TheCross Blog

Once again, I’m honored to choose my favorite nonfiction Christian books published in the last calendar year, my twelfth consecutive list. 2017 proved to be the most difficult year yet (and I’m sure I said the same thing last year), all driven by aggressive publishing momentum. This year about 120 new titles caught my attention, and I set out to read the best of them until I could whittle down a list of my 17 favorite reads from the year. But before getting to the list, a few overall comments. Female authors continue publishing new books at a swift pace, strong in 2014 and a little less prominent in 2015, but with more steam in 2016 and 2017. Women are now a mainstay and growing proportion of Christian publishing. Christian publishing continues to deliver on aesthetics across the board, both on cover design and interior design, illustrated by projects like the ESV Illuminated Bible from Crossway and the beautiful Lost Sermons of C.H. Spurgeon series ( volume 1 a...

A water bearer in India had two large pots, each hung on each end of a pole which he carried across his neck. One of the pots had a crack in it, and while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water at the end of the long walk from the stream to the master’s house, the cracked pot arrived only half full. For a full two years this went on daily , with the bearer delivering only one and a half pots full of water in his master’s house. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments, perfect to the end for which it was made. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it was able to accomplish only half of what it had been made to do. After two years of what it perceived to be a bitter failure, it spoke to the water bearer one day by the stream. “I am ashamed of myself, and I want to apologize to you. “Why?” asked the bearer. “What are you ashamed of?” “I have been able, for these past two years, to ...

YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE (By Ebuka Ezema Uwachi) 'I... am as a sparrow alone upon the housetop.' Psalm 102:7 KJV Do you feel unqualified for the job God has given you? Do you think He picked the wrong person? Many scriptural heroes felt the same. David, whose psalms encourage millions, 'a man after [God's] own heart,' lamented, 'I ... am as a sparrow alone upon the housetop.' It's hard to imagine a less significant bird, yet Jesus said, 'Not a single sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing' (Matthew 10:29 NLT). Charles Swindoll writes: 'In our... impersonal world it's easy to underestimate the significance of... one. With so many who seem more capable, gifted, prosperous and important, who am I to think my part amounts to much? Aren't you glad Martin Luther King Jr., Walt Disney, Winston Churchill, Irving Berlin, Abraham Lincoln, Charles Wesley, [and Mother Teresa] didn't think that w...