We are promoting some our best authors at fantastic prices this week… don’t miss them.
How then shall we Worship? – R.C. Sproul
Dr. R.C. Sproul is one of today’s preeminent theologians. For more than fifty years his solid, practical messages have impacted and inspired generations of believers. This book is a landmark look at God’s design for authentic worship. Today’s church cannot seem to agree on what corporate worship should look like. Some choose contemporary forms, others prefer traditional expressions. Yet pop culture or the status quo do not hold the answers. God’s Word does. Dr. Sproul digs deep into rich Scripture passages to provide a guide for worship today. Readers will discover that God intends worship to be an unforgettable encounter between Himself and His people – a joyous experience engaging the worshiper’s entire being.
CBD PRICE: R125.00 PROMOTIONAL PRICE: R80.00
Pleasing God – R.C. Sproul
Sanctification is not an everyday word. In fact, it’s an idea that has little value in our me-focused, instant-gratification world. yet regardless of trends, culture or opinion, being sanctified – being set apart from the world – remains a vital part of our journey with Christ. But what does this process look like? How do we begin? And is it even possible to live a life pleasing to God? R.C. Sproul believes that it is not only possible, it is our calling. He delivers an in-depth look at God’s plan and pathway for spiritual maturity. and reveals how every believer can experience authentic, lasting life change through a relationship with God.
CBD PRICE: R125.00 PROMOTIONAL PRICE: R80.00
The Power of Suffering -John MacArthur
For over 30 years trusted pastor and teacher John MacArthur has delivered practical, Biblical insights for helping Christians grow in their own journey of faith.
Now the very best of John MacArthur’s Christian Living titles are being updated to feature a fresh new look and study guides for both personal and group reflection. Why does God allow suffering? Even more perplexing, where is God when people hurt? The Power of Suffering holds the vital answers. MacArthur takes a look at the reality and role of suffering in the life of a believer. He offers readers a profound message of hope, encouragement, and peace.
CBD PRICE: R125.00 PROMOTIONAL PRICE: R80.00
Silent Shepherd – John MacArthur
The role of the Holy Spirit in a Christian’s life is often misunderstood. Some believers focus solely on spiritual gifts, some emphasize the practical over the spiritual, and others avoid the subject altogether. Yet in spite of the apparent confusion, the truth is surprisingly simple: God’s Spirit is a vital part of our relationship with Him. The Silent Shepherd offers a balanced, scripturally sound look at the personality, works, and deity of the Holy Spirit. MacArthur clears away misconceptions, offers fresh insights, and shares how God’s Spirit can guide, lead, and empower every believer. This revised and updated edition includes a guide for both personal and group study and features discovery questions, suggestions for prayer, and activities, all designed to connect life-changing truths with everyday living.
CBD PRICE: R125.00 PROMOTIONAL PRICE: R80.00
Heart Cry by Jill Briscoe
Do you struggle with feelings of emptiness? Are you asking yourself “Is this all there is?”. A sense of urgency surrounds us today. We do too much, move too fast, want more. And beneath the flurry of activity and distraction we cry out for something different – something eternal. King Solomon spent a lifetime searching for contentment and meaning in life. And through Ecclesiastes he teaches us what he learned the hard way: that no relationship, accomplishment or experience can truly satisfy our souls. Jill Briscoe explores the insights of Ecclesiastes and offers you contemporary guidance for living your life in the light of eternity. includes 9 week study of Ecclesiastes.
CBD PRICE: R125.00 PROMOTIONAL PRICE: R80.00
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The Westminster Confession is a foundational document for countless churches worldwide. Churches of all sizes claim it as their confession, and hold to it with varying degrees of closeness. Its influence must not be underestimated. However, countless officeholders will have vowed to abide by the Westminster Confession with only the most perfunctory of understanding of its relevance to their situation. Ligon Duncan has assembled an impressive array of contributors from a variety of ecclesiastical backgrounds. The aim is simple – to enable the 21st Century to understand the confession more fully, and so bring about the same kind of rugged, vigorous, intelligent and self-sacrificing Christianity that was the result of its initial publication over 350 years ago.
