Of Many Books

Philip All right, welcome to All Are Yours. My name is Philip.

Sean I’m Sean.

Philip And here we are again, talking about all the things.

“All are yours” comes from 1 Corinthians 3:21–22.

Sean Yeah.

Philip When it’s talking about — well, he ends up saying it twice. “All things are yours,” “all are yours,” Paul does. But the context there is he’s talking about preachers and teachers, and the Corinthians having conflict and even division over who their favorite preacher is, who their favorite teacher was.

And so we thought maybe it’d be good to sow some division talking about what our favorite books are.

Sean Yeah. Let’s argue about who our favorite preachers of the cross are, like the Corinthians.

Philip That’s right.

But yeah, so this episode we want to talk about some of the favorite books, some of the maybe most influential books, that have brought Sean and myself to where we are, both in our thinking and in whatever kind of growth that we have experienced. So, why do we think the way we do? How have these books influenced it?

Sean And you made a list — like, you actually prepared ahead of time. Did you put it in a text file or in a spreadsheet? That’s the question.

Philip Yeah. I guess the list is not surprising, but I do keep things interesting on how I present it. Yes, I would make a list.

I think I’ve said it here before as well, but I very much follow Churchill’s motto of preparing my impromptu remarks. So if you wake me up in the middle of the night and ask me a question, I might have an answer for you, because I have prepared it.

Sean Well, so before Churchill, Solomon did actually write that a wise man ponders how to answer in his heart.

Philip There you go.

Sean So it is proverbial to actually think about it.

Philip That’s right.

Yeah, so I do have a list. Sean just came up with his list right before we started recording. But his are on the top of his mind because they’re so influential.

So, one thing before — I do think that this is a normal approach that I have, and I think you have as well, and for some people they have a challenge with this. Everybody on my list, I have strong disagreements with in critical areas, like fundamental areas, of my faith and what I believe. And so there is not one person in my list that I can cheer on across the board.

Sean Right. I was struck — I’m not trying to sound pretentious right now — but I thought it was reasonable, in reading C. S. Lewis’s book An Experiment in Criticism. And it’s a whole book talking about how to be a literary critic, and about how actually most literary critics are jerks and unpleasant and unhelpful. And I think he was especially referring to it in terms of fiction things, and that’s fine.

But one of the comments that he made that I took with me was saying, when you read the book, you really have got to try to own whatever the author is saying, from whatever perspective they’re saying it, at first, instead of immediately coming and trying to be critical. Like, well, go with it first. Try it out. See what they’re looking at, or what they’re trying to say.

And obviously, you know, the 1 Thessalonians 5 passage about testing the spirits. So this isn’t — I didn’t take what Lewis was saying as, turn your brain off while you’re reading and swallow everything. Obviously you’re paying attention to the skull and crossbones on the outside of a book before you just swallow all the poison. So there’s wisdom applied there.

But — because I would have been like this a long time ago, where once I started getting some theology, I pretty much used that as a beat stick on everything. And the first words out of my mouth would be, well, the problem with that is. Well, the problem with that is.

Philip Right.

Sean And even after a while I realized how annoying that was. “Well, the problem with that is” kind of thing.

So, yeah, while acknowledging that we can have actual good disagreements — lots of those disagreements can be profitable if you just think about it.

Philip Right.

Sean I recently read a book by Isaac Watts, from like whenever he lived, in the 1600s, maybe 1700s — probably 1700s. And the book was The Improvement of the Mind. And multiple times throughout, he recommended — you know, how do you think better, how can you gain knowledge and improve your mind — he encouraged the reading of things that even you disagreed with. He’s like, okay, so then, instead of just complaining about it, well, fix it. Like, well, how would you say it better?

Philip Right.

Sean So supplement it, or correct it, and gain from that, rather than just bashing the person who wrote it.

So, yeah, there are false teachers that need to be rebuked. But it seems like — if all are yours, which is why you started the way that you did — if all are yours, and in that context, they were all fallen guys. So Peter was an option, Paul was an option, Apollos was an option; Jesus was the only non-fallen option.

Philip That group was the most proud.

Sean Yeah, they were the worst.

Philip That’s right.

Sean Though their person was perfect.

Philip Right.

Sean But that means we can gain and be edified by people who are not just quoting Bible verses.

Philip Right. Yeah, for sure.

I think part of my — I don’t have a problem disagreeing with people. Meaning, like, I —

Sean You like disagreeing.

Philip I — yeah. I lean into the disagreement.

But I mean, like, if people disagree with me, I don’t take it personally. Like, I don’t need to try not to take it personally; that’s just normal for me, not to take it personally.

And part of that I do think is just the way I grew up. So, I’ve mentioned my grandpa before — his fighty nature that he had. He had eight sons, and they’re all very also argumentative and fighty. And so we would have big family gatherings weekly; every Sunday we’d be at dinner, and around the dinner table there would be heated conversations, where I do think there was also a lot of sin involved around that dinner table regarding how people were talking to one another.

But just that kind of disagreement was a normal part of my upbringing. Like, yeah, you disagree with people who you’re having dinner with, and then we would get together again the following week. So even then, reading people who I disagree with is not a big deal.

I think it was John Piper was asked about Doug Wilson — this would have been, I don’t know, twenty years ago maybe, maybe fifteen years ago, I think it was at like a Mars Hill service or something. He was asked about, you know, if Doug Wilson was a heretic. And his answer was something like, yeah, I read Doug Wilson, and where he’s wrong, he’s wrong the way I would expect a Presbyterian to be wrong. He’s not wrong like a heretic.

And so, having kind of that — that’s what you’re referring to, even Lewis’s point about entering that person’s worldview. And, well, yeah, this makes sense why he thinks this, because this is his worldview. And so being able to mine out the gold and leave the other stuff, I think, is necessary if we’re going to be able to learn anything.

Sean Yeah. I have in the past tended to take criticism more personally, but my wife has helped me reframe it. Because — and I didn’t believe this for quite a while — but she tells me that she only argues with me if she thinks my ideas are interesting in the first place. So if the idea’s not worth arguing with, then it’s probably useless anyway.

Philip “I’m not dismissing you.”

Sean Yeah. So she tried to tell me that that’s a sign of respect, when she is arguing — I mean, not arguing, but disagreeing, poking back, scratching at, asking a bajillion other questions about.

Philip Right.

Sean So, engaging with authors, even with a disagreement or a qualification — in some ways that is actually a good sign that there was something there to start with in the first place.

Philip Right.

Sean So we don’t have to just bash them because we have an additional thing we’d want to throw in, or whatever it might be.

Philip Right, exactly. And, again, if somebody is being led astray by the wrong things that person is saying — okay, then it’s worth engaging and pushing back and defending what is right. But then, what is the whole point of this, whether it’s a book or message or whatever the guy is trying to teach? Being able to hold those things in tension while you’re learning and drawing from it, I think, is a good skill, a good ability to have, if you’re trying to learn something.

