Each week (give or take one or two here and there) I share three things I like – It could be a book, a movie, a podcast, an album, a photo, an article, a restaurant, a food item, a beverage, or anything else I simply enjoy and think you might too. You can find a whole pile of things, especially books, I like and recommend HERE.
1) The Psalms: A Christ-Centered Commentary by Christopher Ash
We’ve been preaching through the Psalms this summer at our church, and I have used several commentaries. And frankly, I find many of them remarkably unhelpful in preparing to preach. It’s not that the scholarship is poor but that the emphases are more on matters that matter relatively little from the pulpit. To preach a Psalm one needs to connect the message to the hearer through fulfillment in Christ whether it is a Psalm of lament, of wisdom, of praise, of ascent, or a royal Psalm. The commentary I found that combined more technical and linguisitic scholarship with interpretation and explanation of the message was this set by Christopher Ash. It is clear and instructive in its interpretations. It guide the reader to Christ in appropriate, biblically consistent ways from each Psalm. And it offers clear instruction on the broader scholarly understanding of the book of Psalms as a whole too. It is so good that ict could be valuable as a devotional resource or a preaching aid.
2) Bill Bryson’s Books
Bill Bryson is the best sort of funny–smart observations communicated wittily. He is one of those writers who sees life keenly, but from unusual angles. He notices the oddities of normal interactions and seemingly boring people. He pinpoints quirky differences in cultures and expressions. And then he relays all this to the reader with a narrative clarity and humorous edge that is often laugh-out-loud funny. It’s hard to make readers laugh with the written word, but Bryson does it regularly. And in the process the reader finds himself learning things about places and people and cultures. My favorite book of his is A Walk in the Woods, a memoir of hiking the Appalachian Trail. He has also written memoirs about moving to England, moving back from England, traveling to Australia, and growing up in the 1950s and 1960s in Iowa. Any of them is worth a read, and all of them are a delight.
3) Garden Fresh Tomatoes
I’ve shared here before about our wonderful neighbor who is a masterful gardener and among the most hospitable people I’ve known. One of the many blessings she has shared with our family is the overflow of her fecund garden, most especially fresh tomatoes. When one buys tomatoes from the grocery store one is purchasing a mere shadow, a suggestion of what God intended tomatoes to be. When one eats tomatoes fresh off the plant, as my toddler makes a point of doing with or without permission, they are practically decadent. They are enough to make me actually excited about salads, or just to eat straight with a dash of salt.