Have you ever felt Theologically Challenged?

This brilliant, accessible book is perfect for those wanting to understand more of who the New Testament writers - particularly the gospel writers - and the early Church, understood Jesus to be. It offers a really helpful analysis of the historical backdrop against which Jesus came and ministered. It also offers a theological account of his humanity, his divinity, and his life, death and resurrection and suggests how understanding these properly can and should impact our faith and discipleship today.

Velvet Elvis is an excellent and encouraging starting point for people beginning their theological journeys. It sets a tone of healthy inquisition, faithful exploration, and hopeful wonderment. Whatever else you might think about Rob Bell’s later work, this is an exceptional book for those earnestly pursuing a thoughtful theology.

This book is a humble and helpful exploration of the questions that, even after many years of high level scholarship, Chris Wright still wrestles with. It includes sections on Suffering and Evil, Violence in the Bible, The Cross, and The End of the World. I recommend this book for those wrestling with the same questions.

The Bible is filled with threads that run right through it, with different authors picking up on different ones at different times. Sometimes we can miss these threads and, in doing so, miss just how interconnected the Bible really is. Here, Andy and Mike, plot some of the key biblical themes from Genesis to Revelation, showing where, when, and by who they are picked up. This is a great little book for those wanting to appreciate the Bible better and understand how it fits together more.

Reading Paul is a brilliant, easy to read, and relatively short little book from my favourite Pauline scholar Michael Gorman. In it he provides a broad overview of who Paul was, the world Paul lived in, what Paul thought, and how that can help us be more faithful followers of Jesus today. As far as I’m concerned this is a must read for everyone.

For those of us engaged in Theological Dialogue this is a really helpful book. It offers a backdrop to and describes the (often subconscious) parameters of our God-talk. It also raises some interesting and provocative ideas to fuel such discussions.

Various blog posts on this site make reference to my ongoing journey of frustration as I’ve tried to understand what the gospel is (and isn’t!), and how it is good news. This book really helped me in my journey. Its easy to read, and tackles the questions and concerns you might have about the gospel head on. McKnight takes you through how the ‘Good News’ about Jesus has too often been confused ‘God’s plan for salvation’, and explains how these overlap but are distinct. He also gives an overview of how and when this confusion took place, and takes us back to what the New Testament authors believe the gospel really was. In doing so he irons out many of the wrinkles I could instinctively sense but couldn’t, at the time, theologically make sense of.

The Old Testament can be quite a disconcerting thing to read. It often seems otherworldly, some passages are downright bizarre, others are downright horrific, and on top of that it seems to imply some concerning things about God. For those who are perplexed by the OT i thoroughly recommend this book as an introduction to it. The truth is, the OT can sometimes seem like a challenging read because it IS otherworldly. But if we orient ourselves to the world it was originally written in and for, we can appreciate it so much better. Schlimm provides a great overview of things such as genre, form and language, historical setting, and cultural assumptions in order to draw us deeper into that world. And readers are much the better for it.

Fee writes as a pentecostal theologian, and really is just that: highly committed to the gifts and work of the Spirit, and also highly gifted and well-regarded academic theologian. This is really excellent, very easy to read book about the Holy Spirit. Short chapters addressing much of what the Spirit does for us. As someone raised in the charismatic tradition this broadened and deepened my understanding and appreciation of the Holy Spirit, helping me see how utterly dependent I am upon her in all aspects of my faith. Another must-have in my opinion.

I adore this little book. I once saw it on offer for £2.50 in a Christian book store and immediately bought half a dozen copies to give out to friends! It’s a wonderfully envisioning take on the opportunities and challenges of being church in the contemporary world, examining fresh expressions and emerging movements, provoking thinking and offering some great ideas about contextualised discipleship and mission. Get yourself a copy!

This is a really useful little book for those who are new to the Bible. It offers an overview of each book of the Bible, outlines roughly when it was written, where in the Biblical timeline it fits, who the author(s) might have been, what its key themes / concerns are, and highlights some of the little quirks to look out for as you read it. All in very accessible, engaging, even light hearted and amusing language. If you’re still trying to get your head around the Bible, this comes highly recommended.