Sean Yeah. One other thing that this discussion assumes is that we actually think it’s really good to read.

Philip Yeah.

Sean And not — I’m not saying that as opposed to listening to podcasts. Listen to this podcast. Like and subscribe.

Philip Yeah, that’s right. Forgot to say it. Do it.

Sean I literally have never — did we say that?

Philip We said this last time, yeah.

Sean Also, that irritates me when I hear people say that.

Philip That’s right.

Sean “Links below,” or whatever.

Philip That’s right.

Sean This is not a discouragement to listen to podcasts, or to listen to books, or to listen to the Bible. It’s not about listening versus reading with your eyes, in my mind at this point.

I’m just saying, in terms of the all-are-yours — what resources we have these days to be able to learn more, and get our thoughts sharpened, and sow seeds that then can be fruitful for harvest later on, in terms of worldview, politics, history, theology, parenting, education, all those kinds of things. We have been given much, and so we’re going to be accountable for much. And that includes the amount of resources that we have that are relatively inexpensive and accessible, to get shipped to your door forty-eight hours later, or whatever it might be.

So this would be a completely different conversation probably four hundred years ago — not just in terms of technology, but in terms of where the books were available. So you might have ten books in your home library, and if you were going to study a bunch more, you would have to go to the university, or to the library.

So, whether or not every man or every household — I think it would be great to have a growing library. I think Ben Sasse, in his The Vanishing American Adult, has a whole chapter — maybe even the chapter is on reading — but he talks about every household having like a six-foot bookshelf of all of the great books of Western civilization in particular that have made us who we are as a people. Like, every household having that. And that’s a great idea. I like that. I’m not opposed to it.

But dudes — and ladies, but men — should be sharpening their thinking and investing in what they’re thinking. And even if they have a job where they can’t listen to stuff all day long — lots of guys don’t have jobs like that, they’re not working on a factory line or whatever — they should make some sort of disciplined, plodding effort to read some things.

Philip Right. Yeah, I think it was the last episode that we talked about college and learning.

Sean Yeah.

Philip And loving God with your mind means learning more about him, about how he’s made the world, about how his image bearers think about the world, where they’re right, where they’re wrong — the all-encompassing lordship of Christ. So, reading about all of it. Yes, I think that is a requirement. If you don’t like reading, you’re wrong. And, again, I include the qualification slash listening.

Sean Yeah.

Philip Like, if you were a king a few hundred years ago, a thousand years ago — let’s say you’re an Old Testament king. I don’t think you would read a lot of your own things when you’re the king. You would bring in a scribe, and he’d open the scroll and read it out loud to you.

I’m saying that listening is a sign of wealth. So don’t feel bad if you’re a listener.

Sean What was the king in the book of Esther? I know I should know that.

Philip Yeah — Ahasuerus.

Sean Ahasuerus.

Philip A lot of these things I will mispronounce. The first, I don’t know, fifteen years of my life, sixteen years of life, I read the Bible in Russian only. And then I started reading English. And so even in English it was just by myself.

Sean Okay.

Philip So — how do you pronounce it?

Sean Well, Ahasuerus couldn’t sleep one night.

Philip That’s right.

Sean And so he had the royal records brought in to him to be read.

Philip That’s right.

Sean And that is when he heard of Mordecai’s saving of him —

Philip Right.

Sean — stopping of some conspiracy to murder the king. And because he couldn’t sleep, and he had somebody reading the records, then he was like, hey, how could I honor this guy? And then that ends up being the downfall for Haman.

Philip That’s right.

Sean Because Haman was trying to actually kill Mordecai. So, yeah, that’s a case in point.

Philip That’s right.

Sean Literal Old Testament kings had people read them stuff.

Philip That’s right. So, reading or listening — just don’t call listening reading.

Sean The kings were — now, obviously Ahasuerus was not a Jewish king, but the Jewish kings also had their own responsibility to handwrite their own copy of the law.

Philip Okay.

Sean So they were supposed to read it, but then also write.

Philip I’m sure they were able to read and write and everything. For sure. They were smart guys. But the listening was wealthy — wealthy people got to do that. The poor people had to read their own stuff.

All right, so we do have books to mention. And so we’re building up the tension for it. I have not seen Sean’s list.

Sean Nor I yours.

Philip Yes. And so, I think we’ve heard one another talk about the books we like, so I would not be surprised if there’s overlap on all the books, if not most of them. That would make sense.

A few kind of things that I noticed about my top books, that might stand out for some people, maybe not. First, the Bible is not on this list, because the Bible is its own list. It’s not just the top book; it doesn’t even belong in these categories.

Sean I accept that qualification.

Philip Yeah, there you go.

Second is, on my list at least, I don’t have any of the normal big spiritual devotional, big theology books.

Sean Okay.

Philip So, on my list there isn’t anything like that. So for some Christians that might be a turn-off.

Sean Sure.

Philip The other thing is, all of my guys are moderns. So, like nineteenth century forward — maybe end of nineteenth century forward. One of them is still alive. So — they’re all dead except him. So there’s people who only read guys when they die; you could read most of these guys, they’re dead.

But for some people that might be, okay, well, anything modern is not even worth reading or holding in that category. But my humble upbringings don’t allow me to. I have read non-moderns, but at least they haven’t made it into the —

Sean But do you have any Russians on your list?

Philip I do not have any Russians on my list. So that is, I guess, another thing. They’re all non-Russians.

Sean All right.

Philip At least yet.

And the other thing is, yeah, I have strong disagreements, or critical categories. And also I think they all have a mocking sense of humor. That is maybe one of the things that even draws me to them.

Sean I’m nodding along here.

Philip Yes, that’s right. So, that kind of — you know, they say don’t make fun of your audience. But I appreciate even receiving a good insult.

Sean Sure.

Philip I think that is a respectable thing. So when the author insults me, I’m like, oh, that was a good one.

Sean So you have seven.

Philip Seven, yes. So this is not necessarily in the order. I do have one that stands out above the rest.

Sean Are you going to save that for last?

Philip Yeah, I guess I’ll save that one for last.

So, the first one, top of the list, is Lectures on Calvinism by Abraham Kuyper.

Sean Yeah.

Philip So, yes, that one — I mean, we’ve talked about Kuyper here, Kuyperianism, that has been forming for our entire community, everything that we’re doing. I originally was put on that by Dave. That was when we met with him, even before I was at TEC. We were talking about glorifying God in business, and how to go about that. And he said, oh, we’re reading Lectures on Calvinism with the elders right now. And so that’s when I bought it.

But yeah, so that’s on the top of the list.

