah um I'm not a systems guy but uh I think life has put certain constraints on me so the the the middle concentric circle of you know the dartboard that is my reading life the middle of the bullseye is literature and I I think it's that's not one of those things where it should be like it it goes without saying no uh no it needs to be said no Spurgeon you heard of Charles Spurgeon yeah I know a little bit about him he said visit many good books but live in the Bible yeah that's right and and then all things connected to that so my main job is a pastor and what that means is that there are a lot of things I have to be reading now thankfully the Venn diagram of what I have to be reading and what I enjoy reading is like 99 overlap okay but the commentaries that I need to be doing sermon prep work or the books that I need to be reading along with my cohort and elders training or things that I need to read in terms of preparing for an issues meeting or any number you know a member comes to me and says hey here's a book that I want to check out what do you think about it I'll read it you know let I'll let you know what my thoughts are so that's the inner bullseye tracking yeah no I love it yeah and go ahead no you got yeah uh increasingly with room for nuance there's a lot of requests that I uh interview people about their books yeah and really what I do is like let's say I get 10 books I'll this is a little crude but I'll just kind of you know rank them and then take the top three and read the intro and first chapter of each one and kind of decide yeah whether or not this because they could even be a great book but they're just not a book that I would be interested in doing an interview on yeah I got you and then if it if it snags me then I'm all in but my point in that kind of inner layer is just to say I I think more people need to recognize that when you're committed to a local church and particularly to pastoring that uh there's just not as much freedom to read what you may want to read at any given moment the the number of books on my to read list that I may never get to just because I have other more important things it's so high oh yeah yeah
Speaker 2there's books you have to read because of what you do yeah and and yeah and it seems though like Sean you've managed to do that apart from essential reading either for your soul's sake or for your ministry or for room for nuance yeah you're still able to go pretty far
Speaker 1a field I feel like yeah and then that's where the there really is no system it's just whatever happens to really catch my interest no I'm a big believer in quitting a book I'm a big believer in one book so I feel a lot of freedom to explore widely I aspire to
Speaker 2quit books but something in me can never almost well you
Speaker 1know it's just brother what I go back to is I just constantly think about the the you know vanity vanity you know life is a mist uh of the reading and writing of books there's no end you know and I just think why am I gonna waste the few short precious hours days and weeks that I have left on this Earth reading books that I'm not enjoying no that's
Speaker 2a great point I was recently asked to speak at a church on the subject of reading not in a sermon but I like Saturday morning men's breakfast like the virtues of reading yeah and one of the points I made to the men someone said to me along the way uh the good books are the enemies of the best books don't spend your life reading four-star books when you can read five-star books yes and we know enough about the books out there now there's new books that come out you don't know you know what's read but one of the things I was occurred to the men and was look you have enough friends who read don't read a book unless someone recommends it to you yes I do that with a movie now I'm never I will never watch a movie unless someone said this is really good you like this so just like you don't have to wonder I mean now if it's a new book that's different but you can find out if a book is of a certain level of quality or worth reading and you know at most you could read you know what four or five thousand books in a lifetime that's not that much there's a lot of books that's true yeah so focus on the best I remember Keith and Kristin getting saying this about hymns they said there's too many good hymns to sing like lame hymns or like mid hymns just sing all the best ones I know
Speaker 1I agree sing the bangers yeah all right uh there's also a category that I have and I assume you do too of certain authors where if they put something out I read it yeah
Speaker 2no it's definitely true
Speaker 1yeah Candace Millard yeah she puts out a book I'm gonna read it yeah uh Churchman uh Kevin DeYoung a contemporary of ours right yeah Carl
Speaker 2Truman's in that category
Speaker 1for me Carl Truman who else if they put something out I'm I'm Piper you may not be like living
Speaker 2authors who are still writing books
Speaker 1yeah if they put something out I'm just going to read it
Speaker 2it's pretty narrow okay
Speaker 1that's there aren't many who
Speaker 2have that that status for me um Ian Murray yep yeah now he's who knows how many books he has left yeah yeah he's in the last
Speaker 1quarter but anyways the point is is that that is a category that I have as well and then I think you also have to have a category for things that just kind of come up that if you want to be aware of the times, like the men of Issachar. You just gotta-- - Yeah. I often resist it, to be honest with you. But I think that sometimes you just have to dive in.
Speaker 2Are you reading multiple books at the same time? Do you have to finish a book? Okay, yeah. Yeah, I'm a serial. I do the same thing. I usually have 10 books going at the same time. Same here. I have
Speaker 1physical, audio, Kindle. So I have a Kindle app on my phone. So if I ever find myself without access to a physical or an audio book, and by the way, people will hear this and they'll be like, man, you sound like a slave, like it's compulsive. I enjoy reading. Yeah, same. So when I'm in a doctor's office and I'm sitting there for 10 minutes, I will either pray or I'll memorize scripture or I'll read a book, and I have the Kindle app on my phone.
Speaker 2Bobby Jamison, in his little book, The Path of Being a Pastor, mutual friend of ours, he has a delightful little chapter on reading and how to grow as a reader. And one of the things he says is just take a book with you everywhere you go. That's right. Always have a book on the nightstand. Always have it out on the table. Have it in the bathroom. Whatever. Keep books around. And if you keep books around, you'll read them.
Speaker 1Read books with your children.
Speaker 2Read books with your friends. That book, Atomic Habits, that everyone was reading a while back, makes the point that if you want to grow in any habit, get in a community that's doing it. So if all your friends are runners, you're going to start running. If all your friends lift weights, you start lifting weights. If all your friends care about their protein goals, you're going to start caring about your protein goals. If all your friends are reading, you'll catch the bug.
Speaker 1So start a book club?
Speaker 2Oh, listen. My favorite nights of the week are we do book clubs, my wife and I. So right now I have five going. Five different book clubs. Yeah. Oh, I love it, man. That's cool. I love it. I'll start one with you right now. But I love reading with friends for a few reasons. One, I get more out of the text if I'm reading with other people. Yes. But two, almost nothing nurtures friendship and community like reading a book together and talking about how do you feel when you read that? Okay, what do you think of this character? I was talking to Luke a minute ago about Lord of the Rings and different things we're seeing in Lord of the Rings. And Luke, I just felt connected to you. I just felt like we locked souls for a minute there. Same, brother. Same, brother. I need to tone it down. And I love, I matchmake people. Yeah, let's get, okay, these people together. Some people, kind of a tough nut to crack. You know, someone in the church or in the community. I'm like, come into our book club. I think you might enjoy this book. And I'm always, it's kind of, and I like playing with people. I like, hey, let's get together in the sandbox and build something. And so, yeah, I love that. And the book clubs we do, they're quite diverse. One is sort of theological classics or Christian classics. One is like a classic literature. Another one's biographies. And then two others are like whatever we're interested in at the time. I kind of recommend books and people vote. I want to start one on poetry. I really love to read poetry. But finding people to read poetry, it's kind of hard to do. It is so hard. I've been trying to get people interested around here. So I have like six women in my church who want to do it. But it's not just going to be me and the gals. I've got to get like a few more guys, you know, to get involved.
