Happy New Year to each of you! I hope that 2025 is a wonderful year for you, full of many moments when you experience God’s multifaceted grace. I also hope that 2025 is a year when you can read some good books. Here are seven of my favorites from 2024 (presented in the order I read them) in case you’d like some recommendations.

Biblical Critical Theory: How the Bible’s Unfolding Story Makes Sense of Modern Life and Culture by Christopher Watkin. My favorite book of the year was also the first book I read this year. In a generation awash with various “critical theories,” Chris Watkin asks how the Bible’s storyline addresses and critiques the key social/cultural questions of our age. I had an “aha” moment about every third page. Not light reading, but exceptionally fruitful.

A Day’s Journey: Stories of Hope and Death-Defying Joy by Tim Keesee. The producer of “Dispatches from the Front” reflects on suffering and joy in daily life. Many of the chapters in A Day’s Journey are structured as one-day-in-the-life-of-[someone]. A few of the people Keesee interviews are well-known (Joni Eareckson Tada, Rosaria Butterfield); others are lesser-known-but-faithful Christians whom Keesee wants you to know. The final section of the book focuses on Keesee’s own battle with cancer.

Let Justice Roll Down by John Perkins. Memoirs of a Christian civil rights activist, evangelist, preacher and organizer of economic cooperatives. He suffered a lot on his mission. Extremely well-written. Be prepared to do some soul searching if you read this modern classic.

Paul & Money: A Biblical and Theological Analysis of the Apostle’s Teaching and Practices by Verlyn D. Verbrugge and Keith R. Krell. A comprehensive (academic) analysis of pretty much everything you need to know about the apostle Paul’s attitudes toward, and practices related to, money. Full of clear-headed analyses of relevant biblical texts.

27 Servants of Sovereign Joy: Faithful, Flawed, and Fruitful by John Piper. Twenty-seven biographical sketches of Christian men presented thematically — and somewhat sermonically. These profiles of Christian men were originally presented as biographical messages at twenty-seven consecutive Bethlehem Conferences for Pastors, and then published as nine books containing three sketches each. Now all these short biographies have been collected into one volume. Insightful and inspiring…sometimes convicting. Wonderful reading for a four-month sabbatical, which is when I read this book.

The Life of God in the Soul of Man by Henry Scougal. A puritan devotional classic (written in the 17th century). Scougal explains to a friend (originally a 100-page letter!) what “true religion” is, by which he means living the Christian life. Faith, love, purity and humility are the four branches he focuses upon. Part 3 includes practical suggestions for how to cultivate these Christian qualities. Justin Taylor has a nice summary of the book at the Gospel Coalition.

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky. This classic Russian novel (first published in 1880) is not a Christian book in the way the other books on this list are. It is first a novel, and only “Christian” because of its setting and subject matter. Furthermore, in my opinion, the author doesn’t seem to fully grasp the gospel. But this book includes profound insights into fallen human nature. I need to warn you in advance, though: this book is long and wordy. I know that it’s dangerous to critique a classic piece of literature, but I wonder if this novel would have been 30% better if it had been 30% shorter. Still…remarkably insightful in so many ways.

Happy reading!

Here is my list for 2023.

Here is my list for 2022.

Here is my list for 2021.

Here is my list for 2020.

Here is my list for 2019.

Here is my list for 2018.

This post and other resources are available at Kindle Afresh: The Blog and Website of Kenneth Berding.