Introduction

This list is a supplement to essay number 2 of the series Taking Captive Every Thought.  Most books in the list are by devout believers, and can be expected to present substantial truth.  However, the inclusion of a given book does not imply endorsement of everything it has to say.  The common theme is that all the works deal with Christianity in significant ways, and provide the believer with valuable food for thought. Titles most highly recommended are listed in bold.  Some authors' names are linked to biographical sketches.  Titles are linked to online editions where available.

Contents

• Baptist authors
• Other authors
  • Nonfiction
  • Fiction and Poetry
• Notes on great literature in general

Baptist authors

Thomas K. Ascol

• From the Protestant Reformation to the Southern Baptist Convention

James Petigru Boyce

• Abstract of Systematic Doctrine (1887)
• "A Brief Catechism of Bible Doctrine"

John Bunyan (1628-1688) [See also the Pilgrim's Page.]

• Christian Behaviour
• A Discourse Touching Prayer
• Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners
• The Holy War
• The Pilgrim's Progress
• Saved by Grace
• The Doctrine of the Law and Grace Unfolded

L. Russ Bush and Thomas Nettles

• Baptists and the Bible

John L. Dagg (1794-1884)

• Manual of Theology (1857)
• Manual of Theology, vol. II (A Treatise on Church Order) (1858)

Mark Dever

• Nine Marks of a Healthy Church

Richard Fuller [third President of the Southern Baptist Convention]

• "Predestination," in Southern Baptist Sermons on Sovereignty and Responsibility, T. Nettles, ed.

Timothy George

• Theology of the Reformers (1988)

John Gill (1697-1771)

• The Cause of God and Truth
• A Body of Doctrinal Divinity

R. B. C. Howell [second President of the Southern Baptist Convention]

• "Perseverance of the Saints," in Southern Baptist Sermons on Sovereignty and Responsibility, T. Nettles, ed.

William B. Johnson (b. 1782) [first President of the Southern Baptist Convention]

• "Love Characteristic of the Deity," in Southern Baptist Sermons on Sovereignty and Responsibility, T. Nettles, ed.

Fred Malone

• A String of Pearls Unstrung:  A Theological Journey into Believers' Baptism

Basil Manly, Sr. (1798-1868)

• "Justification," in Southern Baptist Sermons on Sovereignty and Responsibility, T. Nettles, ed.

Patrick H. Mell (1814-1888)

• Predestination and the Saints' Perseverance (1851)

Joe Nesom

• Be Sure What You Believe

Thomas Nettles

• By His Grace and For His Glory (1986)
• A Foundation for the Future:  The Southern Baptist Message and Mission

John Piper

• Desiring God
• God's Passion for His Glory
• The Justification of God:  An Exegetical and Theological Study of Romans 9:1-23
• The Pleasures of God
• Let the Nations Be Glad!  The Supremacy of God in Missions
• The Supremacy of God in Preaching
• Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood
• The Legacy of Sovereign Joy
• A Godward Life
• A Godward Life - Book Two
• Future Grace

Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892)  [See also the Spurgeon Archive.]

• Grace
• All of Grace
• The Treasury of David
• Morning and Evening
• Till He Come
• Around the Wicket Gate
• Sermons

Southern Baptist Sermons on Sovereignty and Responsibility [by B. Manly, Sr., W. B. Johnson, R. B. C. Howell, R. Fuller; edited by Thomas Nettles]

Other authors:  Nonfiction

• Cur Deus Homo? (Why Did God Become Man?)

Athanasius (c. 293-373)

• On the Incarnation (4th c.)
• Contra Gentes (4th c.)

Augustine (354-430)

• Confessions (397)
• The City of God (413)
• Enchiridion (Handbook on Faith, Hope, and Love)

Cornelia (Corrie) ten Boom (1892-1983)

• In My Father's House
• The Hiding Place
• Tramp for the Lord

John Calvin (1509-1564)

• Institutes of the Christian Religion (1557)
• Commentaries on the books of the Bible
• Calvin: Commentaries [Selections from the Biblical Commentaries]
• On the Christian Life
• Of Prayer

G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936)

• Heretics (1905)
• Orthodoxy (1908)
• St. Francis of Assisi (1923)
• The Everlasting Man (1925)
• St. Thomas Aquinas (1933)

Gordon H. Clark

• Thales to Dewey (1957)
• The Biblical Doctrine of Man (1984)

John Donne (1572-1631)

• Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions
• Death's Duel

T. S. Eliot (1888-1965)

• Christianity and Culture

Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) [See also JonathanEdwards.com.]