Speaker 1I had some, I had the new Crossway George Herbert collection on our book stall. And nobody wanted to have anything to do with it.
Speaker 2Well, yeah. I would love to know, Sean, for you, are there, because again, you read pretty broadly. Like you'd bounce from, we were talking about Middlemarch. Then you were talking about, you know, Hero of the Empire by Candice Millard. And then we were talking about different theological books. Are there particular genres that you're like, I struggle to get up for that? You know? Yeah, I'm not a big fan of science fiction.
Speaker 1Yeah, okay. I've tried. Science fiction I treat kind of like country music. I have found some country that I like. But by and large. Rascal Flats? Whatever the rap country. It's a highway. Man, we really, we really. I could have harmonized with you a little further. Like, but honestly, the kind of country that I like is really, it's not, it's like Tyler Childers' Bottles and Bibles. Like, that's actually more like coal mining music from West Virginia. So, the same thing with science fiction. In general, I'm just not a fan.
Speaker 2Could you name a science fiction book you liked? Did you read Lewis's Space Trilogy? That's science fiction.
Speaker 1And I actually didn't love it. It's like some of my least favorite. I like the ideas. I actually, I don't like the way the novels feel. And I know that's not a good way to say that. I just don't have a better way to say it. I don't enjoy the feeling of reading those novels.
Speaker 2Okay. Why don't you like it? I didn't really like how it felt when I was reading it.
Speaker 1It's like being in a house or let's say a room that I can see is very well designed. But it's not the way I would do it. I just don't, I don't like it. Yeah, I can see what you're doing. But I don't, it's not, I don't enjoy it.
Speaker 2They're kind of weird books, you know. Yeah. I mean, that hideous strength.
Speaker 1It has shown itself to be enduring. Oh, it's tremendous.
Speaker 2Yeah. Yeah. I think you have to be on Quaaludes to understand the last hundred pages or so. But it's, yeah. Not a problem.
Speaker 1I have a bag in my office. I would say, what do we say, Luke? I don't like world building. Yeah. That's really, I think, one of the themes that is kind of central. It's one of the reasons why I love The Hobbit. You've got to settle in. Because Tolkien just throws you in and you're in the world. Lord of the Rings, you know, you've got like a hundred pages on Tom Bombadil. I'm trying to understand the elements. The elves and the.
Speaker 2I was reading, my eight-year-old has listened to Lord of the Rings and then I wanted to read them aloud to him. He asked me to read aloud to him. And we were reading the beginning of Fellowship and it is just like the lore of like Hobbits for like 40 pages. You know, oh, and then they invented pipeweed and, you know, and they were good at that. And then, you know, they like vegetables and here's the customs. And he's like, Dad, when's it like going to start? Yeah, is there a story here? Some world building there, yeah. What's a genre then for you? For me, similar. Sci-fi. I don't get up for. Okay. And I read books on political philosophy and theory, but it's not, it's not one I'm first drawn. I discipline myself to do that. Same here. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's just important to know about.
Speaker 1But I got to say, as I've gotten older, I really, really don't get up for it. Like in my late 20s, early 30s, I was on a binge. I kind of wanted to get all my ducks in a row.
Speaker 2All your optimism about, you know, political change. You're just defeated and old now.
Speaker 1I'm a grizzled veteran. But I kind of feel like I've honed my instincts. I kind of know where everything goes, even if I don't understand exactly how it fits together. And I just kind of can't bring myself to care because I think this is an important point. So much of what we call desire is shaped and fashioned by the pressures that come to bear on us in our unique spheres of life. Right. So to be an informed, responsible citizen, that's a slight pressure on me to care about things like that. And to be a thoughtful Christian, to be a pastor, you know, it's an incentive to care about these things to a certain degree. But past a certain point, there's actually no reward system for learning more about politics.
Speaker 2Yeah, that's a good way to put it. Yeah. For me, in addition to some of those reasons you just shared, I feel a little defeated, you know, and it feels a little illusory, a little ephemeral, a little vain to me at times. Yeah. But there are meta. And there are meta questions and present questions and imminent questions that I feel that I want to be able to think carefully about. I know this is the world my members live in and that kind of thing. So is there a genre, though, that I will always default to this? I don't have to discipline myself to read this. Like, man, I love novels. I love biography. I'm always reaching for that. And I have to discipline myself to read these other things. But what's something that you're always going to default to?
Speaker 1I had to learn to love fiction. I was a utilitarian in my reading habits for the first time. The first, probably, decade of my life as a Christian reader.
Speaker 2You're the green eggs and ham. That's impractical. How is this going to serve me?
Speaker 1Yeah. What's interesting is that I am actually still a utilitarian, just a different kind of utilitarian. Okay. So what gives me the most joy is that which I feel like is going to be most useful. Yeah. Okay. Okay. But I have just expanded my categories. I believe that fiction can be useful. I think it teaches you more about the human experience. It stretches your. Capacity for empathy. All these great things. Empathy, not the sinful kind. Yeah, sure. But biography is the one that should always be easy because it's, you know, the best biographies read like a novel. They actually happened. There's a lot of character formation in there. There's a lot of God's quite obvious hand of providence at work in the world. There's a lot of meditating on the gospel as it's channeled through the prism of this person's experience. So for me. For me, it kind of checks all the boxes.
Speaker 2Yeah. What about you? I'm always going to default to biography. Yeah. History is just my favorite. But it's got to be good biographies because a bad biography just kills me. Yeah. But we know what the good ones are. These people have died and the books have been written about them and we can read up and discover what are the best ones. So I'm always reading a biography and I love it, man. Yeah. And then I love reading classic literature. So I'm just trying to read like the Western canon basically. And it's like Pokemon. You got to catch them all.
Speaker 1You know, I'm trying to do that too. But I have been. You say I love it. You say I love reading classic literature.
Speaker 2Yeah. Well, because I think it's like entering a global and trans-chronological, trans-temporal conversation that's been happening among the centuries. So even some of the classic literature I don't especially like. Like, for example, two books I haven't read that are considered great works of literature that I'm getting ready to read and not looking forward to are Ulysses by James Joyce and War and Peace by Tolstoy. I've just never read them. I've never read them. Yeah. But they're often on those lists. Yeah. And I don't think I'm going to enjoy them thoroughly for reasons I could give. But I want to comprehend them because these books have shaped so much of the world. Yeah. But the ones that are good, that I love, I love. I could talk about it all day long.
