Christian Classics

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.

The Westminster Confession of Faith is a classic statement of Christian theology. It was drafted over some three years of debate by more than a hundred ministers and theologians of the Westminster Assembly in England, and completed in December 1646. It remains one of the most influential confessions of the Reformed and Presbyterian churches, widely admired for its clarity, depth, precision and comprehensiveness.

The Canons of Dort, formally "The Decision of the Synod of Dort on the Five Main Points of Doctrine in Dispute in the Netherlands" and also known as the Five Articles against the Remonstrants, set out the doctrine adopted by the Synod of Dort in 1618–1619. Although it was a national synod of the Dutch Reformed Church, the gathering was genuinely international: sixty-two delegates from across the Netherlands were joined by twenty-seven delegates from eight other countries.

The Belgic Confession, the confession of faith of the Dutch Reformed churches, was written in 1561 and is sometimes called the Walloon Confession. Its author, Guido de Brès, wrote it in defence of the persecuted Reformed churches of the Low Countries. It was translated from French into Dutch in 1562, approved by a synod at Antwerp in 1566, and adopted by the Synod of Dort in 1618–1619. Together with the Heidelberg Catechism and the Canons of Dort it forms the doctrinal basis of the Dutch Reformed tradition, and it is still a confessional standard for Reformed churches in North America today.

Baxter's charge to ministers (1656) on Acts 20:28: first guard your own soul, then the flock — above all through personal, household-by-household catechising, as he practised in Kidderminster. "Reformed" means renewed, not a denomination.

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.

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.

Toward a Missional Church (2015) by Chinese New Testament scholar Che-Bin Tan: from the Gospels, Acts and Paul, mission not as one programme among many but as the church's very nature — applied to the realities of Chinese churches today.

The Fourth Ecumenical Council's definition of Christ's person: truly God and truly man, in two natures "without confusion, without change, without division, without separation," united in one person. The boundary of orthodox Christology ever since.

The first formal confession of the Reformation, written by Melanchthon and read before Charles V at Augsburg on 25 June 1530. Twenty-one articles of faith, centred on justification by faith, and seven on abuses corrected. The chief Lutheran confession.

J.I. Packer's Knowing God (1973), one of the best-loved theological books of the twentieth century: why knowing God matters most, a meditation on his attributes, and what it means that God is for us — theology that turns knowledge into worship.