Sean We’re going to make Lectures on Calvinism one of the first — maybe the first — but it’s going to be in the jealousable lordship class.

Philip Okay, yeah.

Sean It’s got to be in there.

Philip Yeah. It is a more challenging read for the everyman.

Sean On our church website, which is up now — trinityevangel.org — if you go to the Resources tab at the top, Lectures on Calvinism is on there. And one of the men at our church made an audiobook version of that, because there has not been — I haven’t looked recently, but I don’t think that there’s an Audible copy. But for free, one of our guys made an audio version — not capital-A Audible, but — and it’s actually really well done.

But I would definitely put Lectures on Calvinism as — I don’t remember if I would say that it was like a turning point in my thinking, but it definitely hit me at an appropriate time to continue knocking down walls of dualism. And loved it. Like, really good, in all of the chapters, and seeing how it applies.

Well, you’ve got art, science —

Philip Yeah, politics, religion. Art, science, politics, religion, the future. And he had a sixth one. There were six.

Sean But yeah, really pointing out that Kuyper didn’t think what he was doing was new; he thought he was just continuing to live out the observations about God’s sovereignty.

Philip Right.

Sean And how that applies to — to soteriology, yes, to our salvation. But most Calvinists start with TULIP, and fine. But Kuyper just points out that God’s sovereignty is spiritual, but also celestial. It is eternal life, but it affects everything on our earthly life as well.

And I thought it was really encouraging. And definitely, even at the beginning, he contrasts — which he was more familiar with, because he wasn’t that far after the French Revolution — but how God’s sovereignty, Jesus is Lord, really does change humankind, as to whether they think that, or — one of the cries of the French Revolution was “no God, no masters.”

Philip Right.

Sean And that resistance to sovereignty in any of its forms is completely destructive.

Philip Right. Yeah, so the context of Lectures on Calvinism: Kuyper was invited to Princeton University and gave his six lectures there, called the Stone Lectures, in eighteen ninety-eight. And so this is a written copy of those lectures that he gave there.

And yeah, his big enemy that he presents there is humanism, or modernity. And so, coming out of the French Revolution. And I think even his context, being at the end of the nineteenth century — the French Revolution kind of started the nineteenth century, in 1789, and then that entire century was kind of a century of revolutions, and then it ended with the Russian Revolution in nineteen seventeen, and so that whole chunk. And so Kuyper is coming out of that. And so that cry, throughout that 150-year period, of “no God, no masters,” everywhere.

And so I did write like one word for each of my books, to, what did I learn from it, what did I take away? So for Lectures on Calvinism, it taught me to bow. It taught me to kneel to Christ as Lord, and what that means. So, when I’m bowing to Jesus — where am I bowing? In what context? And it’s across the board.

And so Kuyper very much fleshed out what it means to submit to Christ as Lord in all the spheres of life, not just in one area, but it all belongs to him. So, to bow is kind of a big takeaway there.

And Kuyper was amil, and he even —

Sean He poked at us chiliasts, as dispensationalists, yeah.

Philip Right, exactly right. And so, yeah, he’s a man that in critical categories I have disagreements with. And that is okay.

But yeah, so that’s kind of the first one.

Sean Yeah. Because they’re at the top of my mind, that means that I don’t have mine as well ordered as you, so I’m trying to decide even which one to mention first.

But, whether or not I would say my books are favorites — I was thinking favorites in terms of, like, they changed my thinking on a thing. They were a transition kind of thing.

There’s a version of it by John Piper — I’m looking at my bookshelves even right now to try to remember the name. But, even related to Kuyper’s book: Jonathan Edwards’ The End for Which God Created the World.

Which — what is the end? Well, it’s the glory of God. Duh. We know that. 1 Corinthians 10:31, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

So, yeah, it’s kind of duh. It’s duh, like, God is sovereign.

Philip Right.

Sean And why is God sovereign? Well, for his own glory.

But it was in The End for Which God Created the World that I got some illustrations, for the first time, about God’s worth, and about how — yes, we exist for his glory, but why? And part of the why is because his glory is really awesome. Out of all of the beings in the universe, who has the best glory? Well, God has the best glory. So what are you supposed to do with that? What’s right? Well, to recognize that glory.

So, he uses an illustration — again, hypothetical — but Edwards is saying, if there was a third being, so to speak, in the universe, whose only job was to be a judge of value. And on display in front of this judge is God, and then the other defendant, so to speak, is all of creation. Which is more valuable?

And, well, on one hand, the one who created it has to be more valuable than even all of creation put together, because one is the maker. But the way that Edwards teases that out — well, actually all of the rest of creation doesn’t even compare. Added up, all the persons, all of the beings, they just don’t even compare at all to the glory of God.

And so then, because of that, a couple of things. One is, well, what should God be committed to? And actually, if God is not committed to his own glory, then he would be false. So he’s got to act for his own glory.

And then, how do we give him glory? And this is where some of even Piper’s ministry on desiring God, and the affections, started to make sense to me. Because I had tried to read Desiring God a few times, and I got some of it, but I was just sort of not sure. And I would say I had a much more heady, mental view than a heart, love, affections view of Christianity at that point.

But it’s in Piper’s edition of The End for Which God Created the World that he’s got an additional quote from one of the Miscellanies by Edwards, where he talks about how God is glorified not just by our knowing him, but by our knowing and delighting in him.

And for whatever reason, that’s when it got in. Like, oh. I’ve been saying, you know, do all to the glory of God, and God is glorious. But really understanding — or starting to understand a little bit more — of the universal nature of how God’s commitment to his own glory is the reason for everything. And that my participation in that has to be an increasing understanding of it, but more than just an understanding of it: actual affections for his glory.

Philip Right.

Sean So that was a transition point into then even Edwards’ book on the religious affections, which I also really liked and thought about even putting on my list. But really the affections part is driven by God’s great glory. And, well, okay, I say I want to glorify God — well, how would I do that? And it’s, again, more than just a mental thing.

So, Edwards, through Piper’s edition. And I keep mentioning Piper’s edition of it, because you can get The End for Which God Created the World online in horrible formatting.

Philip Okay.

Sean But Piper has a specific edition of it where he adds some headings, it’s a better font, gives a bunch of footnotes that also then are explaining some of Edwards’ terminology.

Philip Is it on the Desiring God website, or —

Sean Yeah, for sure.

Philip So you would have, then, The End for Which God Created the World as one of your top books.

Sean Yeah. Definitely.

Philip Okay, there you go.

Sean That was my follow-up to Lectures on Calvinism. That’s my first one: The End for Which God Created the World.

Philip Okay, there you go.

Sean Yeah.

Philip And you did have Lectures on Calvinism on your list.

Sean Definitely.

Philip Okay, so there you go. So that’s two for you.

Sean Yeah, let’s go with that.