Speaker 1I agree. I think I had to learn to give myself permission to not read some great book. So, for example, Anna Karenina, I just did my third pass. and. Oh, you
Speaker 2mean through an attempt?
Speaker 1No, no. I did my third pass through it. So I did my third read of Anna Karenina. And it just gives you more every time, right? It's incredible. The first time I read it, I think I was like 22. I had no idea what I was getting into. Who knows how much I got out of it. It probably intrigued me more just as like a weird kind of soap opera drama than anything. Second pass through, I had more depth in me, which means I could perceive more depth in Tolstoy and what he's doing. But something like War and Peace, I recently quit it for the second time. And at this point in my life, oh, I think, well, you know, it's not a typical novel. I mean, there are long sets. Yeah, I won't get into it. But I said, you know what, Sean? It's okay if you die without reading War and Peace. You know, like, I don't know that it's really going to have that much of an impact on my life. Yeah. So, like, I've also thought about reading Ulysses. But everything I've read about, you know what I did this with recently? I did it with Infinite Jest. Are you familiar? Uh-uh. Infinite Jest is one of the, what's the name of the author of Infinite Jest? Hold on, this matters. It's on the tip of my tongue, and I can't not think of it. Luke, you're supposed to be beating me to the punch here. But you were already, like, five seconds in, and I was like, he's just going to find it before I do. Okay, let's see. David Foster Wallace. Yeah. Okay, a very incisive cultural critic who's killed himself. This is, in many circles, considered to be the greatest work of sort of postmodern literature. And I really wanted to wrap my mind around it. And one day, I was about five hours in on my second attempt, I think. Maybe second or third attempt. And I just realized, I'm going to die soon. You know? I'm going to die soon.
Speaker 2In fact, if I keep reading this book.
Speaker 1I'll die a lot sooner. And I just said, you know what? It's okay. I don't have to read Infinite Jest.
Speaker 2I'm going to call this the Sean DeMars test for now. And I don't like the way I feel right now reading this book. Is that how you felt?
Speaker 1Well, I have a category for books that you don't immediately appreciate. Yeah. But then, like, you're so glad you read it. That's honestly kind of what I'm doing right now with Middlemarch. I'm not fully grasping everything that's going on with George Eliot, what she's doing. George is a pseudonym. I don't understand everything that she's doing. But it's the kind of writing that I can tell. She's doing something. She is doing something. And so, with eyes of faith, I keep reading knowing it's going to pay off. But some books, I'm just like, I hate this.
Speaker 2Yeah. Yeah, I think for me, it's probably just like I feel like a quitter. It's not very profound. But I'm like, I started this thing. I can't get out. I have to finish this.
Speaker 1You know what?
Speaker 2That's maybe some OCD. I challenge you.
Speaker 1I challenge you. To quit a book. To quit a book in the next month.
Speaker 2Yeah. Well, happily, Sean, now I feel like, except for some classics. You've refined yourself.
Speaker 1You've refined your selection capacity. Everything I read, I love.
Speaker 2Yeah. Yeah. So, I'm on a great streak right now. Great. I can't wait to see my next book. Maybe not the next month. In the next one, yeah.
Speaker 1The next time you're reading a book that you truly are not enjoying and you're powering through, just remember my words. You are free in the Lord.
Speaker 2Well, I'm going to often now be reading like, how do I feel right now? I'm not good. I don't enjoy what's happening. Okay. I want to hear the, let's get some specific books on the table that we've loved and enjoyed. Just because if anyone is watching this and cares about this, they might hear something that they have not heard before. I might be inclined to look it up, or they may have the joy of hearing other people talk about something they enjoy, or maybe something they hated.
Speaker 1Which, by the way, on that note, sharing your joys, Lewis talks about this, a joy is not truly complete until it's been shared with another. That's actually one of my fears, is that I can be so excited about a book that I sort of overwhelm people with my enthusiasm about it. Because if I reach out to you, it's not going to be about the music. It's not going to be about the meddling book that I just a little bit enjoyed. It was fine here, not great there. It's the book that I fell in love with.
Speaker 2But you're not concerned, because Sean, you've been very generous in your praise of my books on this podcast, but that was just exactly matched to what you actually do feel. You weren't being extravagant in that praise. Oh, no, no, no.
Speaker 1What are you trying to say? I'm just messing with you. No. Okay. No, I wouldn't.
Speaker 2You're saying you're sort of exaggerating. You might overstate the case, but I'm just saying.
Speaker 1No, I wouldn't overstate the case. My fear is that people feel almost. Bludgeoned by my love for something. Oh, sure. And they almost feel like a pressure. Or even if they end up reading it and they don't enjoy it, like, I don't know if I can tell Sean that I actually didn't care for this.
Speaker 2See, I feel like I used to do that, and I tried to mortify that. I think I've been successful at mortifying that.
Speaker 1When you say mortify, you make it sound like it's a sin.
Speaker 2Well, no, no, no. I just mean to say that I would overpromise. I'd be so fawning over something. And people would be like, it was good. I mean, not as good as you said, but you know.
Speaker 1The problem is, is that I will speak passionately. And I think eloquently about the books that I hate and about the books that I love. So people will get the impression you only love or hate books. There's nothing in between. The problem is, is if it's in between, I just don't talk about it. There's no reason to talk about it. We only talk about the things we're passionate about. And I can passionately hate a book.
Speaker 2What's a book that everybody loves that you severely dislike? Lord of the Rings.
Speaker 1I can't even get past book one, man.
Speaker 2Leave. Leave. Okay, what's a book? Let me answer that same question. Oh, I didn't ask. Yeah, well, a book that everybody likes that I don't like.
Speaker 1Rebel to Your Will.
Speaker 2No, I have not read it yet. Well, what would you?
Speaker 1Will, yeah. You're busy reading classics.
Speaker 2Well, you know what? Oh, no. Say it, man. Be bold. I didn't love it. Anna Karenina. Yeah. I struggled. Are you just trying
Speaker 1to hurt me because I hurt you?
Speaker 2Hurt people hurt people, man. As you were saying that, as you were saying, I was like, I guess I should read through it again. It's been a few years at least. And I just, I struggled to get into it. Now, I listen to it on Audible, so maybe I just, I missed something and, you know, whatever. But, yeah, I struggled to get into Anna Karenina. And it's long. You know, it's dense.
Speaker 1It is. Yeah.
Speaker 2What's a book that a lot of people don't especially love that you like a lot?
