Stranded on a Desert Island, What Books Do You Bring?
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - Joseph from Atlanta writes in to ask,
00:00:06.960 | "Pastor John, if you were stranded on an island
00:00:09.120 | "and had to choose only three books to take,
00:00:10.720 | "which ones would you choose?"
00:00:12.880 | - I never know how to answer a question like this,
00:00:17.580 | but everybody knows the first one.
00:00:21.160 | I would take the Bible.
00:00:22.540 | I cannot live without the word of God,
00:00:24.920 | and though I have enough of it stored up in my mind,
00:00:27.560 | maybe to survive, I don't want to just survive.
00:00:31.520 | So I would take a Bible, and then I would cheat
00:00:34.180 | and ask, can I take the collected works
00:00:37.260 | of Jonathan Edwards?
00:00:39.040 | - Well, that depends now if it's the Banner of Truth
00:00:41.140 | or the Yale edition.
00:00:42.400 | - I would take the Yale.
00:00:43.520 | - Okay, yeah, that's totally cheating.
00:00:45.240 | - Yeah, okay, it's cheating.
00:00:46.680 | Then if I had to pick an Edwards,
00:00:48.560 | I would take the Religious Affections.
00:00:50.340 | And I would take them because they had a huge impact
00:00:54.240 | on me years ago, and because they are such
00:00:56.520 | a deeply convicting analysis of the human soul
00:01:01.520 | and how to describe the godly soul,
00:01:05.400 | and I know I would want to be godly on this island.
00:01:08.540 | And I'm gonna surprise everybody with the last one.
00:01:12.120 | If I had to throw them in a suitcase right now,
00:01:16.560 | and tomorrow it may be different,
00:01:18.760 | I would throw in Richard Baxter's A Christian Directory
00:01:23.620 | because it's 900 double-column pages
00:01:28.620 | of biblical analysis of the Christian life
00:01:35.720 | and all of its challenges of every possible kind.
00:01:40.260 | It's a, Tim Keller has on the front of the book
00:01:45.260 | this statement, "The greatest manual
00:01:48.180 | "on biblical counseling ever produced."
00:01:51.300 | Okay, that should be enough for everybody.
00:01:53.820 | And Jay Eipacker wrote the foreword
00:01:56.380 | for this reissue of the book
00:01:58.820 | and calls it stunning things as well.
00:02:01.860 | So a book that just canvases the whole
00:02:05.900 | of the Christian life in its political and personal
00:02:10.100 | and inner and vertical relations
00:02:13.860 | with lots and lots of scripture
00:02:16.120 | would probably be very, very protective
00:02:19.100 | and stimulating for me on that island.
00:02:21.960 | - Thank you, Pastor John.
00:02:23.980 | Richard Baxter's A Christian Directory
00:02:25.940 | can be tricky to buy online
00:02:27.660 | because I think it's out of print.
00:02:28.820 | Of course, you can read it online for free
00:02:30.340 | by searching for it in Google Books,
00:02:32.540 | or you can search for printed copies for sale
00:02:34.900 | by Googling the book's ISBN number.
00:02:37.460 | That number is 1-877-611131.
00:02:41.680 | That's 1-877-611131.
00:02:46.140 | Thank you for listening to this podcast.
00:02:47.580 | Please email your questions to us
00:02:49.300 | at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.
00:02:51.340 | At desiringgod.org, you'll find thousands
00:02:52.980 | of other free resources online from John Piper.
00:02:55.660 | I'm your host, Tony Ranke.
00:02:56.620 | Thanks for listening.
00:02:57.660 | (upbeat music)
00:03:00.240 | (upbeat music)
00:03:02.820 | [BLANK_AUDIO]