I was recently reading Tony Reinke’s Lit! A Christian Guide to Reading Books. To be honest, I was quite unimpressed except for this chapter, “Chapter 6: The God Who Slays Dragons: The Purifying Power of Christian Imagination.” The following two paragraphs are magnificent. I felt quite compelled to share them with you.
But God’s imaginative genius is also displayed in the gospel. Think about it. The gospel weaves together a genealogy of dodgy characters into an unlikely ancestry for the Savior. The gospel was foretold by centuries of ancient prophecies, many of them fragmented and scattered throughout the Old Testament, to a people who could not make sense of it all. In time, the genealogy and the prophecies merged together into a cohesive plan that lead to the birth of the incarnate Son of God.
So ingenious is the gospel plan, that when men and Satan conspired to kill and bury the Savior, they only hastened the Father’s plan for his Son’s victory. This entire plan developed in God’s imagination long before the world existed. (Eph. 3:7-10; 1 Pet. 1:18-20)
I love viewing the Gospel from this vantage point. There are so many things we know about God’s character from His redemptive plan and actions, but it’s easy to lose sight of this creative side of Him. I mean, in creation, sure – everything from subatomic particles to the platypus to the Horsehead Nebula reminds us of it – but there’s more to divine creativity than that.
this is my life now 
Thanks for sharing this excerpt from the book you are reading!
I have recently rediscovered my love for fiction and in the last year or so have been impacted by fiction. I would even venture to say that in the last year, my spiritual life has seen growth because of the influence fiction has had; specifically The Odessey.
Can you recall any specific book that was of great value to your life and even your spiritual life?
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Oh man, there are so many. I am a bookworm, and books have been hugely significant for my personal growth including (but not exclusively) my walk with Jesus. There are heaps and loads of nonfiction books I could reference, but I’ll limit myself to two favorites: Holiness by Grace (Bryan Chapell) and God’s Passion for His Glory (John Piper).
I’m sure you won’t be surprised to learn that fiction has done a world of good for me in this area too – The Time Traveler’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger), Till We Have Faces (CS Lewis), The Pendragon Cycle (Stephen Lawhead), Back on Murder (J. Mark Bertrand), and Pride & Prejudice (Jane Austen) come to mind.
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I share your pain in having to narrow the number of influential books to just a few!
I will have to add those books to my list, thank you for the recommendations and a speedy response!
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