Speaker 1Stoner. But you say they don't especially love. If by that, do you mean they hate or they're just not particularly aware of?
Speaker 2A book that you sometimes hear people dog. Oh, that was so good.
Speaker 1Oh, okay, that people dog.
Speaker 2That's a harder one to answer. Yeah, that is hard.
Speaker 1But I'm sure there's an answer out there.
Speaker 2But Stoner would be like an underrated. I don't hear a lot of people talk about how great this is, but I feel like I've discovered it.
Speaker 1Yeah, I feel like I more often find books that people are just fawning over that I just. Let me give you an example, even from the Christian world. Now, this is going to, I'm going to say this kind of in a whisper. I don't know what to do with it here. But, like, everybody for years was talking about The Whole Christ by Sinclair Ferguson. And I love Sinclair Ferguson.
Speaker 2Yeah. I read that book to put me to sleep.
Speaker 1Yeah, right. You know. So things like that.
Speaker 2That's a book that I love that book. Yeah. But I've recommended it to people and it hasn't hit the same way. They've struggled, yeah. I think it starts off with pretty thick, dense history that's hard to kind of, it's hard to get into. You know, it's a book I love that I just, like, I, expulsive delight is John Milton's Paradise Lost. Oh, okay. And I thought, it's like an epic poem about the fall of man. Yeah. And I just thought like everyone's going to love this. And I started recommending it to everybody kind of promiscuously. And they were like, it's hard to read.
Speaker 1I made my way through it. That's one of those ones where I was like nose to the grindstone. Can't stop. Paradise lost. You got it. It's part of the Western canon. Got to read it. And I got done. And I was just like, honestly, this is not me like trying to be cute. I just don't know that I'm smart enough or that I have like the classical education to understand probably all of the genius. That's what I'm trying to realize. Oftentimes, there are books that people love. And the reason why they love it is because they see things in the books that I can't see because I'm just not that educated.
Speaker 2Well, thankfully, Sean, I am. So I might be able to enter in. Okay. I'd love to hear. Give me a Mount Rushmore favorite novels or classic literature.
Speaker 1You always do this. I mean, I told you top two are Stoner and Butcher's Crossing.
Speaker 2Yeah. Wow. So people want you to know. Stoner by John Williams.
Speaker 1Yeah. Not about somebody who gets high.
Speaker 2Butcher's Crossing. His name is Stoner.
Speaker 1John Williams is early 20th century. I think so. Yes. He kind of died in obscurity.
Speaker 2And this isn't the John Williams who composed the Star Wars soundtrack.
Speaker 1Actually, I don't know.
Speaker 2The Duel of Fates. No. Okay. Yeah.
Speaker 1Sorry that didn't land for you, man. He also wrote. He basically wrote three novels to my awareness. The third one, which I don't know where it was chronologically, was set in. Ancient Rome. And I just couldn't get into it.
Speaker 2Yeah. You're not a big Ancient Rome guy. You don't think about it every day.
Speaker 1I don't think about it every day. I think about it multiple times a day. I basically only think about it when I need you to understand a Bible passage better. But yeah. And then, you know, I think it's weird because books change. So I used to would have put The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Tolstoy up there. And the last time I read it, it didn't hit the same.
Speaker 2Yeah. That happens a lot. Yeah. But give me two more anyway. I'm not going to hold you to it. No one's watching this, Sean.
Speaker 1Yes. No, that's certainly true. Well, you give one.
Speaker 2Well, for me, I think it's pretty straightforward. My favorite novel I've ever read is How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn. Yeah. No one knows about that book. It's the best ever. I'll tell you what, man. You recommended Remains of the Day by Kasuo.
Speaker 1Kasuo Ishiguro? Yeah, whatever.
Speaker 2Whatever. And I'm only a couple of chapters in, but it has been pure delight. But I can't put it on my Mount Rushmore. Right. But no. But you can.
Speaker 1Poor Tin Greatness.
Speaker 2How Green is My Valley by Rich Lawn. novel yeah lord of the welsh no i'm not sure lord of the rings might be on there uh brothers karamazov by fjodor dostoevsky is on there les mis by victor hugo count amani cristo by alexander dumas uh those would be some of the leading epics now some honorable mentions uh east of eden by john steinbeck superb um yeah and lord of the rings does it make mount rushmore i don't know yeah it might but one of the things is definitely up there lonesome dove by larry mcmurtry yeah oh man it's an american you know what maybe that needs to be on mount rushmore over what do i throw out les mis i don't know lonesome dove is so good man and the mini series with robert duvall is perfection yeah oh it's so good it's not it's not living i'm it's not dying i'm talking about woodrow it's living you know yeah you know they're
Speaker 1getting ready to remake it yeah i heard that who's gonna be gay an actor
Speaker 2super irrigation yeah totally unnecessary yeah um there was one more i was gonna say what was it uh i did like the space trilogy um but i'm thinking now they're all classic literature
Speaker 1oh what was the book i just had in my
Speaker 2mind oh let's move on but
Speaker 1see there are a lot of like we talk about the space trilogy like uh paralandra weird stuff what every i put the way that i think through books is rarely like comprehensively is this book great i really think in terms of like what did i what did i get from this book and lewis's ability to try to imagine a pre-fall world right to try to imagine innocence in a garden that is not like a little plot of land in your backyard but like you know planet size yeah and then to try to reimagine the fall i mean it was fascinating i feel like i found new muscles reading that book yeah
Speaker 2you know that you know it is an underrated thing for the for those who want to read the space trilogy out of the silent planet paralandra that hideous strength um there is a lot that lewis hides in those books tucks in those books about manhood and womanhood a really great little project would be someone to write articles on what they could glean about the fundamental nature of manhood and womanhood and sexual difference from those books and paralandra it's kind of obvious to think about but in that hideous strength these two characters in this what is appearing like a failing marriage at the start of it between uh mark and jane the unique sort of masculine and feminine things they discover worth looking into the other book i was going to mention yeah i don't know this is not a novel like a class well it is a classic uh i love homer so iliad and odyssey yeah to me are just i mean i could read them again and again and again yeah i like the iliad more than the odyssey
Speaker 1but both i love um what about non-christian but uh obviously rife with common grace resources so i'll just throw out some examples yeah sure martin rosa who is a self-professed critical theorist though he wrote a book on the goodness of religion so whatever he is he's certainly not an orthodox critical theorist he has a little book called the uncontrollability of the world that's
Speaker 2been recommended to me
