I decided to list in the right column of my blog eight important theological books that have been influential on me. They have in common a high view of Scripture and the church. I had Gordon Fee, Richard Hays, and Eugene Peterson as professors. I read Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Lesslie Newbigin, Miroslav Volf, N.T. Wright, and John Howard Yoder at both Regent College and Duke Divinity School. Five of the eight authors are listed among the top 100 books of 20th century by Christianity Today (Bonhoeffer, Hays, Newbigin, Volf, and Yoder). Hays, Volf and Wright were featured in a February 8, 1999 (almost exactly 10 years ago) Christianity Today article: New Theologians: These top scholars are believers who want to speak to the church by Tim Stafford, which was very inspiring for me.
6 replies on “Eight important theological books for me”
Great list Andy. Newbigin, Wright and Bonhoeffer would make my list as well, though I may choose Cost of Discipleship over Life Together… it would probably depend on the day.
I remember the article you mentioned very well. I was in bible college and it was my second year (2005) and i stumbled upon the CT magazine and drawn by the article “New Theologians: These top scholars are believers who want to speak to the church”. From then onwards Hays, Volf, Wright (especially) have shaped my thinking. Great list by the way.
Nice list Andy, I’m new here… found ya site via Twitter. How’s A Moral Vision of the New Testament? I picked it up a last month- haven’t had a chance to review it yet.
Thanks for your comments. Miguel, Moral Vision of the New Testament is outstanding. I chose to come study with Richard Hays though so obviously I like him. I think Moral Vision is a wonderful way to understand the process of sermon-writing or exegesis or “doing theology.” There have been some critiques of the book–notably Dale Martin but I think Hays’s sketch of the process of doing theology is as good as anything out there for its comprehensiveness in trying to cover the gamut from New Testament criticism to biblical theology to theology to ethics.
There are few commentary writers like Fee
Nice list! The Hays, Wright, and Bonhoeffer books are all really good in my opinion.