• Treatise on Religious Affections
• Freedom of the Will
• The End for Which God Created the World
• Select Sermons
• Treatise on Grace
• An Unpublished Essay on the Trinity

Eusebius of Caesarea (d. 339 or 340)

• Ecclesiastical History (4th c.)

Peter Kreeft

• Summa of the Summa : The Essential Philosophical Passages of St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica Edited and Explained for Beginners

C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)

• The Pilgrim's Regress (1933)
• The Problem of Pain (1940)
• The Abolition of Man (1943)
• The Great Divorce (1945)
• Miracles (1947)
• Mere Christianity (1952)
• Surprised by Joy (1955)
• Reflections on the Psalms (1958)
• The Weight of Glory and other addresses

Paul Little (d. 1975)

• Know Why You Believe

Martin Luther (1483-1546)

• Ninety-Five Theses (1517)
• Christian Liberty (1519)
• The Babylonian Captivity of the Church (1520)
• The Bondage of the Will (1525)
• Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (1539)

J. Gresham Machen

• Christianity and Liberalism

John Owen (1616-1683)

• Christologia
• Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers
• Of Temptation
• The Doctrine of Justification by Faith
• A Brief Declaration and Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity
• Evidences of the Faith of God's Elect
• Introduction to the Worship of God
• Of Communion with God
• A Practical Exposition of Psalm CXXX

J. I. Packer

• Knowing God

Patrick (c. 390-c. 461)

•  The Confession of St. Patrick

Francis A. Schaeffer (1912-1984)

• The God Who Is There
• He Is There and He Is Not Silent
• The Mark of the Christian
• The Church at the End of the Twentieth Century
• The Great Evangelical Disaster
• Joshua and the Flow of Biblical History
• Whatever Happened to the Human Race? with C. Everett Koop (1979)

A. W. Tozer

• The Pursuit of God

Other authors:  Fiction and Poetry

Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)

• Inferno
• Purgatorio
• Paradiso

G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936)

• The Man Who Was Thursday (1908)
• The Innocence of Father Brown
• The Wisdom of Father Brown
• The Ball and the Cross

William Cowper (1731-1800)

• numerous hymns

John Donne (1572-1631)

• Holy Sonnets

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881)

• Notes from the Underground
• Crime and Punishment (1866)
• The Idiot (1869)
• The Brothers Karamazov (1880)

T. S. Eliot (1888-1965)

• Ash Wednesday (1930)
• Murder in the Cathedral (1935)
• The Family Reunion (1939)
• Four Quartets (1943)

Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466-1536)

• The Praise of Folly

George Herbert (1593-1633)

• all of his poetry

Peter Kreeft

• Socrates Meets Jesus
• The Unaborted Socrates
• Between Heaven and Hell

C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)

• The Screwtape Letters (1942)
• Space Trilogy (3 books, 1936-45)
• Till We Have Faces (1956)
• The Chronicles of Narnia (7 books, 1950-56)

John Milton (1608-1674)

• Paradise Lost
• Paradise Regained

Walker Percy (1916-1990)

• The Moviegoer (1961)
• Love in the Ruins (1971)
• The Second Coming (1980)

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-)

• One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962)
• First Circle (1968)
• Cancer Ward (1968)
• August 1914 (1971)
• The Gulag Archipelago (1973-1975)

Sigrid Undset (1882-1949)

• Kristin Lavransdatter (1922)
• The Master of Hestviken (1927)

Walter Wangerin

• The Book of the Dun Cow

Isaac Watts

• The Psalms and Hymns of Isaac Watts

Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966)

• Brideshead Revisited (1945)

Notes on great literature in general

Those interested in lists of great literature in general, pursuant to the theme of essay number 3, may wish to consult some of the following:

• The contents of the Encyclopaedia Britannica Great Books of the Western World series
• The contents of the Harvard Classics series
• How to Read a Book, by Mortimer Adler
• Invitation to the Classics, by Louise Cowan and Os Guiness
• The list of great books in the curriculum of St. John's College of Annapolis, Maryland
• The similar list at Thomas Aquinas College of Santa Paula, California
• The New Lifetime Reading Plan, by Clifton Fadiman
• Good Reading, published periodically by the New American Library
• There are numerous great books among the publications of The Modern Library, available at most bookstore

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