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10 Books Every Christian Should Read

by Marci Ferrell
Bible Study Book Reviews Christian Living Contentment Encouragement Evangelism Mentoring Top 10 Book Recommendations Series

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I'm sharing ten Christian books that have impacted me in my walk with Christ, grown me in theological understanding of major doctrines, and taught me how to love God and His Word.
10 books every christian should read

Christian book choices can be a bit overwhelming with all the options available to us. Whether you’re buying them online or in a Christian bookstore, you’d like to make wise decisions and spend your time reading books that are solid theologically.

Related: Top Ten Book Recommendations Series

I’m sharing ten books with you that have impacted me in my walk with Christ, grown me in theological understanding of major doctrines, and taught me how to love God’s Word (plus ten more bonus books I listed at the end because it was hard to stop at ten). If you’re wondering how to find time to read more books, I have some tips for you here.

Sharing ten Christian books that have impacted me in my walk with Christ Click to Tweet

My short book list here is not exhaustive but just a place to find a good, solid read to encourage you in your walk with Jesus. If you’d like to see some of my other book recommendations, you can do that here. So without taking any more of your time here, they are:

My Top Ten Christian Book Recommendations:

Trusting God by Jerry Bridges: A helpful read for me in understanding the sovereignity of God.

The Holiness of God by R.C. Sproul – Wondering what it means to fear the Lord? Read this one more than once in your walk as a Christian.

Living by the Book by Howard Hendricks: If you’ve been wanting to learn or begin studying God’s Word on your own this book and workbook are a great place to start. Recommended to me years ago by a mentor and I still find myself re-visiting the book often.

The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment by Jeremiah Burroughs: There are many books out on Christian contentment but you will not go wrong in reading this classic read.

A Praying Life by Paul Miller: One of my favorites on prayer, super grace-filled and encouraging, and as I’m listing it here it’s going back on my “to read” pile. It inspired this podcast.

The Gospel and Personal Evangelism by Mark Dever: This book is one of the most practical and helpful reads to get you to share your faith with others. A great one to read with a small group.

The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan: A classic every believer should read. This is an original text copy below but I enjoyed reading this version in Modern English with notes by Warren Wiersbe too.

Through the Gates of Splendor by Elisabeth Elliot: If you spend any time with me here you know Mrs. Elliot was going to make the list. I believe this incredible story of trusting God is a biography everyone should read.

Spiritual Disciplines or the Christian Life by Donald Whitney: A friend gave me this book when I was a young believer and it put my foot on the right path to embrace the means of grace in my walk with the Lord. If you’ve listened to my series on the Spiritual Disciplines you know this book is one I highly recommend should be in every Christian home.

What is the Gospel? by Greg Gilbert: Need a deeper, clearer understanding of the gospel? This book will help you to formulate a clear biblical understanding of the most important truth we need to grasp as believers. A good one to read, re-read and even pass along to believer and non-believer.


Plus Ten More Honorable Mentions:

The Discipline of Grace by Jerry Bridges

Do More Better: A Practical Guide to Productivity by Tim Challies

When Sinners Say I Do: Discovering the Power of the Gospel for Marriage by Dave Harvey

Shepherding a Child’s Heart by Tedd Tripp

Chosen by God by R.C. Sproul

Knowing God by J.I. Packer

Heaven by Randy Alcorn

Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine by Wayne Grudem

The Gospel Primer for Christians by Milton Vincent

The Valley of Vision a Collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions


What would you add to this list?

What books have most impacted you in your walk with Christ?


Related posts:

  1. EP 103: Simple Tips to Read More Books
  2. My Top 10 Books of 2020
  3. Simple Tips to Reading More Books
  4. 10 Helpful Homemaking Books


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« EP 105: Practical Steps to Overcome Self Pity
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Comments

  1. Susan says

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    I meant to remark on the Tim Challies’ book in my previous comment- It is a deceptively simple book. His idea on the purpose of our productivity has really stuck with me and the practical suggestions for productivity phone apps has worked really well for me over the last several years (with the exception of meal planning & groceries). It’s not a deep book, and not one that immediately comes to mind when I think of a spiritually significant book, but you’re right to include it. It’s had a lasting effect on how I do life.

