Some Personal Favorites
(Authors)
Contemporary Authors
I love my friends, and when my friends are men who can effectively minister the Word of God to me – well, I am even more thankful for them. Among my very favorite authors are two such friends, men with whom I have had the privilege of becoming acquainted and who have ministered the Word here at our church with exceptional blessing.
One is D. A. Carson. In a day when NT scholarship seems more and more to capitulate to the conclusions (or should I say, assumptions) of modern critical scholarship, Don Carson is a happy and powerful exception. In his more thorough commentaries (Matthew and John) he interacts with critics, but there is always a "reverence" for the text. His grasp of Biblical issues and themes is nearly unmatched in modern writers, and his careful eye consistently catches the exegetical detail on which a given passage or issue turns. Few contemporary writers recognize so well the redemptive-historical flow of Scriptures or see so clearly that the entire Bible is a Christological book. Every interpreter needs to read Carson's Exegetical Fallacies -- it will be both a humbling and a helpful experience. Even his more popular titles (such as How Long, O Lord, and A Call to Spiritual Reformation), while they are easily within the grasp of any average layman, are marked by keen exegetical and theological insight. I cannot recommend Don Carson more highly. He is a man of solid Biblical conviction and a man with a heart for the gospel of Christ. Get his books, and read them. Buy them sight unseen; they will all prove well worth the investment.
Another favorite author is Sinclair B. Ferguson. Sinclair has been with us here many times and without exception his ministry and fellowship has been blessed. Now senior minister at St. George's-Tron Parish Church in Glasgow, he is formerly professor of theology at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. He is a true heir of "the old Princeton theologians" – careful and thorough in his theological reflections but a theologian of the heart (to borrow his description of Augustine) if ever there was one. And his books are like his preaching – when you're done with them you have not only learned but you are clearly directed to Christ, deeply blessed, and would like to get alone and pray. We have some in our church who will tell you that they have been richly blessed in that the first Christian literature they read for some time after their conversion, other than their Bibles, were books by Sinclair Ferguson. We stock them in our church book racks continually and encourage people to read them all. Read Sinclair Ferguson. You will be better for it.
Some Older Guys
My first introduction to J. Gresham Machen was in Beginning Greek class in September of 1977 – his New Testament Greek for Beginners remains the classic still today and is the text I use in teaching Greek. Machen, the last of "the old Princetonians" and famous founder of Westminster Theological Seminary, writes like few others ever could. He was brilliant, and he was insightful, and he was simple. Some of his more polemic works (The Virgin Birth, The Origin of Paul's Religion) well illustrate what a powerful thorn in the side Machen could be to the liberal theologians of his day – masterful defenses of the historic Christian faith. But his other works (such as The Christian Faith in the Modern World, one of my very favorites) are equally as profound and faithful and insightful and on the level of any laman anywhere. His heart for the truth of the gospel is evident throughout.
Since we're on a Reformed roll here, I must mention Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield, on any score one of the most outstanding exegetical minds in the history of the Christian Church. Warfield, another from "the old Princeton," is not for everyone – he is sometimes not your easiest reading. But his solid exegetical theology is a model for any would-be theologian anywhere. Yes, I am embarrassed by his concessions to theistic evolution. And as always there are other areas of disagreement also. But I'll read anything he wrote. And his sermons are careful and always warm expositions from the heart of one in love with Christ.
David Martyn Lloyd-Jones is a true favorite. Yes, to read him is to read a lot, but you will almost always be glad you took the time. His famous expositions of Romans (Banner of Truth) and Ephesians (Baker) deserve reading by every preacher. His thorough understanding of theological concepts and his clear expositions and applications of them provide a good education for every minister of the Word. Not many of us could get away with such lengthy series of expositions, and we needn't think we should try. But reading Lloyd-Jones as you preach through these Epistles will stimulate your own thinking and enrich your preaching. Lloyd-Jones preached the Biblical gospel as clearly fervently as anyone. He is clear, methodical, thorough, and insightful in application. Highly recommended (all his works, not Ephesians and Romans only!).
Coming back to more modern times, George Eldon Ladd is a favorite also. Ladd's work in New Testament theology and eschatology is excellent. He disturbs me at times for his apparent concessions to critical scholarship, but his A Theology of the New Testament is a theological gold mine. Ladd was my first in- depth instruction to redemptive-historical themes, and I'll always be grateful to him for it. His The Presence of the Future is something of a hermeneutical benchmark. I do not agree with his treatment of the Israel question, but other than that his treatment of historic premillennialism in Crucial Questions About the Kingdom of God and The Blessed Hope and his chapter in The Meaning of the Millennium (ed., Clouse) is very good. Much of my reading of Ladd has been in theological journals, and if you have access to a seminary library you'll find profit from Ladd in the Periodical Room there also.
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