I honestly think this is one of the best Christian books out there on the topic of sex, marriage and relationships more generally. A really alternative yet biblically insightful and faithful way of exploring these fundamental topics. Definitely a must read!

I found this little book a game changer for my youth ministry. I’d been wrestling for a while with what it looked like to build small, contextualised communities of young people in which they could explore their faith in a simple and relevant way. Then I read this and essentially discovered how. Here, Rich provides exceptional vision undergirded by simplistic tools and strategies, that leave plenty of room for creativity and experimentation. More importantly he has a youth work philosophy that is perfect for Gen Z / Gen Alpha and a breath of fresh, contrasting air to the outdated yet still common ‘event / hype / entertainment / attractional’ model of youth ministry.

If you’ve discovered that there are different ways of understanding what Jesus’ death and resurrection is all about, this is a really helpful book. It outlines different understandings of atonement and how each of them has a valid contribution to make to our overall theology. McKnight is an excellent scholar but distills his vast wisdom here into a very easy to read volume, that is top of my recommendation list for people trying to understand what the cross was all about.

Christianity is all about going to heaven when you die right?! Well… sort of… yes, and no… not really! In this phenomenal volume Tom Wright artfully paints a more biblical, more astounding, and more hopeful picture of what Christianity is all about. He explains how some of our thinking about heaven and hell is unhelpfully misguided or even downright unbiblical. He describes what the hope of the whole of scripture is and how it has been inaugurated in Jesus. He explores how we can begin to live and benefit from eternal life in the now. He And he addresses the strange and yet all-together essential topic of resurrection. Its a bit of a long one, but its well worth the effort, and actually a relatively easy read!

The New (or rather, second) Testament is steeped in the Old (or rather, first). Its writers explain who Jesus is and what it means to follow Him through constant references and allusions to the Jewish story and scriptures. Yet can often miss these references and therefore miss what the NT writers are really saying. Richard Hays does a wonderful job here of opening people’s minds to the many OT ideas, images, themes, and typologies that saturate the gospels and letters and explains how these help us read, understand, interpret and live out their words much more faithfully.

This is a popular version of Barclay’s ‘magnum opus’ called ‘Paul and the Gift’ which is being broadly regarded as one of the most significant texts in the field of Biblical Studies for the last 50 years. Barclay has done a huge amount of work in recapturing what Paul means by the enigmatic word ‘grace’ (or, in the greek ‘charis’ which literally means ‘gift’). His work has helpfully brought together both traditional and newer perspectives on Paul, and offered a really helpful framework through which to understand the apostle’s theology. I’d recommend this to anyone who is aware of the debates about Paul and trying to find their place within them.

This is a wonderfully readable accessible book for those wanting to begin exploring Genesis in a scholarly way. It provides some really useful guidance on how to approach that enigmatic text, offering useful explanations regarding Genesis’ historical, cultural, and linguistic particularities. I highly recommend it.

This is a really good introduction to political theology. Hauerwas’s passionate and committed approach to loving neighbour (known as ‘Faithful Presence’) is a compelling alternative to other forms of Christian political engagement. If you want to be challenged and provoked in equal measure, all towards a more Christ-like posture to the culture in which you find yourself living, this is a great book to engage with.

Perhaps you’ve found yourself discussing with people shifts in ethics throughout Christian history. Particularly in discussions of updating ‘outdated’ ideas, arguments such as ‘well Christians used to support slavery and be anti women… but that changed’ can often be wielded. These are provocative notions that should be listened to, and reflected on, in dialogue with the Biblical text. Webb offers this helpful resource as a guide for engaging well in that reflection and dialogue. He suggests a compelling way of developing hermeneutics on the basis of the ‘trajectory’ of scripture. I don’t agree with everything he says, but its a helpful resource for those wanting to address contemporary concerns in a biblically faithful way.

Justification is a helpful and thought provoking book that seeks to reassess traditional reformed understandings of soteriology. Tom builds a solid biblical case for altering our interpretation of the loaded term ‘Justification’ - redefining it in terms of covenantal participation rather than simply as a legal or forensic ‘status’. The book is set up, in part, as a response to John Piper and can be helpfully read as part of an exploration into Older (or more traditional) and Newer ‘Perspectives’ on Paul.

