Books You Should Read in 2023

Nick Minerva • Jan 02, 2023

Are you looking for a good book to read this year? Here are several that I would like to offer for your consideration. 

Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers

By Dane Ortlund 

If you haven’t read this book yet, let me encourage you to stop reading my blog, go get a copy, and read it. It’s easy to think or feel that God is constantly frustrated with us due to our failures. But is that the case? In this book, author Dane Ortlund shows us from Scripture after Scripture how God’s nature is bent on loving us. He is never quick to anger, but love and compassion. This book will show you how God reveals himself to us - gentle and lowly. 

Gentle and Lowly

The Lord is my Courage: Stepping Through the Shadows of Fear Toward the Voice of Love

By K.J. Ramsey 

I wrote a review of this book in 2022 that you can read here. In it K.J. walks the reader through Psalm 23 phrase by phrase, often single word by single word, slowly unpacking healing truths that demonstrate why this Psalm is so beloved. She also invites you into her story of experiencing spiritual abuse and religious trauma and using stories from Scripture and neuroscience she helps us understand how to listen to and better understand what is going on with our emotions and bodies so that we can experience the goodness and love of THE Shepherd who will never leave us or forsake us. 

The Lord Is My Courage

The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry: How to Stay Emotionally Healthy and Spiritually Alive in the Chaos of the Modern World

By John Mark Comer

This might have been my favorite book from 2022. John Mark Comer does a great job unpacking what it looks like to live the way Jesus lived and how the busyness of our modern lives often fights against it. This is a book that I will probably read on an annual basis to help evaluate the intentionality and pace of my own life. I’m still working on putting much of it into practice, but I highly recommend this book. It would be a great one to read right now to get your year started on the right foot. 

The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry

Praying the Bible 

By Donald S. Whitney

Here’s another book that I have reviewed on the blog. Praying through passages of the Bible, mainly Psalms, has been a method of prayer that has helped me tremendously over the years. In this little book, Donald Whitney walks the reader through a simple process to pray through any passage of Scripture. This has been one of the most helpful books I have read. If you feel stuck in your prayer life, or don’t even really have a prayer life, this is a great place to start.

Praying the Bible

The Wisdom Pyramid

By Brett McCracken

Are we wiser because of the massive amount of information we have available to us in seconds? Are we better off as a society with everyone seeking and living out “their truth?” The short answer? No, we aren’t. In this book, Brett McCracken shows us how the Information Age has actually made us mentally, emotionally, and even spiritually sick. Like a person who has consumed too much unhealthy food we have consumed far too much (and too fast) information and we are suffering for it. But this book doesn’t just point out the problem, it points us back to several areas we can glean wisdom. It’s a quick and easy read, but it will make you think and challenge you as well. You can read my full review here. 

The Wisdom Pyramid

Soundtracks 

By Jon Acuff 

It’s funny how intentional we can be about a lot of different things. Intentional with our time, intentional with what we watch, intentional with what we eat. We are intentional about being intentional. But oftentimes we aren’t intentional about what goes on inside our heads. This book is full of practical, real-life advice and is mixed with Jon’s incredible sense of humor. Jon’s books are fun to read and have been incredibly influential in my life. Just about anything he writes, I read. In Soundtracks, he teaches us how to identify and retire broken thought processes, replace them with new ones, and repeat them until they are just as engraved in our minds as the old, broken ones. I reviewed this book in 2021.

Soundtracks

The Death of Porn: Men of Integrity Building A World of Nobility 

By Ray Ortlund 

This is a book that I think every guy should read. Ray Ortlund (father of Dale Ortlund, who wrote Gentle and Lowly) writes each chapter of this book as a father to a son. While the topic of pornography is filled with shame, Ray gives hope to men and shows us how every person on this planet is an image bearer of God and worthy of dignity. This book casts a vision of a world of nobility and what it looks like to be a man of integrity. 

The Death of Porn

God Breathed: Connecting Through Scripture to God, Others, the Natural World, and Yourself

By Rut Etheridge

This book does a great job of unpacking the lie of self-made truth. Throughout, Rut Etheridge diagnoses much of what is wrong in our society and graciously points the reader back to the Scriptures and back to Jesus; the only true hope for humanity. He doesn't shy away from the hard parts of the Bible but leans into them to show us how we can connect with God through even the parts of the Bible some would rather ignore. 

God Breathed

Letters to the Church 

By Francis Chan 

In this book, Francis Chan seeks to answer the question “If God has it his way, what would our churches look like?” This is a powerful and convicting book. My wife and I listened to it on a trip to Yosemite and God used it to solidify a lot of things in our hearts. This book is more than just a critique of the American/Western church, it’s also a call to the Church to be what God intends for it to be. 

Letters to the Church

Manhood Restored: How the Gospel Makes Men Whole 

By Eric Mason 

Eric Mason is a great writer and I have been helped tremendously by his books and social media platforms. In this book, he points us to Jesus as the standard of masculinity and calls men away from the chauvinistic and toxic definitions of “being a man.” What I found so helpful about this book is while he points us to Jesus as the example, he also shows us how Jesus restores us into his image. This book is convicting and inspiring. 

Manhood Restored

New Morning Mercies 

By Paul Tripp 

I could make an entire list of just Paul Tripp’s books. New Morning Mercies is without a doubt my favorite devotional. I used it 2 years in a row and God used it to help me have a better understanding of his grace. Each day has a page of devotional material and several Bible passages you can read for further study. If you are looking for a good devotional to read in 2023, this is it. 

