Muddling Toward Maturity Blog

BEST BIOGRAPHIES - RECOMMENDATIONS BY NOTABLE EVANGELICALS

From Justin Taylor:

20 Biography Recommendations: Nettles, Haykin, Finn, and Reeves

Tom Nettles is professor of historical theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. His most recent publication, years in the making, is a major biography of Charles Spurgeon.

Here are his top biography recommendations:

1. Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer.

This is a slap in the face for those of us who are always looking for the politically appropriate [safe] time to say something true.

2. George Marsden, Jonathan Edwards.

For the purposes of seminary class, I use Murray’s biography. To show, however, in a charming but serious-minded way to a secular public how seriously and deeply a Christian can think about issues of ultimate importance, this is the book to loan (you could not give many of them away).

3. Roland Bainton, Here I Stand.

A beautifully crafted story of a rough and resolute man whose discovery of truth so melded itself into his soul that he feared to distinguish between his truth-informed conscience and the final claim of God on his life.

4. Sharon James, My Heart in His Hands: Ann Judson of Burma.

Sharon James gives a sensitive and vigorous unfolding of one of the most intensely important lives of nineteenth-century American evangelicalism. Without Ann Judson, American evangelical foreign missions might never have gotten off the ground.

5. Iain Murray, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The First Forty Years, 1899-1939 and D. Marty Lloyd Jones: The Fight of Faith, 1939-1981.

This provides great encouragement and instruction for pastors seeking a ministry given to scriptural and doctrinal edification of the Bride of Christ.

[JT note: see also an updated and revised one-volume abridged edition.]

DR. MARTYN LLOYD-JONES: ONE OF THE 20TH CENTURY'S GREATEST PREACHERS

One Sunday evening years ago I happened to be in London and had the great privilege of hearing Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones preach a sermon I still remember.  He took as his text Revelation chapter 3, the church in Laodicea.  The great Welshman commanded rapt attention as he unfolded the text in a way that only one of the greatest preachers of the 20th century could do.  I am indebted to Justin Taylor's blog post for the following 10-minute documentary introduction to his life, and for the other links provided below:

Justin Taylor says "A few years ago Mark Dever interviewed Lady Elizabeth [Lloyd-Jones' daughter] and her husband, Sir Fred Catherwood, about the famed preacher: D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: Reflections on His Ministry with His Family."  Me: I greatly enjoyed listening to this interview.  I learned that Lloyd-Jones encouraged C.S. Lewis to keep writing after his first book, The Pilgrim's Regress met with a generally poor reception and Lewis was discouraged.  There's lots more in that interview!

Taylor says you can hear The Doctor preach online for free at Martyn Lloyd-Jones Recording Trust.

Some free sermons are available here.