Easter Reading
by Peter F. Whyte, 21 Mar 2007
What will you be reading this Easter? Here are a few suggestions of books that are well worth reading at any time, but especially at Easter, dealing with, as they do, the cross and resurrection of our Lord.
Jesus on Trial, by James Montgomery Boice and Philip Graham Ryken (Authentic Lifestyle, 2002) 117p. ISBN 1-85078-470-1.
Don’t be fooled by the size of the book or the seven short chapters (10-12 pages each). This book takes you through Jesus’ trial in a most thought-provoking and challenging way. Boice and Ryken preached these messages during a Lenten series of lunchtime talks on 2000. Poignantly the final chapter was almost the final message Boice preached before he went to be with his Lord. Just hours before he preached it, he had learned from his doctor that he had an aggressive and ultimately fatal form of liver cancer. (Read his testimony after learning of the diagnosis.)
The book follows Christ’s trial. Each chapter gives interesting archaeological and historical background, solid doctrinal content, and thoughtful gospel challenge. The book will benefit the Christian reader,and is very suitable to give to a non-Christian friend who is seeking to understand Jesus and the Gospel.
This was our family reading last year, and gave us all thoughtful reflections that impressed us greatly with the significance of Christ's death.
The Heart of the Cross, by James Montgomery Boice and Philip Graham Ryken (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1999) ISBN 1-58134-039-7
This is our current family reading. It is a more substantial book, containing 21 messages from three previous Lenten series at Tenth Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia: Words from the Cross, The Real Last Words of Christ, and The Message of the Cross. We’ve only started reading it, but so far it has lived up to expectations.
Who Moved the Stone? by Frank Morison (Faber, 1930) 192p. ISBN 0571-03259-1
This is an older book that examines in detail the resurrection. Morison was an investigative journalist who set out to write a book disproving the resurrection of Christ, believing that the gospel “history rested on very insecure foundations” (p. 9). His careful study of the evidence (in true Lucan fashion) led him to an altogether different conclusion.
“There may be, and, as this writer thinks, there certainly is, a deep and profoundly historical basis for that much disputed sentence in the Apostles’ Creed—’The third day he rose again from the dead’.” (p. 192, the book’s concluding paragraph)
This is a book that will show clearly that belief in the resurrection is not based on speculation and invention, but on solid evidence and fact. That evidence is relentlessly sifted. For example in chapter 8 the author examines six theories about the missing body, many of which are still bandied about, and in each case they simply do not stand up to scrutiny.
This book is the story of one man's personal journey from scepticism to faith.
If you’re troubled by questions about the resurrection, or have friends or colleagues who ask difficult questions about it, then this is a great book to give you confidence to answer those questions.
Being 80+ years old it surely qualifies as an “old book” that must be read before reading another modern one, if we follow C S Lewis’s advice on reading a mixture of older and modern books. There is nothing new under the sun, and the same old half-baked theories that Morison examined in his day still abound today in ours.
As ever I’m willing to lend my copies of these books to any who would like to read them. You’ll have to wait, however, until we're finished with The Heart of the Cross.
Peter F. Whyte, “Easter Reading”, 21 Mar 2007, Gilnahirk Baptist Church Web site. http://www.gilnahirkbaptist.org.uk/resources/study/ereading.php (accessed 21 Nov 2008).
