Grace Abounding

A few weeks ago we wrapped up a sermon series called Knowing God: Exploring His Greatness and Goodness. Several church members have asked about further resources to get to know God better, so here are five reliable guides to pursuing relationship with God and understanding his attributes. I’ve included them from easiest to most challenging and in-depth:

1) Knowing God by J.I. Packer
Packer’s classic 1973 book was the inspiration for our sermon series on knowing God. This book started out as a series of magazine articles about God’s attributes that were later packaged in one volume. Packer guides the reader to understand God’s perfections, including his truthfulness, his love, his grace, his wrath, his divine jealousy, and his goodness. This book equips the Christian to talk knowledgeably about God with non-Christians and weaves practical day-to-day application of God’s attributes to the Christian life. I recommend this book to any Christian who wants to get to know God better.

It’s available here for $11.93.

2) Desiring God by John Piper
God used this book to change my life. Perhaps no book I’ve read has more revolutionized my understanding of Christianity and stoked in me a passion for God and his glory than this one. A must-read for every Christian. Desiring God demonstrates from the Bible that God is completely committed to bringing glory to himself, and that as we pursue this goal with God, we find our greatest joy and happiness in life. He relates knowing God to practical aspects of everyday life including marriage, money, prayer, missions, worship, and suffering.

It’s available here for $10.04.

3) Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem (chapter 9 to 16)
Wayne Grudem discusses essential questions about God that we all wrestle through: How do we really know God exists? How can God be three persons, yet one God? If God controls all things, how can our actions have real meaning? Grudem’s book intersets with daily life by including study questions for personal application and a hymn to sing to apply what you’ve just read.

It’s $28.65 here.

3) The Doctrine of God by John Frame
Frame’s volume is my constant companion for preaching and teaching. When I am trying to faithfully understand and explain an attribute of God, I find giudance from Frame’s digging into the text of Scripture to understand and revel in God’s divine qualities. This is one of a three-part trilogy on the knowledge of God that Frame has written, and I thoroughly commend it to every pastor as an essential reference tool.

It’s available here for $26.00.

4) No One Like Him by John Feinberg
I’ve been working my way through Feinberg’s book for nine years, and am about halfway through. Seriously! Feinberg handles probing philosophical questions about God’s nature and God’s attributes in a thorough, text-based approach. I have found his work to be my main resource when dealing with theologies of God that come up frequently in a pastoral context, from open theism and a denial of the deity of Christ to the discussion of how God’s sovereignty works with human responsibility.

It’s available here for $26.00.

[Note: book prices are as of May 10, 2011, when this blog post was published.]