Philip Yeah. This is an order of my learning, I guess I’d put it that way. So the learning of the —

Sean Chronological.

Philip Well, no, not when I learned it, but the one word that I put. So the first one is to bow.

Sean To bow is good. The next one —

Philip The next one —

Sean You’re preaching a message with your list.

Philip That’s right. This comes to the end.

Sean Okay. So, is “get up” your next one? If you’re bowed, then you’re up.

Philip The next one is to stand.

Sean That is —

Philip This book is to stand, and this is A Failure of Nerve by Edwin Friedman.

Sean Okay.

Philip So, this one’s on your list as well.

Sean Yeah, it has to be.

Philip Okay.

Sean Yeah.

Philip So, this was also originally pointed out by Dave. And again, I think it was already when I was at TEC. Because I was talking much more with Dave earlier on than I was with you. But it came out of that whole —

Sean The elders read Lectures on Calvinism, and then we did actually read that with the men at Men to Men.

Philip Right, I was there for the men’s meeting.

Sean A Failure of Nerve the elders have read, but we have not actually ever done that specifically with all of the men. I guess we did do it with our life-to-life leaders, our small group leaders.

Philip Yep, we did that.

So, Friedman — I mean, he’s a Jewish rabbi turned atheist psychologist. So —

Sean Now dead.

Philip Now dead, right. So, unless he repented on his deathbed, he is not with Christ. So —

Sean We disagree with him —

Philip That’s right.

Sean — right there.

Philip That’s right. So we don’t agree with him about everything.

But I mean, I’ve read a good amount of leadership books. And there’s good nuggets everywhere, and a lot of them also are reminders and repetitions. Friedman, I do think his Failure of Nerve is one of those books that is a bookshelf builder, that then other books live on. So there are other things that other people have talked about where I put them into categories that Friedman made in my mind — of what it means to stand, specifically in an environment of anxiety, in an environment of people freaking out, people wanting you to bend, to break; and how to do that, why that’s important.

So, yeah, that one: A Failure of Nerve, to stand.

Sean Yeah. I hesitate to recommend it to everybody that I’m talking to, because of how many things need to be ignored.

Philip Right. Rejected. There’s definitely like big chunks that you could just reject.

Sean That said, anybody who has some ability to discern already, and who is in any kind of leadership position, would be benefited, I have to think, from this book.

And I have read it at least seven or eight times. I actually just started reading it again this past week with my son, who’s eighteen. He’s got a lot of categories already, but I’ll want to make sure that we’re seeing the same things that need to be rejected, for sure.

But yeah — so you use the word anxious, which he talks about a lot; reactivity; and sabotage. So, somebody in the group has to stop reacting to everybody else’s reactivity. Somebody has to stand, like you’re saying, or somebody has to be differentiated enough to be present.

And I know Friedman doesn’t use this term, but I think of it as some amount of absorbing. So, differentiation is not quite the same thing as absorbing other people’s junk. One of the illustrations I’ve used in the past is like being a lump of still unbaked bread dough that someone is trying to strike their match against. Like, well, it’d be impossible for them to strike their fire against. Then obviously that illustration breaks down, because a lump of wet bread dough is not standing.

Philip Yeah.

Sean But it still maintains its own form, kind of thing.

But yeah, Friedman just talking about taking the first step, knowing where you want to go, having some definition to your own life, and the leader’s presence and the leader’s pursuits being the thing that makes the difference, rather than just trying to motivate everybody else first. Just some — I agree — bookshelf-building sort of ideas, that are different than — you know, there’s a whole chapter on needing more data.

Philip Right.

Sean And the data junkyards that are being created, rather than just being decisive.

Philip Right, exactly.

Sean And there’s a difference between just gut and never paying attention to the numbers. There are places for numbers and gathering data. But we paralyze ourselves when we refuse to take a step until we’ve gathered everybody’s consensus, until we have gathered all of the information. And that is so much of the technique and method that are in a bunch of the other business and productivity kind of books, that Friedman’s just stands out as being the right person.

Philip Right, exactly. Well, and there’s overlap there with the Bible, right, where again Paul tells Timothy to pay close attention to yourself and your teaching. The Bible talks about self-control.

And so I do think that a lot of the stuff that Friedman says is counterintuitive compared to reading a lot of other leadership gurus.

Sean Yeah.

Philip Where, you know, even his whole category about rejecting empathy. And the leader focusing on his presence, like you’re saying, as opposed to his techniques or methods — and then being accused of being selfish, because he is standing strong and knows where he wants to go and is actually moving forward. And so people are freaking out and throwing stones at him for not caring.

And so Friedman’s two big categories are to have conviction and to have connection. And so, conviction is what makes you stand even when other people are trying to bring you down. But if you’re just doing that without being connected to people, then you’re not actually leading anybody. But remaining connected to the people, so that you’re bringing them along also. So having that conviction and connection at the same time, I think, is difficult. It’s challenging.

Sean Yeah. And — for anybody who is on the fence — we could potentially even have a whole podcast discussion related. We could have a series of podcast discussions about Failure of Nerve, probably.

Philip Yeah. Each one of these books.

Sean True.

But Friedman says — and if you’re on the fence about whether or not you need this book, well, you do. But he says, and I would totally agree, that this is not just an “if you’re a business owner” kind of book. This is for everybody who’s a husband.

Philip Right, yes.

Sean This is for everybody who’s a parent.

Philip Yes.

Sean Definitely for pastors. Because he acknowledges that it applies across all of the spheres, wherever there’s a group of people.

Philip Right.

Sean And that’s family — he was a family counselor. He talked to military groups, and obviously business people, and schools, and churches. All of those kinds of groups. So wherever there’s more than one person, the principles in there really have a lot of benefit.

Philip Mm-hmm. So there you go. That’s another one.

Sean Failure of Nerve.

Philip Yep.

The next one for me would be put under the header to gain. So I learned to gain with Antifragile, Nassim Taleb. You —

Sean I should have put that on my list. But —

Philip You say Taleb?

Sean I don’t know.

Philip Okay, I don’t know.

Sean Probably.

Philip Okay. But Antifragile.

Sean How do you say it?

Philip Taleb. I don’t know. Anyway.

But also, he is some sort of — oh, I guess he’s still alive. So there’s two guys on here that are alive. Okay, so he is alive. He’s some sort of Orthodox; his faith is funky. So, yeah, I don’t think he’d be a member in our church.

Sean No, yeah.

Philip He also did block me on Twitter. So, yeah, he was too fragile for — no, I’m kidding. But yeah, I didn’t even realize he did, but I guess there was some little interaction a time ago. But I still recommend his book.

Antifragile, about how to gain from disorder, how to grow from resistance, how to leverage resistance to grow, as opposed to folding under it, right?