  2. Korry Ferrell says

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    Even though I wasn’t disappointed with God – I found that the book “Disappointed with God” by Philip Yancey was a wonderful read when I first started taking my faith in Jesus seriously. Also, Jesus Unmasked by Todd Friel and I Don’t Have Enough Faith To Be an Atheist by Norman Geisler and Frank Turek. I also enjoyed Systemic Theology by Wayne Grudem and Heaven by Randy Alcon from your list. I have Mere Christianity from CS Lewis to read at some point – I’m told this is a requirement for those philosophically minded. And I want to read Voddie Beaucham’s new book too!

    • Marci Ferrell says

      at

      Korry – so enjoyed Jesus Unmasked by Todd Friel too. Voddie’s new book is on my list and I need to add Disappointed with God to it. Thank you for sharing – hugs and love you cousin xoxoxo.

      • Susan says

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        Hi Marci! Great picks!

        I would include anything by CS Lewis. Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s ‘The Cost of Discipleship’ is a life changing book. Piper’s ‘Don’t Waste Your Life’ deserves an honorable mention.

  3. Heather Pickle says

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    I love your list! I would add Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Siners and Sufferers by Dane Ortlund.

    • Marci Ferrell says

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      Heather – my husband and I listened to the audiobook of it and it was soooo good. So hard to limit the list. Next time I need to do the favorite 100 lol. Thank you for sharing xoxo.

  4. Rachel says

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    These are all wonderful recommendations. Thank you for sharing! I would add Respectable Sins by Jerry Bridges as a must-read for all Believers.

    • Marci Ferrell says

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      Rachel – so agree with you. Thank you so much for sharing!

  5. Lauren says

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    Marci,

    You must read the two volume biography of Hudson Taylor. I know you would love it so much! Out of all the books I have read (which is a LOT!) this one is so precious to my soul. Aside from the Puritans, it is one of the richest books I have ever read as they are very devotional in nature. You can find them at Davidson publishing as they are reprinting them. I have the older set but they are hard to find. They are the book set labeled Hudson Taylor: The Growth of a Soul/Work of God. I first found out about them when a missionary friend who shared my love of Elisabeth Elliot recommended them to me as she highly recommended them. Here is the link:

    https://www.davidsonpublishing.org/hudson-taylor1.html

    And, here is an excerpt that I have carried with me through hard trials:

    Taken from “Hudson Taylor: In Early Years, the Growth of a Soul” by Mrs Hudson Taylor, pg. 225-228

    To Miss Stacey Tottenham he wrote during those August Days:

    “How sweet is the thought that we have not a High Priest who cannot be “touched with the feeling of our infirmities,” but One who was “in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” Nothing is more sure than that we are wholly unable to sympathise with those in whose circumstances we have never been placed. How delightful then is the reflection that though our friends can only in part enter into our joys and sorrows, trials and discouragements, there in One ever ready to sympathise to the full; One to whom we have constant access, and from whom we may receive present help in every time of need. This has been such a comfort to me when thinking and perplexed as to a residence not for myself only but for Dr. and Mrs. Parker. In the present state of Shanghai this is no easy problem, there being neither native nor foreign houses unoccupied. But I have much to be thankful for. Our dear Redeemer had not where to lay His head. I have never yet been placed in that extremity. One who is really learning in the Beloved finds it always possible to say, “I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me.” But I am so apt, like Peter, to take my eyes off of the one Object and look at the wind and the waves. As in that scene, however, the grace and tenderness of Jesus are as apparent as Peter’s little faith, so with us today: as soon as we turn to Him, “He giveth power to the faint, and to them that have no might He increaseth strength,” While we depend entirely on Him we are secure, and prosper in circumstances apparently the most unfavorable…Oh for more stability! The reading of the Word and meditation on the promises have been increasingly precious to me of late…

    “And to his sister Amelia he added, two days later:

    ‘I have been puzzling my brains again about a house, etc., but to no effect. So I have made it a matter of prayer, and have given it entirely into the Lord’s hands, and now I feel quite at peace about it. He will provide and be my guide in this and every other perplexing step.’