Speaker 1a lot i love that little book uh it's so funny when he's doing basically what is in many ways uh his observations channeled through his marxist worldview i just go you know genesis one through three would be a lot easier here he's like mankind for some reason has been alienated from the earth and i'm like well i got the reason i can tell you the reason uh but he he's at his best when he's talking about man's desire to gain more control of the world and how the more you grasp the more you're going to find that control to be illusory he's really you know uh he so he's doing observational work i think the best common grace resources are when people are just keen observers of the fallen condition you know he's a good
Speaker 2man i like a lot and you know i think he would probably profess to be a christian but i don't see anybody's ideas it would be roger scruton uh how to be a conservative how to be a conservative was tremendous yeah he he roots his understanding of conservatism in the cultivation and preservation of home that to him is the essence of conservative belief which i think is a very fecund idea yeah kazuntite yeah uh you know you know it's a seminal book that more people should be reading is the road to serfdom by ffa yeah yeah uh conflict of visions by thomas soul i don't think thomas was a christian so he's still alive i guess can we just talk about that book for a
Speaker 1minute sure he basically goes why is it that conservatives always tend to line up on one side and liberals or progressives to you know liberal it can mean different things to different people always tend to line up on other sides and he basically goes it's your anthropology yeah you know do you believe that human nature is fundamentally good and perfectible if we just get the right systems and laws and rulers in place and
Speaker 2that's what he's trying to do and that's what he's trying to do and that's what he's trying to do and that's what he's trying to do that's
Speaker 1right and then the constrained
Speaker 2vision is uh that there are built-in limitations uh givenness of things restraints on uh both human nature character ability that kind of stuff and there's there's trade-offs and there's
Speaker 1yeah what does he say there's no such thing as um crap like basically there's no such thing as arriving there's only trade-offs in this world uh you know devar used to give that book away i heard
Speaker 2that he's doing that
Speaker 1again oh good yeah so we'll be kind of like a touchstone for controversy. During the whole CRT thing. Yeah, that's right. But man, he's not a Christian. Heavily right-coded. But Black Rednecks and White Liberals, I think is one of the more fascinating books he's written. It strikes me as actually probably, let's just say that the theory doesn't hold up. It's just fun either way. But his book, Intellectuals in Society,
Speaker 2Intellectuals in Race is the one I'm familiar with. Is that what you're talking about?
Speaker 1No. Oh, crap. Can you look it up real quick? He writes a lot about intellectuals. He does. And his basic premise is an intellectual is someone who traffics in ideas that if they're wrong, you don't really, like, you know, if you're an architect and you're working on a bridge and your ideas are wrong, the bridge collapses. Intellectual is someone who traffics in ideas where if you're wrong, you know, it'll take a hundred years and, you know, a hundred million dead people in a few failed states to find out, basically.
Speaker 2Yeah. Another one for me, though it's a bit of a hard read, it was just eye-opening to me, is in The Culture of Narcissism by Christopher Lash.
Speaker 1Oh, I've not heard of it.
Speaker 2Yeah, that was the beginnings of sort of raising the alarm in my mind about the sort of what early 20th century to mid-20th century shift and how we think about virtue in relation to therapy and psychiatry and that kind of thing. And it's quite good. But it's at the headwaters of a lot of now contemporary critiques of the therapeutic movement and the psychiatric movement.
Speaker 1Speaking of psychiatry, somebody who has rose to prominence recently who we love to death around here is Jonathan Haidt who first wrote The Coddling of the American Mind.
Speaker 2There was a book before that called The Righteous Mind, which is very good. Coddling of the American Mind is, I think, better than Anxious Generation.
Speaker 1I struggled with The Righteous Mind a little more because he is an. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. An evolutionary psychologist. So when he's just describing things as they are, I find him at his best. When he's trying to offer explanatory stuff in The Righteous Mind, I find it more difficult. But in something like The Anxious Generation, where he is just quite clearly correlating these mental health crises to the rise of Instagram and so on and so forth, well, that makes a lot more sense to me. So that's when I think he's at his best.
Speaker 2Yeah. Another book, I was recommending this, to Luke a little earlier, because he embodies all that's virtuous about this book, from what I can tell, is How to Know a Person by David Brooks.
Speaker 1Yeah, that was very good. I really enjoyed that book. I've given that to a number of people.
Speaker 2I've given that to some guys training for ministry. There's some good. You talk about common grace insights. How to love people well. How to be a good friend. Yeah, how to have good conversations. I was talking to Luke about being an illuminator, someone who comes in the room and draws people out and sees people as persons, you know, and that kind of thing.
Speaker 1Speaking of Brooks, Arthur Brooks?
Speaker 2Not as familiar. Oh, okay. He, well, anyways. Yeah. Can I shift gears?
Speaker 1Let me talk about one more author real quick. Abigail Schreier. Schreier. Schreier? Schreier? Schreier. Okay. Sorry, I got Lord of the Rings on the brain. You said you don't like Lord of the Rings. Yeah. It's somewhere in your mind. It's somewhere very.
Speaker 2I appreciate Abigail Schreier very much.
Speaker 1Bad therapy first, but before that was irreplaceable damage. Which is very good.
Speaker 2And brave of her to put that out there. Very brave. Now it's become a little more kosher to critique transgenderism. But at that time. But she was at the beginnings of that. Yeah, that's right. And took flack for it. Yeah. Shift gears.
Speaker 1Go ahead, brother.
Speaker 2I was going to say biographies. Give me. And for the benefit of listening to this, because I know we like some niche things. Yeah. But hey, this is a great biography. It could be Christian, non-Christian.
Speaker 1What's the Teddy Roosevelt phrase about walks softly, carry a big stick?
Speaker 2Yes, I think that's it. Is that how it goes? Is that walk softly? I think it's talk softly.
Speaker 1Talk softly. Yeah, something like that. There's actually a biography by that title, whatever that quote is. It's the first biography I read of him. It was short, punchy, lively. Speak softly. Speak softly and carry a big stick. It's a biography. I worked for a Presbyterian pastor in the PCA, and he recommended it. And it was so good, I did something I almost never do. I read it back to back. I got to the end, and I went back to the beginning. I said, "That was so much fun." Who's the author of that biography? Do you know? I don't know. It's by the title Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick. Yeah, that was one of mine.
Speaker 2Go ahead. Well, no. In the world of Theodore Roosevelt biographies, there's a million. Edmund Morris has a trilogy that's considered just magisterial. So I think there's Colonel Roosevelt, Theodore Rex, The Rides of Theodore Roosevelt, something like that.
Speaker 1There's a biography about his son that I'm thinking about reading soon.
Speaker 2Kermit? I think that's the name. Yeah. I love Churchill biographies. The trilogy by William Manchester is some of the best stuff I've ever read on any genre, period.
Speaker 1But if you're struggling to get into Churchill, buy the Candace Millard book. It'll get you excited.
