Biblical and Theological Imagination
Section 1: Big Questions, Clear Answers
Theology for Everyone
Jen Wilkin and J.T. English (224 pgs., B&H Books)
A 2024 Christian Book Award Winner.
Wilkin and English give us a one-volume Christian theology in simple language. If you want to know God — and ultimately love Him more — start here.
Vaughan Roberts (160 pgs., IVP)
How could 66 books written by 40 different authors over nearly 2,0000 years be one coherent story? God’s Big Picture, a slim 166 page volume, situates each book under the theme of the Kingdom of God. Roberts shows how every book points to the Bible’s supreme subject matter – Jesus Christ.
J.I. Packer (304 pgs., IVP)
With over one million copies sold, Knowing God is the classic text for someone seeking a greater understanding of their faith.
Section 2: Practitioners
The Christian Imagination On Display
C.S. Lewis (864 pgs., HarperOne)
We couldn’t choose from Lewis’s extensive body of work. You should read all of them in this nicely arranged and cheaply priced collection.
Timothy Keller (336 pgs., Penguin)
Secularism offers various pathways to meaning, freedom, identity and justice. But they’re dead end roads. Making Sense of God offers Christian answers to the fundamental questions of modern life.
Timothy Keller (352 pgs., Penguin)
An all-time Lakelight reading recommendation.
“To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything.”
Sally Lloyd Jones (352 pgs., Zonderkidz)
With over 3 million copies sold, The Jesus Storybook Bible tells the Big Gospel Story threaded through all other Biblical stories.
Daniel Nayeri (368 pgs., Levine Querido)
A Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and NPR book of the year finalist.
Everything Sad Is Untrue tells the true story of an Iranian family that flees to the US following the mother’s conversion to Christianity, from the perspective of a 12 year old boy Khorusu.
Section 3: Heavy Hitters
Seminary-Level Readings
St. Augustine (528 pgs., Modern Library)
One of the great works of Western literature, from perhaps the most important thinker of Christian antiquity, in a revolutionary new translation by one of today’s leading classicists. Take up and read.
Martin Luther (96 pgs., Crossway)
“A Christian is a free lord of everything and subject to no one. A Christian is a willing servant of everything and subject to everyone.”
John Calvin (132 pgs., Ligonier Ministries)
Protestant reformer John Calvin’s little booklet is a staple of Timeless Wisdom for Modern Life. Calvin’s handle on Scripture and clear expression is unsurpassable. Reading this book will challenge your mind and warm your heart.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (128 pgs., HarperOne)
What does it mean for the Church to be a Christian community? Forged in the fires of resisting Nazi Germany’s state “church”, Bonhoeffer provides a compelling picture of how God’s salvation in Christ transforms our understanding of community.
Christopher Watkin (672 pgs., Zondervan Academic)
Kevin Vanhoozer declared this colossal work the modern update to Augustine's City of God. Watkin believes the Bible offers a vision of reality more capacious, compelling and illuminating than any other offered in our modern world.