New Morning Mercies

She Reads Truth and He Reads Truth Bibles 

It’s no secret I am a big fan of the Christians Standard Bible. These particular editions are so cool! They are full of great study resources and amazing artwork. They also come with several different reading plans that are helpful. 


She Reads Truth He Reads Truth

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The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings

By J.R.R. Tolkien

If you have read my book (thank you!) you know I am pretty nerdy. Lord of the Rings is my favorite book and movie trilogy. I know J.R.R. Tolkien wasn’t trying to write an allegory of the Christian life, but he pretty much did anyway. There is so much in these stories that can encourage and edify a person. Not to mention, they pretty much created the modern fantasy genre. 

The Hobbit The Lord of the Rings



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A Creed To Remind The Gathered Church Of Its New Life In Christ

By Nick Minerva • 14 Jul, 2023
When I was pastoring I wanted to read a blessing over the church that would remind all of us of our new life in Christ. So I wrote this new life creed and every week I would read it and remind us of what Christ had done for us. We gather together as believers professing our great need We acknowledge that we have fallen short We confess that we are rebels who have gone our own way Apart from Christ, we stand condemned, guilty, and unable to save ourselves But what we are incapable of doing, God did In his infinite love, God made a way of salvation for all who would believe Jesus willingly laid down his life and received the just punishment we deserve So that could walk in new life So yes, we confess our great need We humbly recognize that apart from Christ we are incapable of any good thing But we also proclaim that because of the finished work of the cross we will never be apart from Christ We are forever secure in the love of the Father We have been sealed by the Holy Spirit All because of the sacrifice of the Son, Jesus Christ. We are no longer in bondage to sin We are no longer facing righteous wrath We have been declared holy by our King And nothing on heaven or earth will change that reality This gathering is a testimony to our redeemed state We pursue holy living to be an authentic demonstration of the love we have for Christ We believe that we have been empowered by grace to meet our every need And we gladly anticipate the complete fulfillment of our adaption and the remaking of this world at the coming of our Lord To Christ be glory forever and ever Amen

A Praying Church: A Book Review

By Nick Minerva • 23 May, 2023
Prayer is one of those topics that always seems to convict me. I have never heard a sermon or read a book on prayer and not been challenged. Even as I am writing this review there is a bit of imposter syndrome because I know I should pray more. In A Praying Church , Paul Miller writes about how to become a people of hope in a discouraging world through prayer. And he does so in a way that was very authentic and accessible. While I was consistently challenged, I was also consistently encouraged. Throughout the book, he takes you on his journey of developing a personal prayer life plus countless stories of ministries that developed communal prayer as a vital component of their life together. One thing that struck home with me throughout these stories was the reality that prayer always grows out of desperation for God. There were several things that I found very helpful in this book. One of them was the connection between a life yielded to the Holy Spirit and a vibrant prayer life. The power to do anything of eternal importance comes from the Holy Spirit and the Spirit moves in response to prayer. Paul shows us a biblical pattern we see throughout the New Testament. Prayer-Spirit-Jesus-power. However, this is not a simple formula to get God to do what you want. Another thing I appreciated about this book is Paul tells us time and again that the Spirit often moves in ways we don’t expect and that almost always includes difficulties. The Spirit enables us to look more like Jesus and that means joining him in the fellowship of his suffering. So this is not a “how to turn God into your personal genie” scheme, like many books on prayer. God often answers in ways we don’t expect and in places we don’t anticipate. This book is also full of practical help. I’ve already mentioned the stories he tells, but Paul also offers several helpful charts, strategies, and ideas to help put into place what he writes about (and lives by.) At the end of each chapter, he has a section called “A Word To Pastors” with a few paragraphs of wisdom to help them become a person of prayer and then lead their congregation to become a church of prayer. This book also made me thankful that I am a part of a church that has sought to grow in corporate prayer over the last few years. This would be a great book for any ministry leader who is burdened with the prayer life of his or her church. But it’s also a great read for any believer seeking to develop their own prayer life. Crossway was kind to send me a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. You can get a copy of it at the affiliate link below.

Non-Toxic Masculinity: A Book Review

By Nick Minerva • 28 Apr, 2023
Let me start this review by saying everyone should read this book. If you've grown up in Evangelicalism, you‘ve no doubt heard of purity culture. For the last several years we have seen the harm that has come as a result of this sub-group of Christianity. In Non-Toxic Masculinity, Zachary Wagner does an excellent job unpacking its teaching and the damage that has come as a result. He explains so well the angst I've been feeling with the movement and how often the Church falls short and winds up doing more damage. But unlike many critiques, this one also points a way forward. We know what toxic male sexuality looks like. We see it in the news and unfortunately, in the Church. But what does healthy male sexuality look like? What does it look like for me? What will it look like for my boys? In my heart, I know what I want it to look like, but so often I struggle to find the right words to express it. Non-Toxic Masculinity paints a healthy picture that is (re)humanizing and ultimately looks like Jesus, who, like all of us, had a sexual body. Zach is also very transparent in this book and God used his transparency to encourage, challenge, and convict me. As you read his story you will no doubt find yourself resonating with him on some level. Every man should read this book for themselves first and foremost. But if you have sons, nephews, grandsons, or young boys in your life, reading it is a must. Non-Toxic Masculinity is a breath of fresh air that will prove to be a tremendous resource for generations. Thank you Zach for writing it and sharing your story to serve us.
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