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. Over the past years, for one reason or another, 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.
- Biblical Critical Theory: How the Bible’s Unfolding Story Makes Sense of Modern Life and Culture by Christopher Watkin. This book also appeared in last year’s roundup, but I think because it was large, dense, and released late in 2022, many readers only got to it this year. Notably, Christianity Today declared it their book of 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 the year and also spotted it on several of the year-end roundups.
- Pastor, Jesus Is Enough: Hope for the Weary, the Burned Out, and the Broken by Jeremy Writebol. This book is obviously geared to pastors and will primarily appeal to them. Many seemed to find it a source of deep encouragement.
- A Quiet Mind to Suffer With: Mental Illness, Trauma, and the Death of Christ by John Andrew Bryant. A number of avid readers mentioned that this book was an especially helpful volume on mental illness and the nearness of Christ to those who suffer from it.
- Timothy Keller: His Spiritual and Intellectual Formation by Collin Hansen. This biography, which focuses primarily on intellectual and spiritual influences, was timed providentially so it was released very close to the time Keller went to be with the Lord. Many readers appreciated coming to know him better through it.
If I had to list just a couple of others, they would likely be Remaking the World by Andrew Wilson and The Great Dechurching by Jim Davis, Michael Graham, and Ryan Burge.
Here is an incomplete list of the various awards and roundups I consulted. (I feel compelled to note that both Christianity Today and The Gospel Coalition base their awards on paid submissions—publishers must submit their books and pay a fee for them to be considered which makes their process and criteria a little different.)
- Christianity Today
- The Gospel Coalition
- Kevin DeYoung
- For the Church
- Trevin Wax
- Mere Orthodoxy
- Cole Newton
- Wes Bredenhof
- Erik Raymond
- Credo Magazine
- David Kaywood
- Craig Hamilton
- Kristen Wetherell
- Darryl Dash
- Cindy Matson
- Aaron Armstrong
- Kevin Halloran
- Bob Kellemen
- Matthew Hosier
- Andrew Wilson
- Christa Threlfall
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. So be it!
