I’ve been tagged by Brother Bishop (Jeff) Young.
Now, I will start off by saying that I am not going to abide by the rules. I’m 50 years old, and I’ve got more than one book that did this or did that. I also contemplated bogus answers to mess with your minds, when I realized that the real answers would do more damage than anything else. I am sure no one would be surprised to read that a horticulturist had been meaning to read Hortus Third, or that he would want Stalking the Blue-Eyed Scallop, by Euell Gibbons on a desert island. So here they are. Enjoy.
1. One book that changed your life: The Trinity Hymnal, 1976 edition, and The Second London Confesson; then later in 1991, Desiring God, by John Piper.
2. One book that you’ve read more than once: Out of the Silent Planet, by C.S. Lewis. First as required reading in high school, a number of years later as an adult. I didn’t get it in high school, but later I did. Along with the other two books in the trilogy, this novel is a powerful alegory dealing with sin and redemption. I have also found it necessary to reread The Time is at Hand, by Jay Adams.
3. One book that you’d want on a desert island: Other than the Bible, Saint Augustin’s Confessions, in Latin. Depending on how long I’d be there, This would be a great opportunity to brush up on my Latin and my prayer life at the same time.
4. One book that made you laugh: Right Behind: A Parody of Last Days’ Goofiness, by Nathan D. Wilson, and The Mantra of Jabez: Break on Through to the Other Side, by Douglas M. Jones.
5. One book that made you cry: Old Yeller, by Fred Gipson, and probably Through Gates of Splendor, by Elisabeth Elliot.
6. One book that you wish you had written: Here’s the list:
- Hermeneutics for Dummies (and Southern Baptists)
- Wine, Women, and Song: Reclaiming the Culture by Taking Every Thought Captive to Obey Christ
- Beware the Calvinistas: Memoirs of Twenty-five years in a Small, Rural, Independent, Reformed-Baptist Church, with Plural Eldership
- Psalam et Mente: Recovering the Hymnody of the Puritans, and Beyond
- Living in the House at Pooh Corner – the Blessings of Dad Reading to His Children
- I Learned More About Human Nature in the Hen House than Anywhere Else
- Baking Your Own Bread and Breast Feading Don’t Make You More Holy (This one would be authored by my wife.)
- “Do You Work?” – Confessions of a Homicidal Housewife at the Grocery Checkout (Also by my wife.)
7. One book you wish had never been written: Systematic Theology, by Charles Finney, and the Scofield Reference Bible, edited and annotated by Cyrus I. Scofield.
8. One book that you are currently reading: By His Grace and for His Glory, by Thomas J. Nettles, Mark Dever’s little book By Whose Authority?, and I have just finished Timothy George’s book Amazing Grace: God’s Inititative – Our Response. This last book is a very easy read. Even an Arminian pastor could read it, and I think, enjoy it.
9. One book that you’ve been meaning to read: Calvin’s Institutes. I have used it as a reference for years, but have never had the time, or discipline to crack open page one and stick it out to the end. I would also love to read the new (anything less than five years old is new to me.) Whitfield biography by Arnold Dallimore, and also Iaian Murray’s biography on Lloyd-Jones. Obviously, these are all large large two-volume sets, so I probably won’t get around to them until I retire, or throw my computer away.
I am supposed to tag four people. Nuts on that. This sounds too much like a chain letter. I think I may be the last blogger in the world to have been tagged, so those thousands of dollar bills will never begin pouring into my in-box. I have noticed that some of you out there have admitted to being tagged more than once. Look, if you haven’t been tagged, and feel left out, drop me a comment, and I will tag you. Fair enough? Now I’ve got to get busy on my Sunday-school lesson.
Love in Christ,
Wayne Hatcher
a horticulturist by profession,
a truck driver by necessity,
and a child of the King, by the Grace of God