So, he made up this word antifragile, where a lot of times people think the opposite of fragile is robust. If fragile is what breaks under tension, robust would be something that does not break under tension. But Taleb lays the case forward that, well, the opposite of fragile is not something that just doesn’t break under tension, but something that gets better with tension, that improves with tension. So he called it antifragile.

So you think of our muscles: they tear and then they grow back stronger. So those kinds of categories. But, to gain.

Sean Yeah. If you were sending a package across the country — if you are sending a package of wine glasses, that’s fragile. If you were sending a book, that’s probably robust; like, the UPS driver could kick that down the road, but as long as it’s in a box, the book is probably going to be just fine. Might not be so fine for the wine glasses.

But what could you send across the country that would actually be better if the UPS drivers and packers of the trucks threw it around and mishandled it, treated it roughly? What could you send that would get better through that volatility? And whatever that is, that would be antifragile.

Philip It would be a persecuted Christian. So you put him in chains and you throw him around, and he’s supposed to come out better.

Sean Yeah. I had forgotten about that one, but that concept is definitely — which you don’t necessarily need to read the whole book to appreciate that concept.

Philip It’s longer.

Sean Yeah.

Philip Yeah.

Sean And he is, because — his day job, he’s like a financial advisor.

Philip Yeah, he does stock option trading. So he does options, and options is, you buy an option to be able to buy the stock, as opposed to the actual stock itself. And so that’s where a lot of even his risk analysis comes from, regarding high reward, low loss.

So with options, you buy an option to be able to buy the stock, and so it’s less expensive than the actual stock, potentially. But then when the stock goes up, you can sell those options to people; and if the stock doesn’t go up, you don’t lose as much. So that’s where he kind of even gets his idea of antifragility. So, yeah, he’s a stock options trader.

Sean Yeah. So that part I had to read more as illustrative than actually like instruction for me, because I’m not spending a lot of time doing that. But the life principles — and he does spread it out into diet and exercise.

Philip Right.

Sean I can’t remember if he puts it into relationships very much. Failure of Nerve — it’s all about relationships in Failure of Nerve. But lots of areas in which, if you can set yourself up to get better, be more fruitful from the challenges.

Philip Right.

Sean Which seems to relate to James chapter 1, why we’re supposed to count trials as joy.

Philip Right.

Sean Because they are producing in us something better than what we previously had.

Philip Right.

Sean And not just endurance, in terms of being robust, but even — there’s another word that I have been thinking about a lot the past six months or so. The Greek word is holoklēros, which is like ready for any situation. So, being sound and perfect in endurance. And there is a kind of character that is better, that has been through some crap.

Philip Right. Well, yeah, it’s 2 Corinthians 4, right? Preparing for us an eternal weight of glory.

Sean Yeah.

Philip So that happening through coming to the limit of those “but nots,” right?

Sean Yeah.

Philip What you’ve talked about before.

Sean And I don’t like any of that.

Philip Right. And so I think that’s where that category of, you know, I learned to gain: where, keep yourself there. So you’re in the fire while you’re getting purified — so keep yourself there. Don’t try to just make your surroundings easier. Become stronger.

And so, I don’t know if Taleb uses this analogy or not, but, like, a tree that, if it grows tall and is enclosed in a glass dome, it’ll continue growing tall, but it won’t have very strong roots at all. And once you take away that glass dome, it’ll just topple over from the slightest gust of wind.

What makes a tree grow deep roots is, as it’s growing tall, it’s resisting against the wind. And so it’s pushing back against the wind, and it forces itself to grab onto the earth and become stronger that way. So a tall tree that can withstand windstorms is one that has grown in its resistance and grabbed onto the earth with its root system. So it’s become strong.

So, keeping yourself in tension in order to gain from it.

Sean Yeah.

Philip So the next one I have was to see. And the book where I learned to see was Chesterton’s Orthodoxy. And so I really appreciated that book.

Chesterton is a Calvinist-hating Catholic. He makes fun of Calvinists — no, “makes fun of” is too friendly of a word. He despises Calvinists vehemently, and throws them under the bus in his book multiple times. And he’s a Catholic, so it’s not just an Arminian that doesn’t like Calvinism; he’s in a way different camp as well.

But he even says in his book that his concern is with a certain way of looking at life. And so that book teaching me to see — when he talks about, in fairy tales, we have the rivers run with wine because we forget that they run with water, and that in itself is a miracle. We have golden apples because we forget that they’re red, and that is a miracle.

So I did have this quote here from him. When we are asked — this is Chesterton — “when we are asked why eggs turn into birds or fruits fall in autumn, we must answer exactly as the fairy godmother would answer if Cinderella asked her why mice turned into horses, or her clothes fell from her at twelve o’clock. We must answer that it is magic. It is not a law, for we do not understand its general formula. It is not a necessity, for though we can count on it happening practically, we have no right to say that it must always happen. The only words that ever satisfied me as describing nature are the terms used in the fairy books: charm, spell, enchantment.”

So, that sense of looking at life and seeing the magic.

Sean Yeah. My guess, without knowing your list — my guess on your seventh book is that that is probably the one that I would include some of the same descriptions of: paying attention, noticing, and seeing.

Philip That could be the next book, because in my order of the words, that one would be next — even though that one would be my favorite one.

Sean Okay.

Philip So it’s —

Sean It’s next.

Philip Yeah.

Sean So I’m still teasing it.

But I did like Orthodoxy. I don’t know if I’d put that in my transitional ones, but I keep using it. And there’s an illustration that it gives in Orthodoxy, about imagining some plateau island in the sea, with the walls that are secure around it, and the children are out playing in the middle with reckless abandon almost. But when the walls are broken down, people came back and found all the children in the center of the island huddled together for fear, because they didn’t want to fall off.

And Chesterton is referring to that in terms of truth and doctrine and the title of the book, Orthodoxy, and how orthodoxy is like the walls that enable us to live and enjoy and play without fear of falling over, or being destroyed.

And that illustration — I do think about a lot of my work, at least as a teacher or preacher, related to maintaining or even building those kinds of walls that enable people’s joy. So the seeing part is great in Orthodoxy, and Chesterton is a master at seeing a lot of those things.

Philip Right. Yeah, and so that, at least when I read it originally, was definitely — I don’t know, I think it was a book that was a train that ran into me. Because, whether it’s with work or just my own nature, I’m much more pragmatic and practical. And, how do we get this thing done? Let’s find the cause and effect and get it figured out.

But with Chesterton — him even, like, hating people like that, right? I think I was made fun of a lot when I read Chesterton, by Chesterton. And so, him requiring the person to be enthralled with the magic of life. That this is not necessary; this is just God’s goodness.

You know, if Cinderella, he was saying, would complain about why does the coach turn back into a pumpkin at twelve o’clock — the godmother’s right answer would have been, why do you get a coach at all? Like, you don’t need to have any of this.

