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Try our reading paths — books in order, with a guide for each step（5）→
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.
Mere Christianity grew out of the radio talks C.S. Lewis was invited to give on the BBC during the Second World War, presenting the faith held in common by Christians across the denominations. Lewis sets out the heart of that faith with warmth and clarity. It is widely regarded as his most popular book and one of the most important religious works of the twentieth century.
The Heidelberg Catechism was written in Heidelberg in 1563 at the request of Elector Frederick III (r. 1559–1576), ruler of the Palatinate, the most influential German territory of its day. This devout prince commissioned Zacharias Ursinus, then just 28 and professor of theology at the University of Heidelberg, and Caspar Olevianus, his 26-year-old court preacher, to prepare a catechism for instructing the young and for guiding pastors and teachers. The whole theological faculty was consulted in its preparation, and it was adopted by a synod in Heidelberg the same year.
The Westminster Shorter Catechism was produced by the Westminster Assembly in England in 1647. It serves both as a guide for teaching children and new believers and as one of the best introductions to theology for any Christian. Arranged according to the inner logic of Christian doctrine, it is one of the doctrinal standards of the Reformed churches.
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.
Written in 1938 after the Gestapo closed Bonhoeffer's underground seminary at Finkenwalde: Christian community as God's gift rather than our ideal — the day together, the day alone, ministry to one another, confession and communion.
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.
The most widely confessed statement of Christian faith. Grown from the second-century baptismal creed of Rome and fixed in its present form by about the eighth century, its twelve articles follow the Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Written by Hudson Taylor's son and daughter-in-law (1932). Rather than recounting the China Inland Mission's achievements, it traces the secret of Taylor's rest and joy: his 1869 discovery of "the exchanged life" of abiding in Christ.