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Try our reading paths — books in order, with a guide for each step（5）→
Chinese edition of Encountering the Old Testament (Bill T. Arnold and Bryan E. Beyer) and Encountering the New Testament (Walter A. Elwell and Robert W. Yarbrough). Rich in background, it provides the sources, historical and geographical overview and principles of interpretation for the whole Bible, with an introduction to each of its major sections so that readers can readily grasp its structure and distinctive features. Each chapter offers an outline and summary, highlights key terms, and ends with study questions, notes and a bibliography for those who want to go deeper. Written from an evangelical standpoint as a textbook for seminary students, it is also a valuable reference for lay people who want to study the Bible seriously.
By Tremper Longman III and Raymond B. Dillard (revised edition). A solid and accessible introduction that prepares readers to bridge the gap between the modern world and the ancient setting of the Old Testament, to appreciate its literary beauty, and to recognise the abundant presence of God. It gives a basic grasp of each book of the Old Testament along with guidance for further reading, and is a foundational textbook widely used by seminary teachers.
As a young British missionary, James O. Fraser went alone into the borderlands of Yunnan. He planted churches, devised a written script for the Lisu language, translated the Bible and recorded the history of the Lisu people, giving his whole life for them. Written by his daughter Eileen Crossman, Mountain Rain draws on the diaries and letters of Fraser's thirty years of missionary service, giving a true picture of the fierce spiritual battles he faced and the renewal and breakthroughs that came amid pressures from without and within.
J. Oswald Sanders, General Director of the China Inland Mission (OMF) 1954–1969, on leadership as servanthood (1967): the qualities of a spiritual leader drawn from Scripture and missionary lives, and the costs of leading. A staple of church leadership training.
Dever's account (2000) of what makes a church healthy by the Bible's measure rather than by size: expositional preaching, biblical theology, the gospel, conversion, evangelism, membership, discipline, discipleship and leadership.
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones's lectures on preaching, given at Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, in 1969 after thirty years at Westminster Chapel, London (published 1971): why preaching is the church's primary task, the preacher's call and preparation, the sermon, the congregation, and the power of the Spirit.
Tripp's widely translated guide (1995) from Proverbs 4:23: behaviour flows from the heart, so parenting aims not at mere compliance but at leading children to the gospel, with practical counsel for each stage from infancy to the teenage years. Published in Chinese as 子女心，父母情 (simplified) and 牧養孩子的心 (traditional).
Gary Thomas's Sacred Marriage (2000; Chinese edition 2006) asks: what if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy? Marriage as a spiritual discipline in which we learn to love, forgive, persevere, pray and serve.
The best-known introduction to reading Scripture well (1981, many revisions). Two scholars show how to ask what a text meant then and means now, genre by genre: epistles, narrative, Acts, Gospels, parables, law, prophets, Psalms, wisdom and Revelation.
Elisabeth Elliot's account (1957) of her husband Jim and four fellow missionaries speared to death in 1956 while seeking to reach the Waorani of Ecuador, drawn from their diaries and letters. A classic of missionary obedience.
Wang Mingdao's autobiography at fifty (1950): childhood, conversion, years alone with the Bible in Beijing, the founding of the Christian Tabernacle, and his refusal to join the Japanese-sponsored church union during the war. Soon after, he spent over twenty years in prison.
Lewis's 1960 book, grown from radio talks recorded in 1958: affection, friendship, eros and charity. Each natural love is a gift of God, yet turns destructive once made a god; only taken up into divine love does it become what it was meant to be.