I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with systematic theology books; I love them because they seek to synthesise and make sense of scripture and theology in a way that brings clarity and resonance (something I’m passionate about trying to do and I think we’re all trying to do to a certain extent). I hate them because at some point they fall down, or try to make things more simple than they actually are. Horton’s book is no exception - its intent is glorious, its execution inevitably flawed, its aim finally unobtainable. There is also plenty I want to vehemently disagree with him about. But that said, Horton does draw some useful connection lines between different texts, ideas, and thinkers, and creates a wire frame for a systematic understanding of Christian theology. He also makes some helpful points that have assisted me in the development of my own theology, even if I’ve ended up in very different places to him.

This book is a very helpful introduction for Christians to the topic of Gender Dysphoria. Yarhouse is a clinical psychologist as well as a Christian, and so offers a helpful insight into the clinical nature of GD as well as some theological reflections on how Christians might best respond to it. He helpfully sets out a number of different ways Christians have engaged with the topic thus far as well as offering his own thoughts. I do not agree with all of Yarhouse’s conclusions but for those wrestling within topic, this book is an excellent resource!

Paula wrote this book as a ‘rough guide’ to heaven, but sadly was unable to call it that for various copyright reasons. It is, however, just that. It usefully explains how the biblical authors’ understanding of heaven (and hell) developed over time, and points to some of the apocryphal sources that the New Testament’s theology of heaven in particular is built upon. If you’ve ever been confused by the idea of heaven, hell, angels, demons, and the ‘spiritual realm’ this is a really good and accessible book from a really brilliant scholar.

Probably the single most influential book on my current theology and spirituality. This is Gorman’s first and most extensive work on the subject of Paul’s Cruciform Spirituality. It is deep, rich, full of profound insight and, though long, highly readable. Gorman’s thesis is compelling, persuasive and well argued. If you want to understand Paul - the man and his writing - better, this is essential reading. And if you’ve ever found the figure of Paul troubling, unpleasant or off-putting, it will alleviate your fears and transform your perception for the better.

This is a relatively new book, and another one engaging with the theme of atonement. Similar to McKnight’s book on the subject, McNall points to the fact that no atonement model / theory / metaphor truly does justice to all the atonement was about. Instead he suggests we need to understand how they all fit together. In this book, he draws together the various pieces of different atonement theologies suggesting they all contribute to a grand theological mosaic; a piece of art which, when finally seen in full, leads us deeper into worship. I found it hugely helpful in understanding both individual atonement ideas and how they compliment one another. i don’t agree with all his arguments, but I broadly support both his aim and much of his thinking.

This is an absolute classic and another text this is often considered one of the most significant in the field over the last 50 years or so. It’s short, but its dense and needs to be chewed over properly, preferably with others. However, if you give it the time it deserves, it is full of insight, challenge, provocation, and hope. And will help you appreciate and take seriously the church’s call to be the prophetic people of God. Warning, there are no easy answers here, but there is much to glean from it all the same.

This genius volume was first published in 1968, yet its insights into Paul’s theology and ethics are deeply insightful and bang up to date - if anything becoming even more confirmed by broader scholarship since its original release. It might sound strange given the subject, but it was honestly a pleasure to read and I largely wizzed through it. If you want to delve deeper into some of the gravitational centres of Paul’s thinking, teaching and pastoring, this is a really valuable and highly recommend guide.

This is a bit of a classic in the world of Christian ethics. Not the shortest read, but it sheds valuable light on how Christians can draw on scripture, tradition, reason and experience (the Wesleyan Quadrilateral) when ethically reasoning. Its not a perfect thesis, but it is well argued and really helpful for those wanting to find or develop faithful Christian stances on many of life’s tough ethical topics. Hays offers some of his own in the final section, not all of which I agree with, but each of which attempts to apply the ethical framework he sets out in the first part of the book.

This book is heralded as one of the first really authoritative defenses of charismatic theology. Max Turner is a remarkable scholar and his portrayal of the role of the Spirit within Luke-Acts is deeply informative in terms of an exploration of those two texts, but particularly for those who regard themselves as charismatic Christians. Turner will broaden and deepen your appreciation of the Spirit as well as illuminate Lucan theology. It is not the easiest read, but it is well worth pushing through with.