First Baptist Church

Here are my top 5 books read in 2010.

#5. Desire and Deceit: The Real Cost of the New Sexual Tolerance (R. Albert Mohler Jr.) These days it is hard to pick up the newspaper or turn on the television without reading or hearing something about sex, homosexuality, crimes of a sexual nature, sexual acceptance, etc. As these things are being debated and paraded, the traditional family is becoming a thing of the past. In fact the family, as an institution, is under serious assault. The Bible has a lot to say about these sexual issues and about the family itself. This book is about where the Bible and the sexual issues of our day intersect with the “new sexual tolerance.”

#4. Right Thinking in a World Gone Wrong: A Biblical Response to Today’s Most Controversial Issues (John MacArthur and the Leadership Team at Grace Community Church). The chapters of this book are written by different authors, including MacArthur himself. The issues addressed are things such as political activism, the cult of celebrity, homosexual marriage, euthanasia and suicide, immigration, environmentalism, entertainment and escapism, abortion, birth control, surrogacy, disasters and epidemics, and God and the problem of evil. This book is insightful and actually provides reasonable depth on these issues within it’s 260 pages. This is a great introduction for someone trying to get a good solid biblical overview of some of the most contested issues of our day.

#3. How the Left has Swift boated America: The Liberal Conspiracy to make you think George W. Bush is the Worst President in History (John Gibson) Gibson’s books always provide a very fair and well researched look at whatever issue is at hand. In this in-depth book, Gibson shows instance by instance in the Bush Presidency how the liberal media worked overtime to put the most negative spin possible on anything President Bush said or did. While they were doing this they gave many free passes to others guilty of the same things or worse. He is fair in that he points out the genuine mistakes made by the President, then goes on to show the concerted effort to exaggerate, as needed, to suit their cause.

#2. Hating America: The New World Sport (John Gibson). In this well-researched and highly factual account, John Gibson travels country by country to lay out the reasons why other nations of the world hate America. He obviously does not cover every nation in the world, but does cover the most prominent. Ever wonder why Canada looks upon the United States with disdain? How about Great Britain? How about France? How about the nations of the Middle East and some Asian countries? Gibson gives you an in-depth and highly interesting breakdown of the history and politics involved in the feelings of the many nations around the globe who hate America.

#1. Radical: Taking back your Faith from the American Dream: (David Platt). Jesus seems to have been modernized and Americanized to the point He is hardly recognizable when compared with the historical Jesus of the New Testament. In our day we have manipulated the Gospel to fit our preferences. Platt discusses what Jesus actually taught His disciples about hardship, about ministry, about evangelism, etc. Many of our traditions are not born in the New Testament but instead are born on American soil. The whole premise of the book is that we are going to have to get “radical” if we are going to get right. We cannot simply ease ourselves into doing the right things. The book ends with Platt calling upon people to do what he calls “the radical experiment.” It consists of 5 things a person can do for 1 year and see if doing them changes the person’s life. In fact, he titles the 9^th chapter of the book, “The Radical Experiment: One Year to Life Turned Upside Down.” Here he calls on people to Pray consistently for the entire world, to read through the entire Bible, sacrifice your money for a specific purpose, spend your time in another context, and commit your life to a multiplying community. This book has become a huge best-seller, but with any book it does little good unless it changes lives. I hope you will read this book and let it change your life!

In Christ,

Pastor Allen Raynor