The Collected Best Christian Books of 2024

I probably don’t need to tell you how much I love books in general, and Christian books in particular. One of my favorite times to be a reader is in mid-December when people begin to share their picks for the top books of the year. I usually collect a good number of these lists and scour them to see if there is any consensus. I have done that over the past few weeks and am ready to share the results.

A few years ago it always seemed simple to find a few consensus picks. Recently, though, it has become far more difficult. So while I scour as many lists as ever, it is rare for a single book to appear on more than a handful of them. With that in mind, here are the ones that appeared repeatedly and, in a more subjective sense, seemed to generate the most positive buzz throughout the year.

The Lord of Psalm 23: Jesus Our Shepherd, Companion, and Host by David Gibson. I read many positive reviews of this one throughout 2024 and also spotted it on several of the year-end roundups. What’s interesting to me is that it was also one of the ones that made last year’s list. My guess is that this is related to the fact that it released near the end of 2023 which meant that many people did not actually read it until 2024. Either way, it stood out to a number of people. (Buy it at Amazon or Westminster Books)

What it Means to be Protestant: The Case for the Always-Reforming Church by Gavin Ortland. We are seeing a trend today in which people are abandoning Protestantism in favor of Catholicism or Orthodoxy and doing so because they appreciate liturgy, sacramentalism, and other elements like them. In this book, Ortlund defends Protestantism against these other traditions. The publisher says “this hunger for historical rootedness is welcome—but unfortunately, many assume that this need can only be met outside of Protestant contexts.” Ortlund proves this is not the case. (Buy it at Amazon or Westminster Books)

Daily Doctrine: A One-Year Guide to Systematic Theology by Kevin DeYoung. This book is not ground-breaking in its content, but neither is it meant to be. Rather, it is original in its format—in making systematic theology more accessible by dividing it into bite-sized pieces that can be read and digested over the course of a year. If you have wanted to learn systematic theology or refresh your knowledge of it, this book is an ideal resource. (Buy it at Amazon or Westminster Books)

Ancient Wisdom for the Care of Souls: Learning the Art of Pastoral Ministry from the Church Fathers by Coleman Ford & Shawn Wilhite. This book looks to the Church Fathers to help pastors rediscover and embrace a classical understanding of their office and its responsibilities. The publisher says “Each chapter examines an important pastoral topic―such as humility, the sacraments, and contemplative theology―and brings it to life through a constructive model and profiles of early church fathers.” (Buy it at Amazon or Westminster Books)

On Classical Trinitarianism: Retrieving the Nicene Doctrine of the Triune God by Matthew Barrett. This is the largest and most ambitious book on the list and it seeks to right the course on the church’s doctrine of the Trinity. “Classical commitments like divine simplicity have been jettisoned, the three persons have been redefined as three centers of consciousness and will, and modern agendas in politics, gender, and ecclesiology determine the terms of the discussion. Contemporary trinitarian theology has followed the spirit of this trajectory, rejecting doctrines like eternal generation which were once a hallmark of Nicene orthodoxy and reintroducing subordinationism into the Trinity.” (Buy it at Amazon or Westminster Books)

The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War by Erik Larson. This is a general market book, but one that showed up on more lists than any Christian book! I read it and enjoyed it as well and gladly recommend it along with the others. (Buy it at Amazon)

Here is an incomplete list of the various awards and roundups I consulted:

Let me add a word about methodology. The only lists I include are the ones that are published by people I follow anyway. I follow perhaps 250 to 300 blogs and sites, so that provides a significant group to draw from. That said, I tend to follow people with whom I have broad doctrinal alignment, so I suppose there’s a pretty significant bias involved.

Finally, I feel compelled to note that both Christianity Today and The Gospel Coalition base their awards on paid submissions—publishers submit their books and pay a fee for them to be considered which makes their process and criteria a little bit different.