Speaker 2And like Roosevelt, Roosevelt lived like nine lives, as did Winston Churchill, and both of them should have died a million times and didn't. Remarkable lives. With Winston Churchill, the best one volume that I've read is Andrew Roberts, who, by the way, has a superb biography of Napoleon. And he's kind of offering a new interpretation of Napoleon. A lot of people see him now as like Hitler. He's more sympathetic. He was willing to murder six
Speaker 1million people, that's for sure.
Speaker 2Oh, yeah. Napoleon has a great line. Roberts has it in that book where he's, I think it's when he's coming back to France to reclaim his position around 1814, 15. And he says, he's asking how many men have been loyal to the emperor, something like that, and to go into battle with him. He goes, his lieutenant tells him, well, we have 60,000 men of communist. Okay, okay. So 60,000 people. 60,000 people plus me, that makes 100,000. Okay, yeah. That's good, man. So Andrew Roberts, his volume on Churchill and his volume on Napoleon are tremendous. William Manchester's three volume on Churchill is tremendous. The first two pages of volume one, I think, are two of the best written pages in all of literature. I love Harry Lee Poe, wrote a superb three volume biography of C.S. Lewis. It's something like becoming C.S. Lewis, being C.S.
Speaker 1Lewis. I read volume two recently. It couldn't keep my attention. It couldn't keep my attention as well. I appreciated learning about his walking tours. Oh, yeah. He was just kind of, for, what, a month at a time? Him and friends would just walk around the English countryside.
Speaker 2Yeah, he loved walking. Yeah, he loved friends. By the way, we were talking about Lewis a few times here. The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis, particularly his chapter on friendship. I read that at least once a year. I love Humphrey Carpenter is a great biography of J.R.R. Tolkien. Ron Chernow on George Washington is tremendous. Yeah. You were telling me about Robert Caro on LBJ. I love Robert Caro. I have not yet read the LBJ. Oh, my goodness. There's six of them? Yeah, I think there's four.
Speaker 1He's supposed to be coming out with five.
Speaker 2Everyone says read Master of the Senate, which I think is the fourth volume.
Speaker 1Well, what's so fascinating about that volume is LBJ was truly one of the few people who's ever actually been able to do anything in the Senate. And he was able to do that.
Speaker 2That's more legislation than I think any president.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's right. But I really think if you don't give four, you're like four volumes on LBJ. who has the time i really think if you just read volume one i mean it's it's kind of a life-changing work i can't wait to get into it man oh man it's so good i mean he you know he got cut his teeth writing about robert moses yeah
Speaker 2the power broker that the power
Speaker 1broker you would think that that story would be more interesting yeah if you know anything about the story of robert moses if you drove across a bridge anywhere in new york it's because of robert moses if you're in a park it's a pretty corrupt guy though actually very corrupt very dirty but and probably the most powerful person in new york for about 40 years yeah uh and he's just i'm telling you this lbj volume one is is even more powerful it shot up my
Speaker 2list man i will for sure be reading it soon
Speaker 1did you find the name of that author james h snyder
Speaker 2james h snyder yeah i'll add a few more uh david teams on william tyndale is delightful short biography uh leslie winfield on thomas cranmer thomas cranmer's life is just pure theater it's amazing yeah uh delightful if you want to read a thick one thomas cranmer is the guy in church history he's poised for uh a comeback wrote the book of common prayer was basically the chaplain to henry the eighth uh henry the eighth yeah um and uh was the primary leader i would say in the english reformation and um has an incredible life life i think dire maid mccullough uh tremendous can you look that up look and send it to me please oh it's so good so uh
Speaker 1moving a little bit away from biographies well let me say one more because
Speaker 2i just always want to say i just please i want people in the world to read ian murray's two volume on lloyd jones that's my favorite biography favorite
Speaker 1book yeah that's right and all of ian murray's books are superb i mean uh when macarthur passed i have i have a bunch of uh murray books on my bookshelf i've read three quarters of them one of them that i hadn't read was on macarthur and i went and i read that book and i was like oh my god i'm gonna read that book and i'm gonna read this is so good i mean it really helped me to love and appreciate john more than i had which was a lot it's great his his book on amy carmichael okay so a friend of mine was just telling me they
Speaker 2they put this on them they're mount rushmore of books and i said well that's a bit extreme but i have to do that yeah it's very good though yeah i was gonna say um on that front um oh no i was gonna say a biography probably no one's gonna read that they should is amity schlaes on calvin coolidge calvin coolidge is the best president people don't know anything about yeah that's my network password at my house um if you want some internet in uh hope valley neighborhood in yeah winston salem yeah we'll be that's our password calvin coolidge staying in the realm
Speaker 1of history but moving away from biography let's just talk about crackling historical vignettes so an example an easy example that might be accessible to our people is something like the unquenchable flame by michael reeves what a gift that book is yeah he just brings all of the history of the church to the people of the church and i think that's a really good example of that again, of whom I'm the foremost. I think about Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin. I always say Doris Goodwin Kearns.
Speaker 2That's long. That's a long book, but it's very good. The Lincoln movie with Daniel Day-Lewis and Sally Fields was based on that.
Speaker 1But it's long, but some books are like, we actually had this meal when we were in Scotland. It was parsnips, carrots, chicken, and something else, and I couldn't stop eating. It was just so healthy. I just enjoyed the meal so much. Very nourishing. That's what it feels like to read 800 pages, Team of Rivals. Yeah, great. And I think there's a lot of history out there like that.
Speaker 2Well, you know, who's just a delight to read is David McCullough. So he wrote 1776, John Adams, The Johnston Flood, Americans in Paris. He's got eight or nine. And, oh, he's just a feast. If you're a lover of history, but also good writing, you know, he's just tremendous.
Speaker 1How do you feel about historical fiction?
Speaker 2You know, that's a genre I struggle to read. No, but one book you've recommended that I cannot wait to read. Is it Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall? Because the show, I don't watch a ton of shows, but that show, it's top one or two shows all time for me. And I love that era. I've given a lot of attention to the English Reformation. That cast of characters, Cranmer and Thomas Cronwell and Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn and William Tyndale. And I could get in that all day long. So I'm going to go for it and can't wait. But I normally don't like historical fiction.
Speaker 1Well, to commend the book to our viewers, I'm the opposite of you in that way. I actually go crazy trying to figure out all the details of English history, and this book kept my attention every second of the way. I can't wait, man.
Speaker 2And it's a trilogy. There's Bringing Up the Bodies, I think, is the second part, and I forgot what the last one was.
Speaker 1I've done all three, and all three are great. As you know, it is rarely the case that a sequel is as good as the original.