Unique, fresh, and deeply rooted in history — this book is vintage Keller in his most carefully researched and most Reformed self. In part, it’s a celebration of the rich tradition of prayer enjoyed by our forefathers. But its greatest strength is the use of Scripture to frame the prayer life (a bulk of the book is about how Scripture is essential to it). When I finished this book, it instantly topped this year’s book list. Reformed to the core, practical, comprehensive, God-centered, Christ-focused, and joy-saturated — the book is rich on many levels. (And be sure to read the footnotes, where you’ll discover a second book of bonus content!)
2. ESV Reader’s Bible (Crossway). The biggest book buzz this year belonged to the Kickstarter Bibliotheca Bible, an elegant, handcrafted, multivolume edition of the Bible you want to sit and hold and read and enjoy. Crossway had already planned the release of a Bible that pretty much matched it feature-for-feature, with a superior translation, and packaged in a more affordable and convenient one-volume edition. Remove the section headings and chapter and verse numbers, and you’re left with the bare text of Scripture, ready to be read like any book. I expected that. I was unprepared for how this Bible would change my reading habits, and how I would fall in love with reading the sweeping narratives of Scripture, the Prophets, and the Wisdom literature. Reading Proverbs, for example, I was struck by how individual bits of wisdom are meant to fit into a cohesive plan of lifelong God-fearing obedience. Simple and clean — this Bible displays a winning recipe for innovation.
This book nails the core of what we celebrate at Desiring God. Delighting in God’s beauty is the high-octane fuel for the Christian life. And this God-centered delight frames all the other gifts he has given us to enjoy. As Dane writes, “True joy derives not from God and job, family, sex, friends, food, rest, driving, buying a home, reading a book, drinking coffee — but from God in these things. . . . Every taste of beauty in this world, from the roar of waterfalls to the chatter of birds to the richness of true friendship to the ecstasy of sexual experience, is a drop from the ocean of divine beauty. Every pleasure is an arrow pointing back to him. Joy is from, and only finally in, God” (79). As you can see, Dane is a realist, and in this book he highlights Edwards’s greatest contributions to the church, and critiques his failures, but mostly he just helps average Christians come alive again to God’s beauty.
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5. John Piper, Seeing Beauty and Saying Beautifully: The Power of Poetic Effort in the Work of George Herbert, George Whitefield, and C. S. Lewis (Crossway). If you are a preacher, public speaker, writer, poet, or songwriter, and you find yourself called by God to creatively engage culture with the truth of God, this may be the most important book of the year for you. What we say is critically important; but how we say it needs our desperate attention as well. In this book John Piper not only serves as a model of creative writing but also a historian of three men who mastered the feat in history past.
6. Kevin Vanhoozer, Faith Speaking Understanding: Performing the Drama of Doctrine (WJK). Many skilled writers today help us do church right. But no serious theologian gives a more cohesive and compelling vision for the local church than Vanhoozer. A reader has “gotten” Vanhoozer’s theology when he or she feels an insatiable urge to gather again with the people of God. While most of what he’s written has been aimed at academic audiences, this is his first attempt to bring the cookies down, to serve up his vision of theology in an appetizing way for all the people of God. Looong overdue, but fresh and delicious.
7. Drew Dyck, Yawning at Tigers: You Can’t Tame God, So Stop Trying (Thomas Nelson). This is a welcome and much-needed reminder of how the hard things of God in the Bible are meant to stir our love for him and mission with him. It’s time to stop apologizing for God, and time to humbly worship him as he has revealed himself in the Bible. God is not a kitten, he’s a tiger. He’s good, but he’s not tame. If we choose to live in denial of God as he revealed himself, our worship will weaken, our standards of purity will diminish, our mission will skid to a halt, our message will be hollowed out, and our part in God’s global work will become more and more trivial. All that’s at stake.