    “Quite at peace about it”- with such serious difficulties ahead? A situation he could not meet, needs for which he had no provision and no possibility of making any, a problem he has puzzled over until he was baffled, and to no effect! “So I have made it a matter of prayer,” is the simple, restful conclusion, “and have given it entirely into the Lord’s hands. He will provide and be my Guide in this as in every other perplexing step.”
    Yes, this is how it ever has been, ever must be with the people of God. Until we are carried quite out of our depth, beyond all our own wisdom and resources, we are not more than beginners in the school of faith. Only as everything fails us and we fail ourselves, finding out how poor and weak we really are, how ignorant and helpless, do we begin to draw upon abiding strength. “Blessed is the man whose strength is in Thee”; not partly in Thee and partly in himself. The devil often makes men strong, strong in themselves to do evil-great conquerors, great acquirers of wealth and power. The Lord on the contrary makes His servant weak, puts him in circumstances that will shew him his own nothingness, that he many lean upon the strength that is unfailing. It is a long lesson for most of us; but it cannot be passed over until deeply learned. And God Himself thinks no trouble too great, no care too costly to teach us this.
    Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord Thy God led Thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble Thee and to prove thee and to know what was in thine heart,…that He might make thee know…

    Yes, “all that long, wearisome, painful experience, infinitely well worth while in sight of the Eternal, if it produced one moral, spiritual trait in the people He was educating:- what a scale of values!”

    At which point in our meditation, fresh light was thrown upon this from the eighty-fourth Psalm, by an aged saint drawing upon the fullness of his own experience.

    “Speaking to my students one day,” he said, “I asked them: ‘Young men, which is the longest, widest, most populous valley in the world?’ And they began to summon up all their geographical information to answer me.
    “But it was not the valley of the Yangtze, the Congo, or the Mississippi. Nay, this Jammerthal, as it is in our German, this valley of Baca, or weeping, exceeds them all. For six thousand years we trace it back, filled all the way with an innumerable multitude. For every life passes at some time into the Vale of Weeping.
    “But the point for us is not what do we suffer here, but what do we leave behind us? What have we made of it, this long, dark Valley, for ourselves and for others? What is our attitude when we pass through its shadows? Do we desire only, chiefly, the shortest way out? Or do we seek to find it, to make it, according to His promise, ‘a place of springs’: here a spring and there a spring, for the blessing of others and the glory of Our God?

    “Thus it is with a man ‘whose strength is in Thee.’ He has learned the preciousness of this Jammerthal, and that these dry, hard places yield the springs for which the hearts are thirsting the wide world over.
    “So St. Paul in his life. What a long journey he had to make through the Valley of Weeping!

    “‘In labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five times I received forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and day have I been in the deep. In journeys often, in perils of water, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils among false brethren. In weariness and in painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. Besides those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches.
    “A long journey indeed through the Valley of Weeping; but oh, what springs of blessing! What rain filling the pools! We drink of it still today.”

    And is not this the meaning, dear reader, of your life and mine in much that is hard to be understood? The Lord loves us too well to let us miss the best. He has to weaken our strength in the way, to bring us to the Valley of Weeping, to empty, humble, and prove us, that we too may know that our strength, every bit of it, is in Him alone, and learn as Hudson Taylor did to leave ourselves entirely in His hands.

    So your Valley of Weeping shall become “a place of springs.” Many shall drink of the living water, because you have suffered, trusted, conquered through faith in God. You go on your way as He has promised, to appear at last in Zion, rejoicing before God; and in the Valley of Weeping remains for those that follow many a well, still springing up in blessing where your feet have trod.”

    • Marci Ferrell says

      at

      Lauren – it is such a hard volume to come across. I need to keep hunting for it. I just watched a conference online and they were talking about this two-part biography. It was the first I heard of it. If you know of a source to get it please shoot me a note at thankfulhomemaker@gmail.com. I’m going to keep searching. Thanks so much!

  6. Deborah Sutorius says

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    I would add “Faith Is Not a Feeling.” It completely changed my understanding of faith and what my responsibility is.

    • Marci Ferrell says

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      Deborah – thank you for this one. I’m just finishing reading it. I need to go check out the sermons by Brian Borgman too. Thank you for this one xo.

    • Marci Ferrell says

      at

      Deborah – I read it at the beginning of the year and so appreciated Brian Borgman too. His sermon series on it is on my list to get to one day too. Thank you for sharing xoxox.