So all of the goodness in life that we complain about when it’s not the way we want it, or taken away from us for whatever reason — just having it was already a gift. So, seeing life as a gift, I think, is what I took away from Orthodoxy.

And, to me at least, it was a fun read. He’s funny. I could see him laughing out loud, writing something. And so, I mean, he was a fat, jolly man.

Sean Yeah.

Philip But so the next one — this would be my favorite book of all time.

Sean This is number one.

Philip Yeah.

Sean But number five — are we at five for you?

Philip One, two, three, four, five. Yes, number five. But this book is the best book that I’ve read so far. And it goes under the category of to taste. So that’s —

Sean Of course.

Philip Yes, that’s right. It’s none other than The Supper of the Lamb by Robert Capon. Or maybe it’s — I think when we had Wilson over for dinner, he pronounced his name “Capone,” or “Capon”; he said it in like a unique way. And he even said that that was the correct way to say it.

But yeah, Supper of the Lamb. And this is the book you’re referring to.

Sean Yeah, I thought it was going to be your last one. But if it’s your favorite one, yeah, that totally makes sense.

Philip Yeah. This one — you know, on a five-point scale of a book, a five-star review, Supper of the Lamb I would give like an eight stars out of five.

Sean Yeah.

Philip It was delightful, fun, moving. I wanted to just start reading it again right away.

Sean Yeah, in my system on Goodreads at least, five out of five means not only that I loved it, but that if I could, I would restart reading it immediately. Four out of five is usually what I’m going to give a book, because I’m trying to be generous. I mean, there are definitely ones that I give lower. But five out of five means I loved it, it was great, and I’d love to immediately reread it.

And I would also — I think eight is fine, ten is fine, for Supper of the Lamb.

Philip Right. The point in saying that is that, you know, these other books I’d give a five out of five. This one I kind of put in its own category.

Sean Yeah, I would probably — for different reasons — I would put Failure of Nerve and Supper of the Lamb as the two that I could read a page of them a day and I don’t know when I’d get tired of it.

Philip Yeah. Failure of Nerve is, for sure, encouraging and helpful in all the categories. I mean, they’re way different books.

Sean Yeah.

Philip They’re different people, they’re written for different reasons.

Supper of the Lamb, reading it is also — it’s almost like eating a well-prepared feast without being tired of all the fine dining rules. So, it’s like, you could eat a cheeseburger, or you could go to like a Michelin star restaurant and eat fine dining. But in fine dining, I would assume that it’s very pretentious and not so much fun — where Capon gives you this meal that he’s prepared for you, and you’re having a lot of fun eating it. I didn’t get any sense of pretense from him. It was full of gratitude.

Sean Which is potentially one of the reasons why not everybody appreciates it. Because he is irreverent toward fine dining. He is irreverent about pretense.

Philip Right.

Sean And the people who are more on the pretense side, who ironically are not tasting very well.

Philip Right.

Sean It’s a superficial thing, rather than what he’s trying to scratch at, which is the meaty, tasty, sweet things.

Yeah, he makes you want to appreciate a great bite, but not show off your chewing, sort of thing. Or the plate. Stop focusing on the china and the silverware, as much as you can use that — I mean, I don’t think he’d be opposed to that.

But the way he sees, the way he makes you want to taste, listen, pay attention to things — very playful. If playfulness and pretentiousness were on opposite sides of the spectrum: there’s a way to play seriously, and there’s a way to be pretentiously serious, and he is just way on the play side of it.

And I am sure that twenty years ago I would have stopped reading the book. But I read it at a time — and I’ve read it a few times since — but read it at a time where I was ready for those categories.

Again, knocking down dualism. So, compare Lectures on Calvinism, knocking down dualism, to Supper of the Lamb. Think about how different those audiences were and how different the approaches are to accomplishing the same thing — like, seeing the world as gift.

So when you think about all are yours, Supper of the Lamb is a huge all-are-yours kind of encouragement. And it’s a cookbook.

Philip Right.

Sean Literally the last third of it is recipes for things.

Philip Right.

Sean And even the gist throughout the first chunk of the book is preparing one particular meal, of lamb.

Philip Right.

Sean And yeah, his angle, his delight — he doesn’t make you feel bad that your taste isn’t as developed as his.

Philip Right.

Sean But it makes you want to have his kind of taste.

Philip Yeah, he has high standards.

Sean Yeah.

Philip His standards are not low; he’s not throwing all that out the window.

And I think you pointed this out when I had tweeted that thing about the espresso, regarding, there’s a difference between being pretentious and caring. Like, there’s a line there. You could be pretentious, and that comes across all the wrong ways with your high standards; or you have high standards because you care. And so Capon very much comes across like a man who cares.

And even his other book, Bed and Board, talks explicitly about a lot of that, where — being people who care, and that is a lot of what we lack, in all the ways, including in our tastes. Not caring about these things.

And so, yeah: all are yours, and Christ cares, his interests are here, and so being people who care is important.

Sean Yeah. I would definitely recommend that, even if I don’t recommend Failure of Nerve immediately to people.

Philip Right.

Sean To whatever degree Capon pushes over people’s expectations, I’m like, go for it.

Philip Right. Capon, there are definitely things there that are — so, with Failure of Nerve, like we said, there’s sections to just reject. Capon is playing with fire.

Sean Yeah.

Philip And, yeah, like what you’re saying regarding, you would just have rejected it twenty years ago or whatever. There are sections there that sound really risky. Like, this is — you’re living on the edge.

Sean Yeah. I think one of the statements that I know trips people up is he says something like, the devil, insofar as he exists, is good.

Philip Oh man. Yeah.

Sean Period.

Philip Yeah, that’s right.

Sean And I’ve definitely had people come back to me and be like, uh, help me understand that.

Philip Yes. Exactly right. And so, I mean, he was an Episcopalian priest, and did have some funky theology.

Sean Yeah.

Philip Like, some of his theology was weird.

Sean Probably saved?

Philip Yeah.

Sean Unlike Taleb?

Philip Right, Taleb or Friedman.

Sean Yeah.

Philip Right. So I think it’d be great, yeah, to see Capon in heaven. That would be awesome.

Sean Yeah. He can make us some strudel, or streusel, or —

Philip Yep.

So, yeah, so my categories there were: to bow, to stand, to gain, to see, to taste. And the next one is to love. And that one is That Hideous Strength by C. S. Lewis.

Sean Yeah.

Philip And I know that you really like that one as well.

I mean, yeah, C. S. Lewis has things to disagree with him on, and he has some strange theology even when it comes to salvation, maybe.

But when Jane meets the Director, and they’re talking about her relationship with Mark, her husband, and how she has fallen out of love and all that — the Director tells her, this is Ransom, he tells her: “You do not fail in obedience through lack of love, but have lost love because you never attempted obedience.”