Speaker 2Well, and Wolf Hall, you don't have to do much to sell that. I think it was like a New York Times bestseller. That book killed it.
Speaker 1It was incredible. How could it not be?
Speaker 2No, but I mean, it's not like some of the books we've recommended are a little niche, But that book is widely acclaimed to be just masterful. But I don't have much more in the area of historical fiction.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's okay. I've read a book on the life of Pontius Pilate that I felt like really brought. Again, I don't know how much of this is embellishment because I'm not an expert in many of these things. But you can kind of get a sense of the way someone is telling a story, whether they're more honest or not. Does that make sense? Yeah. I don't know how I can even prove that. It's just sort of my antennas vibrate positively or negatively. But I found that book to be very illuminating. I try not to do too much of it, but if there's ever like, if somebody recommends like this historical fiction book is amazing, I'll probably add it to the list.
Speaker 2Do we have time to talk? I'd like to talk about Christian books then. Sure, yeah. So books in the category, you said this is general edification. So these books are pretty reliable in my mind. If I could get every Christian to read this. let's assume that they read at least a few books a year. Yeah. Okay, so it's not like you're convincing someone who never reads to read a book. Yeah. Like, man, if I could just inject these five books, these seven books into people, what are they for you?
Speaker 1So let me start with a weird one. Okay. Ben Stevens adapted Jonathan Edwards' The End for Which God Created the World. And when I say adapted, he did so very responsibly. So like if you're worried, like, you know, Did he, did he do violence to Edwards? I think Edwards, if he were here and read Ben Stevens, his manuscript would say, wow, he really captured the essence, but accommodated new language, you know?
Speaker 2Yeah. Well, I praise that's tremendous.
Speaker 1Uh, so it's, it's, it's so good. And I think, listen, fundamentally, every human needs to understand why am I here? Why am I here? - Yeah, yeah. - Why am I living this life? Why am I going through all this stuff?
Speaker 2ahead of say like a john piper book desiring god or something like that which i feel like looks in
Speaker 1that direction oh what well desiring god is john piper's my hero yeah okay he's on my mount rushmore of influential uh not just books uh christian figures but figures uh i think desiring god should be four to forty percent shorter yeah most people i know have struggled to read it yeah i agree with you i wish actually in the in light of what's happening a lot in the publishing industry where you release fat volume and then slim more accessible popular volume i wish piper would kind of do that with desiring god having said that other people have said that essentially any book you read from piper is just desiring god it's just from a different angle sure yeah he tends to repeat
Speaker 2himself i got it but knowing god by packer in there i'm reading through it again you're gonna say you know 10th time and different chapters stand out to me every time the one that i've just i just ministered to me i mean obviously his chapter on adoption is great his chapter on what knowledge of god is is great but his chapter on the wisdom of god was so good um you know gentle and lowly you know there are a few shortcomings in that book i think it's it's it it uh it's not quite full orbed but there are just some ideas every christian has to grasp and it's it's it's beautifully written
Speaker 1um it was very affecting to my soul yeah i didn't know how much i needed
Speaker 2it amen really um when i don't desire god by piper i think it's his best book
Speaker 1okay yeah yeah see this is so tough because it's like am i asking what which i've enjoyed the most or the way you sort of framed it what what do i want a christian to read to be formative for their soul well when i don't
Speaker 2desire god i put on the list because every christian struggles with that at some point another yeah feeling sunk low in the christian life period of spiritual decline that's all over the bible and it i think he treats that so responsibly in that book but i would add i'm just always pushing the letters of john newton for for piety for devotion yeah for walking with god for sanctification oh and for sanctification holiness by jc ryle oh yeah to me that is every that's that's in the christianity 101 class you gotta gotta go through that early on in your christian life and then one more here's one more that no one would probably say in a uh an answer to a question like that that i think should be in that kind of 101 packet is actually john stott on the sermon on the mount
Speaker 1i'm not surprised by that yeah the mess i
Speaker 2think it's just the message of the sermon on the mount yeah by john stott yeah it's a tremendous there
Speaker 1are a number of stop books that could kind of compete for that place basic christianity is superb the cross of christ is very good
Speaker 2yeah oh yeah it's classic
Speaker 1uh going a little more contemporary i mean i think every christian should read humility by cj mahaney yeah oh tremendous so cross-centered life yeah he's got
Speaker 2many um you know in the ecclesiology world i want i you know nine marks the same criticism of john piper might hold you kind of get one you get them all in some ways yeah um but you got to get that vision at some point maybe it's john mark's family church a compelling community but somewhere in there you have a christian has to
Speaker 1grasp that i agree i actually think the book that i decided a long time ago if i was going to give one book to someone out of the nine marks corpus wasn't going to be devere because devere doesn't have a persuasive bone in his body it feels like when he writes he just kind of he's very um well very spurgeon s just like i'm just going to lay it out you know i'm just going to tell you what i think you know and i hope you find this compelling i hope the lord leads you to receive this if he doesn't i've done my best you know but uh word center church uh-huh yeah good lehman well i think it's the foundation of all the nine marks it's it's this understanding that the word of god has to do the work including in how we shape and structure the church the word of god hasn't left us without a witness and when i first got to decatur and i started ministering and building friends with other local church pastors and i said i'm sure i'm going to receive a lot from these brothers but if i'm able to influence anyone in any way by sharing a book with them that will help with church health you know am i going to give them nine marks well i've been so helped by it i don't think i am i don't think i'm going to give them lehman's church membership and church discipline the little duo although i've been very helped by that i think we we disagree on this but i think the best thing lehman has ever written the most comprehensive sort of systematic theology approach to the nine mark stuff is actually don't fire your church members but what would be the one book that i would say if you were to write a book that would you're a pastor and you can only read one nine marks book i think it would be word center church i think if you get that a lot of the pieces will follow it's a
Speaker 2good choice i i like compelling compelling community a lot because i feel that that has an immediacy to it for church members like when they come into our church and they're like what's different what's going on here yeah compelling community puts some vocabulary to it yeah but um but i think word center church is a
Speaker 1great choice the compelling community i also appreciate jamie dunlop little known fact that says jamie dunlop and mark devere mark actually didn't write any of it so indebted to mark uh i've just found there's so much tension in that book and this is often the case when you're when you're dealing on a knife's edge doing a lot of nuance you're saying well on the one hand this but on the other hand that and you do that a lot in the book and i think i have found over the years as i've talked about that book with other people that pastors really struggle with that so yeah anyways i could say the favorite book you
Speaker 2think pastors should read who are preparing for the ministry or early in their ministry i want to say charles