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thankfulhomemaker

Marci Ferrell
I know we can all relate to self-pity as women, wi I know we can all relate to self-pity as women, wives, and mothers.  How many times do we focus on our needs that aren’t met?  Unfair situations or circumstances?  Self-pity is a selfish tendency that takes our eyes off Christ and puts them on ourselves. ⁣⁣
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We forget that “God works all things together for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.” Are we able to give God “thanks in all things”?⁣⁣
⁣⁣
Come listen in to EP 105: Practical Steps to Overcome Self Pity at the link in my profile @thankfulhomemaker (click on the link under the blue arrows and then this image)⁣
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#rootedinChrist #rootedintheword #christian #christianity #thankfulhomemaker #bedeeplyrooted  #christianblogger  #christians #treasurechrist #joyinchrist #inchristalone #deeplyrooted #martynlloydjones #selfpity
Grab a free copy of my weekly planner 🥰⁣ ⁣ Grab a free copy of my weekly planner 🥰⁣
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Weekly Menu Planning Free PDF is at the link in my profile @thankfulhomemaker (click on the link under the blue arrows and then this image).
"God's written Word, the Bible, is God's greatest "God's written Word, the Bible, is God's greatest earthly gift to his people, second only to the living Word, Jesus. And because the living Word perfectly lived out the written Word, we are blessed beyond measure. Jesus fulfilled every precept found in Psalm 119, keeping the principles and commandments of this psalm, and he did so on our behalf.⁣
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Our failure to live wholeheartedly is covered by Jesus, who lived it perfectly for us. Ultimately, he is Psalm 119 in human form, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14)."⁣
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~ Taken from Sing a New Song: A Woman's Guide to the Psalms by Lydia Brownback⁣
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With my whole heart I seek you;⁣
let me not wander from your commandments!⁣
I have stored up your word in my heart,⁣
that I might not sin against you.⁣
~ Psalm 119:10-11
Accept the cost of good deeds in time, thought, an Accept the cost of good deeds in time, thought, and effort. But remember that opportunities for doing good are not interruptions in God’s plan for us, but part of that plan. We always have time to do what God wants us to do.⁣
~ Jerry Bridges, The Practice of Godliness⁣
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Listen in to 10 Things Helping Me to Manage My Days as a Homemaker at the link in my profile @thankfulhomemaker (click on the link under the blue arrows and then this image).
I’m sharing a walkthrough of various tools and s I’m sharing a walkthrough of various tools and systems that help me to get things done. It’s a practical episode, and I hope to encourage you, if nothing else, to take a look at how your days are going and ask yourself some simple questions like:⁣
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What is working and what is not working?⁣
Where do I find myself wasting time?⁣
Where can I make better use of my time?⁣
Can I simplify my days or various tasks or automate them?⁣
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These are just a few questions to ponder, and there are many more you can ask, but the main one is to seek the Lord and ask him, are you a good steward of your time? Is your desire to honor Him amid your days and in how you spend your time?⁣
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Many more than ten systems or tools help me manage my days, but these items top my list. I’ve shared more in detail on some of these in past blog posts or podcast episodes, but I wanted to put together an episode that walked through how I use each one.⁣
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An episode like this one is more helpful to me than you because it helps me to think through my days and systems and tools and determine what is working for me and what isn’t.⁣
⁣
Listen to 10 Things Helping Me Manage My Days as a Homemaker at the link in my profile @thankfulhomemaker (click on the link under the blue arrows and then this image).
Who doesn’t want to save money, time, their sani Who doesn’t want to save money, time, their sanity, reduce stress, eat healthy and avoid the dreaded question, “What’s for dinner?” It sounds great, right, and we’d all love to do it, but how do we get there?⁣
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Menu planning is the answer to all those questions above. We have a jam-packed episode today filled with tons of tips, examples, and ideas, so stick with me, and I know there will be something that will appeal to each of you in some way.⁣
⁣
Listen in at the link in my profile @thankfulhomemaker (click on the link under the blue arrows and then this image).
Though gradually, though no one remembers exactly Though gradually, though no one remembers exactly how it happened, the unthinkable becomes tolerable. And then acceptable. And then legal. And then applaudable.⁣
~ Joni Eareckson Tada⁣
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Come listen to EP 70: Finding Forgiveness After an Abortion at the link in my profile @thankfulhomemaker (click on the link under the blue arrows and then this image)
No sin is beyond the grace and forgiveness of God, No sin is beyond the grace and forgiveness of God, even the sin of abortion. True forgiveness, hope, and healing can only be found, but it is only found in Jesus Christ.⁣
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Come listen to my testimony in EP 70: Finding Forgiveness After an Abortion at the link in my profile @thankfulhomemaker (click on the link under the blue arrows and then this image)
Our home cleaning should not take up most of our d Our home cleaning should not take up most of our day, and my hope in this episode is to help you simplify your daily and weekly cleaning.⁣
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Come listen to EP 126: My Simple Daily & Weekly Cleaning Routine at the link in my profile @thankfulhomemaker (click on the link under the blue arrows and then this image).
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