And so having that — I mean, there’s a lot of good things in That Hideous Strength, but if I was to bring it into one word, in my category, it was learning to love through submission, through obedience.

Sean Yeah.

Philip Because Mark — they’re both looking for love. They’re both looking for acceptance. They’re both looking to be included, to be loved. And so Mark’s pursuit of that leads him into a lot of trouble, and he does evil in his pursuit of love. Jane also does evil, and her path leads her in a different way, and then at the end, how they come together.

But, yeah: That Hideous Strength.

Sean I mean, so far — and I’m sure that I’m familiar with your seventh book —

Philip Yeah, oh yeah.

Sean But so far, if someone had made me take your list, I’d be fine with it.

Yeah, I mean, That Hideous Strength for me is definitely number one fiction book. Like, there isn’t any other question. And I like other fiction books. So the people who argue that Perelandra is their favorite out of the Ransom trilogy, I’m like, fine.

Philip Yeah.

Sean Good for you.

Philip Yeah.

Sean I like That Hideous Strength better. For a variety of reasons.

I hated, in a good way, the mirror that Mark Studdock was to my own heart. Not in every way, but in too many ways. At least — again, by the time that I got to the point in my life where I read it, really, really helpful, painful mirror to see parts that were broken, or parts that were needing to be fixed.

But I mean, it was also — I’m trying to remember exactly the timeline. But, like, a book that I really like is Wordsmithy by Doug Wilson. And I think I’d probably put that on my list of seven — which, ironically, is what I was thinking about when you said that you had seven, because he’s got seven points in his book Wordsmithy.

Philip I think I’ve read it twice. And yeah, I actually considered putting Wordsmithy on my list.

Sean And Doug Wilson also sees things and is playful. So, in fact, I learned about The Supper of the Lamb from one of Wilson’s books, called Nine Writers to Read.

Philip Okay.

Sean Chesterton is one of Wilson’s recommended people to read. Capon is where I learned about it. And I mean, he includes C. S. Lewis as well, though I had already started reading some C. S. Lewis.

But anyway, in Wordsmithy, there are seven. And he unpacks them like a Russian doll.

Philip Yeah, there you go.

Sean And that’s what I’m doing.

But so, I went to a conference — it was a writer’s weekend kind of thing, called Wordsmithy. And the keynote speaker that they were going to bring in for that Wordsmithy conference was Michael Ward, who had written Planet Narnia. And I really knew nothing about Michael Ward or Planet Narnia, but I figured, well, I should read this guy’s big book before I go listen to him talk. And I’m super glad that I did.

Because — and I think I would put Planet Narnia on my list of seven as well.

Philip Okay.

Sean So, I mean, again, I —

Philip Yeah.

Sean It’s like killing your darlings — which, ironically, is Stephen —

Philip On Writing. Yeah, On Writing.

Sean Yeah.

Philip He writes horror stories or whatever, yeah. Stephen King.

Sean Stephen King, yeah. Kill your darlings. So I’d have to kill darlings with books to keep them off the list.

But Planet Narnia, which obviously is intended mostly to relate to the Chronicles of Narnia, still is exposing a cosmos of life and enchantment. And it was in the Ransom trilogy — because there was no way I was going to read science fiction. But I was in a conversation with a guy who was telling me that this was required reading, and I was like, no way, it can’t be. But then I just started reading it.

And part of the point is, in the Ransom trilogy, in the first two books, when Ransom goes to other planets, they’re full of life. And even the further he gets into space — which is the irony of why Lewis was writing these books, is to say that our modern notion of space, which is empty and dark and cold, is the opposite of what the universe is actually like, which is full of light and warmth and life, teeming with life everywhere. And so that’s one of the things that the Ransom character realizes even as he’s on the spaceship in the first book, is that it got warmer and brighter, not darker and colder.

So, in Planet Narnia, Mike Ward is pointing out that C. S. Lewis loved the medieval cosmology, where it was just a different view of how the world works. And Lewis acknowledged that Copernicus’ observation and scientific reasoning about the sun being at the center and the planets moving around it is technically correct. But the life and worldview — and Kuyper talks about that in Lectures on Calvinism from a different angle — but the life that is part of the all-are-yours, in Lewis’s view, and like in That Hideous Strength, and so the influence of the planets even as they come down.

So, Planet Narnia: the planets that are in the Chronicles of Narnia, the planets that were in the Ransom trilogy. These are like an enchanted universe. Which, again, you’re pointing out Chesterton saw, and Capon tasted, and those men want you to see and taste along with them — and Lewis too.

And Planet Narnia is kind of a difficult read, because it is more academic, but I loved it. And I would connect that to even Wordsmithy, and That Hideous Strength, the Ransom trilogy. If you’re going to read That Hideous Strength, you might as well read the first two.

Philip Yeah. So —

Sean Like —

Philip Work toward it. That’s three for one. For sure, yeah.

Sean I agree. Yeah, That Hideous Strength.

Philip It stands on its own. Each one of them does. But, yeah, just throw it in there at the beginning.

Sean Because even when Lewis connects That Hideous Strength with The Abolition of Man — like, goes out of his way in — or is it in the intro to That Hideous Strength? He says, I’ve written about these things in nonfiction form in The Abolition of Man.

Philip Yeah.

Sean So you’ve got what it means to be an image bearer, you’ve got marriage stuff, you’ve got peer pressure and the inner ring stuff, you’ve got medieval cosmology, you’ve got the Merlin and Arthurian legend coming in. Like, it’s just — you’ve got simple enchantments.

Philip Yeah.

Sean The group at St. Anne’s and their company, their fellowship.

Philip Yeah.

Sean It is —

Philip Yeah.

Sean It’s great. I’d give twenty out of five to That Hideous Strength, anything.

Philip Yeah, I really enjoyed and appreciated your talk that you gave about That Hideous Strength. And I’ve heard it twice, because you did it — you gave it when we had the fiction festival, right?

Sean Yeah.

Philip And then you also gave that talk at the conference down in Tacoma. And I think it’s online — they’re both online, right? The fiction festival one, and the Tacoma one I know is online.

Sean Yeah. Fiction festival one’s on there too.

Philip So maybe I could link to it in the show notes or something. But I did appreciate it. I thought it was really good. And even your point about image bearing and what that means, and you drawing those points out of there.

Sean Yeah. At a previous fiction festival I also contrasted That Hideous Strength with 1984.

Philip Yeah.

Sean And the problem for that talk was that most people hadn’t even read That Hideous Strength in the audience that day, let alone 1984.

But I know, because Orwell reviewed That Hideous Strength, and he was mad that there was a God figure that then fixed things at the end. He’s like, that is unfair, and that’s not what real life is like.

Philip Yeah.