Most annotated books leave me feeling pretty confused and stupid, but this book edited by Downing makes me wonder if most annotated classics are just lazily done and fail to address the many questions that will inevitably arise in the reader’s mind. Downing is different. He is a master at reading my mind and predicting when and where I’ll stumble on terms and phrases in Lewis’s notoriously difficult allegoric autobiography. Not only do I applaud Downing’s wonderful offering, I also make a public plea: Please tackle Till We Have Faces next!
Not much here to add beyond my endorsement: “When Christ shed his blood for women he forever exalted them to their true and undeniable dignity, Hannah More has said. Blood-bought dignity was the bedrock for all her fierce convictions. She cultivated her intellect and imagination, and helped other women do the same, knowing sharp female minds would magnify Christ-honoring femininity and strengthen marriages, homes, and churches. Abandoned at the altar by her fiancé and never married, More poured out her life to educate women, care for the poor, pen bestselling literature, and help abolish slavery in Britain. She embraced God’s script for her life with tireless zeal. In the pages of this vibrant biography, Karen Swallow Prior paints a living picture of Hannah More: a modest and imaginative woman with the courage to cultivate biblical femininity and the wisdom to avoid the snares of early feminism. Her story must be retold in every generation. Ours is now covered.”
For my money this was easily the best commentary of the year. Typical of the Preaching the Word series, Ash is given a lot of freedom to bypass technicalities and to concentrate his attention on the theological interpretation of each passage, keeping his focus honed on the storyline momentum as the book of Job unfolds. All of this makes for a rare commentary you can sit down and read from cover to cover, and all of it written in light of the perfect work of Jesus Christ. This commentary is a spectacular achievement!
11. Michael Reeves, Christ Our Life (Paternoster, UK), or, Rejoicing in Christ (IVP, US). I read everything by Reeves and this book proves again why. This book is loaded with Tweetable statements, pithy, wise, and mature thoughts that will offer you a lifetime of meditation, like this one: “Nothing is more holy than a heartfelt delight in Christ.” Just think on that for a while. The book was first released in the UK this year, and IVP plans to release it in the States in March under the new title Rejoicing in Christ. If Charles Spurgeon was right — “There is no joy in this world like union with Christ. The more we can feel it, the happier we are.” — then prepare yourself to delight. 
We complementarians can sometimes over-emphasize what makes men and women different at the expense of celebrating our commonalities as fellow heirs of the grace of God and fellow image bearers of him in this world. This book is a good correction. Hannah has proven herself to be a sharp thinker and a genuinely skilled prose stylist, and I hope to improve as a writer by watching how she does it. While this book may not quite go far enough at points, and it may go a little too far at others, for now let me simply say, Hannah has delivered a provocative book to help complementarians steer clear of a gulch on the right.
What George Marsden did for Jonathan Edwards, Thomas Kidd has done for George Whitefield. The difference is that all the excitement of Whitefield’s ministry is packed into 263 pages! As Kidd sets out to prove: “George Whitefield was the key figure in the first generation of Anglo-American evangelical Christianity. Whitefield and legions of other evangelical pastors and laypeople helped establish a new interdenominational religious movement in the eighteenth century, one committed to the gospel of conversion, the new birth, the work of the Holy Spirit, and the preaching of revival across Europe and America. Until now, we have not had a scholarly biography of Whitefield that places him fully in the dynamic, fractious milieu of the early evangelical movement.” Kidd has set a new benchmark in Whitefield studies.
Sharp and witty, this overview of the heart of Calvinist soteriology is not only solid orthodoxy, it’s also a model for how to communicate ancient theology in a fresh style. If you’re looking for a new book to help you magnify God for his sovereign grace, or to help explain it to your friends, this is a gem worth considering.