Speaker 1bridge is the christian ministry say it then well i have a few concerns okay concern number one is that reading bridges is kind of like reading edwards in the sense that it's very taxing for people and i want to recommend a book that people will actually read some of that is just in how you recommend it to someone you say there's a little outdated you think uh well the the language i just think he's a hard read for modern readers for any number of i get
Speaker 2that i recommend that like crazy but me too me
Speaker 1too and it's still part of our pastoral internship i just say treat it like you do some of the best puritan works read a couple pages a day don't sit down and try to read half of the book in one go if you're struggling with it he also is dealing with and i don't think these are that makes them invalid but he's dealing with certain questions that feel less relevant in our day you know he kind of wages war against pastors who spend too much time gardening well i get that and his context when ministers are often taking positions in the church to make their living and they're not really wholeheartedly devoted to god they're just kind of there to get the paycheck so when i when i said that last line i'm like well actually it does apply to pastors in our context but there needs to be some translation there so what i really want is for someone like mark deborah to write the modern and he's not going to it ain't going to happen i want
Speaker 2someone to yeah yeah yeah i would love for uh uh i've advocated for this to at least a handful of people i think it'd be great you know mark has been so fruitful in training men and pulling in men and um i think a collection of his men should write a series of essays oh on the pastoral ministry yeah so so just get 12 guys 15 guys a kind of fast shrift but also just uh almost like what jamie did with compelling community these are his ideas so you're you advocate for uh something that mark has taught and then also it's an acknowledgement of that's a great idea i think it'd be great yeah um what about you pastoral ministry definitely christian ministry by bridges and then why a lesser known resource wise counsel by john newton these are john newton's letters to an individual pastor named john ryland jr probably 350 pages worth of letters he wrote to him about how to be a good pastor and john newton is the pastor par excellence tim keller's head of newton he's the greatest pastor i've ever seen so that would be one now but i'd love to know though too in relation to this older works so if you have a good reader and they're like i want to read older things um in addition to the kind of every christian has to read sort of stuff so i could read the puritans i could read calvin yeah would there be things that you would say hey this is this is cream of the crop kind of stuff you
Speaker 1think about works like charnock's existence
Speaker 2attributes of god yeah oh and on communion with god for me would be up there mortification of sin a lot of puritan classics bruise reed by richard sibs the heart of christ by thomas goodwin that's all up there i think calvin's institutes especially the first volume it's still worth people really trying to get through that i just finished both volumes with a group from my church have you done
Speaker 1von mastrick everyone seems to be all i haven't edward's the greatest book besides the bible
Speaker 2you know to be honest sean i struggle to read systematic
Speaker 1theology yeah yeah same yeah uh yeah i i
Speaker 2think everyone's got to read a pilgrim's progress by bunyan i just a group of 20
Speaker 1people through that uh or read the modern children's version of little pilgrims park or is it a little pilgrim big
Speaker 2journey yeah i'm reading dangerous journey which is another adaptation of my kids right now we've done
Speaker 1several yeah yeah uh i struggle with pilgrim's progress i i have a deep love for everything that bunyan is doing but i find his prose bear with me in some ways to my modern sensibilities insufferable like it's very hard for me to read him so when somebody comes along and does a modern adaptation that keeps the same spirit i honestly i love it so much yeah yeah sure no
Speaker 2that's a blessing um i can't we
Speaker 1can't all be a charles spurgeon and read pilgrim's progress a hundred times yeah i know very true
Speaker 2um i think edwards has things worth reading religious affections you know discerning the work of grace in someone's heart would definitely be a big one um i think cranmer the book of common prayer is so great devotionally every christian just take a year with the book of common prayer alongside your bible reading first of all it's going to bring you to a bunch of bible passages yeah but certain set prayers and things like that there's a book club right now we vote on the books and so everyone recommends a book and i keep recommending the book of common prayer and it's may just impose it upon the people at some point and say, we're reading this. You know, it's a book I'd never heard of until my wife came across it. It's one of the best books I've ever read, Sean. Meekness and Quietness of Spirit by Matthew Henry.
Speaker 1I just read that earlier this year. Are you kidding me? Yeah. Well, it went out of print and everyone forgot about it.
Speaker 2And then somehow it came back. You can buy a copy on Amazon.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's good stuff. I really, really, really loved the first half. By the second half, I was exhausted because he feels like he's doing the same thing. Now, that may sound like a pretty big knock. But that's often the case with Puritan stuff. They're kind of just turning things. Yeah. So what that tells you is that the first half is really, really, really good. And the second half, you can just probably do without. Anything we haven't covered, Sean? Probably a thousand things. This will probably just be episode one of Book Talk with Alex. That's great. I love it. And we'll just do some more.
Speaker 2You know, Nine Marks is Pastors Talk and Cow's Talk. We should do Book Talk. Maybe we sell that. Jonathan Lehman, Taylor Hartley, Mark, if you're out there, Book Talk. Book Talk. With Sean and Alex. With Sean and Alex. Can I mention one more book? It's Book Talk. Why not? Okay, well, hold on. Let me mention two things. Before I go, three more things. Just a book that didn't fit any of the categories that I just wish people would read. A Shepherd's Life by James Rebanks. So good. It's basically about this guy. It's kind of like an elegy for a world that's passing away. Through the lens of a sheep farm in the Lake District of England. And this guy basically realizing what we've lost in losing that old world. He talks about shepherding sheep with his grandfather. And the world is not what it was. And he's kind of trying to stand against that, recognizing the tide has turned. And it's beautifully written. Then also, just because I love poetry. And I want to throw out, if you're thinking of reading poetry, like, well, I'm not into it. George Herbert would be someone to consult as a great devotional poet. But then also, if you want to read more widely, Alfred Lord Tennyson is tremendous. Maybe you start with his poem, if you want a longer poem, In Memoriam, which is about grief. Or Ulysses, which is about adventure and perseverance. William Wordsworth is lovely. So why don't you throw a few poets out there in the mix? And John Milton's Paradise Lost is tremendous.
Speaker 1Let me throw out one more thing, too, since we're doing this. Jonathan Moorhead wrote a book with Christian focus called Trial of the Century. I didn't want to leave this out. Because it's historical, it's biographical, and it's crackling. It's the story of the Servetus Trial. You mentioned this to me. Yeah, there's nobody in the world who probably knows more about it than Jonathan Moorhead. He's a superb writer. And he's like Ian Murray in the sense that he really just gets out of the way and lets the story tell itself. So definitely check out our Room for Nuance interview if you're nervous about buying the book. And then after you watch that, you'll buy the book.
Speaker 2Yeah, that's another one you've put on my radar I didn't know about that I will read.
Speaker 1Well, this is a book that I'm going to read. This has been fun. Episode 1 of Book Talk. More to come soon-ish. Thank you, brother.
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