Sean And there’s too many coincidences, too many similarities, then, between That Hideous Strength and 1984 — which was again written after That Hideous Strength — for me, at least, to think that Orwell wasn’t explicitly trying to write the opposite, humanistic. And it’s ugly. Like, all the way to the end.

Philip Yeah. Orwell saw what Lewis saw, the problem. I think he identified the problem similarly, but Orwell had no solution.

Sean Yeah.

Philip He’s like, we’re doomed.

Sean And whereas, for Lewis, the climax is — and I’m not trying to give it away, but the climax is the marriage bed.

Orwell turns sex — he got that sex was necessary, as physical beings.

Philip Right.

Sean And he was right in one sense, that that is true because we’re physical beings. And even right, I think, to make it a political statement. But it was a political statement of animals.

Philip Right.

Sean And no covenant, no loyalty, no honor. Hidden — and, well, you had to, but it was better than with a prostitute. And so, by the end, the main male and female protagonists in 1984 are more broken and lonely from their encounters than they were before they met.

Philip Well, there’s no love.

Sean Yeah. And at the end of That Hideous Strength, it’s finally — we understand more that we’re ready to really try loving.

Philip Right.

Sean And beauty, versus the ugliness of just being animals rather than divine image marriage.

Philip Right. Yeah, that’s where it comes to, is the love.

Sean Okay, so we got to your seventh.

Philip Yes. So, you had put in Wordsmithy and Planet Narnia.

Sean Yes.

Philip So you did kind of boil it down to seven as well?

Sean Not really. Picking and choosing as we’re going. But I would — so as to have somewhat different of a list than —

Philip Yeah, there you go.

So: to bow, to stand, to gain, to see, to taste, to love — and the seventh one for me is to die. And that is Death by Living by N. D. Wilson.

And so, yeah, I was debating if that is “to live” or if that is “to die,” like the big lesson takeaway, if I had to use one word. And, yeah, I mean, the title is Death by Living. And so his whole point is that we’re all going to die some way. And, how should you die? What is the way to die? And so his argument is, you die by living your life, leaving a wake, right?

And so he talks a lot about that, and the scene that he has there with his grandpa dying. And he even portrays it in a way where this is his final battle; like, he has gone through many battles and it has prepared him for this battle. I thought that was great.

And so — yeah, again, plenty of things to disagree with Nate Wilson on. And love the book.

Sean Yeah.

Philip Yeah. To die well.

Sean I think Death by Living is the only book that I consistently — back in the day, this was a number of years ago, but I would post a quote from Death by Living on my blog every day or every other day, all the way through. And definitely have made some classes read through it.

And, yeah, I also would give it more than a five out of five.

Have you read Empire of Bones, which is the third book in the Ashtown Burials series?

Philip No. I haven’t read any of the Ashtown Burials series.

Sean So, I think it is impossible to ignore — if That Hideous Strength is the fiction story to The Abolition of Man—

Philip Okay.

Sean Empire of Bones is the fiction version of Death by Living.

Philip Okay.

Sean And there’s too many quotes from characters in Empire of Bones that are exactly the same lessons as Death by Living in the nonfiction format. So, I think Empire of Bones is my favorite one in the Ashtown Burials series, because of its fictional enfleshing of Death by Living — which, Death by Living is pretty enfleshed kind of thinking about life as well.

Philip Right.

Sean So —

Philip Yeah, it’s all about life. It’s all about living. And that’s why I was, okay, is it to live or to die? But yeah — you die by living.

Sean Yeah.

Philip Well, what other ones are there, more that you didn’t overlap with? Which ones of those did you overlap with? You said not Orthodoxy.

Sean Yeah, I wouldn’t have put Orthodoxy, probably, in my top seven. All the other ones I could see arguing with myself about — yeah, they should probably make it in there.

Philip Okay. And then you did have Edwards.

Sean Yeah, The End for Which God Created the World.

Philip Planet —

Sean Planet Narnia and Wordsmithy.

Philip Okay.

Sean Yeah, those are pretty big.

If I was doing a lightning round — I think Wilson’s book is also called The Lost Tools of Learning, which is his first one on classical education. That —

Philip I think it’s Recovering the Lost Tools —

Sean Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning, okay, yeah. That made me mad, then changed my life.

Philip Okay.

Sean It’s different, but — I mean, Getting Things Done by David Allen actually changed my thinking about tasks and life and productivity. Matt Perman’s What’s Best Next — Matt Perman is a Christian; I don’t follow all of his acronyms as much as I think about some of David Allen’s Getting Things Done. And lots of things have changed since the initial Getting Things Done came out, including smartphones and what you can do in any context. But those were life-changing sort of books for me.

The Trellis and the Vine, for the sake of thinking about what we’re trying to do at church — like, what a church should do, how much program and process compared to what you’re actually after, which is the health of the living organism, and how to help that thrive, and minimal process. Like, that also was — The Trellis and the Vine is the reason why our church logo has leaves, like a vine.

And speaking of, there’s three leaves on our logo because of the Trinity, and our church is called Trinity Evangel Church. But when I first started reading about some of the implications of the Trinity as image bearers — there’s a book called The Deep Things of God by Fred Sanders, which was one of the books on the Trinity that I read, talking about its implications for our social nature.

And, like, again, my kids don’t know anything different, but I had to learn. And it’s not disconnected from affections and God, and the greatest commandment being to love God — as opposed to think right thoughts about God. If you don’t think right thoughts about God, well, you might be an idolater, so that’s dangerous. But when you know someone — and even the biblical idea of knowing is an intimacy, knowing — God as Father, Son, and Spirit, which is required even at the beginning of a person’s Christian life, in baptism: baptizing in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Like, out of all the things that are at the beginning, you wouldn’t think, oh, think about the Trinity. But I think that that is necessary, not just, again, to avoid being idolaters, but for the sake of encouraging the fellowship that we’re to delight in.

So, The Deep Things of God is a Trinitarian book I’d probably put. And then For a Glory and a Covering, as a marriage book, I would have had a hard time not getting in there.

Philip Yeah, for sure.

So, yes — the good thing is that we do not need to limit it. Like, we have the opportunity —

Sean All are —

Philip — yours. That’s right.

So this is just if we had to mention a few. But you don’t need to limit it.

Sean Okay, so before we sign off —

Philip Yep.

Sean Out of all the books that we’ve mentioned, somebody’s like, okay, I’m going to get one today and start reading it. It would be —

Philip Supper of the Lamb.

Sean Okay.

Philip Yeah. Supper of the Lamb.

Sean I’m not opposed to that.

Philip Yeah. And you?

Sean Well, I’ll go with that. No reason to argue against it.

Philip Okay, there you go. It’s risky, but it’s good risky.

Sean Supper of the Lamb!

Philip There you go. All right. Sign out.