Recommended Reading for Holy Week

In our Wednesday Worship service at Tremont Baptist, I recommended the following books:

To gain an understanding of the narrative history of Christ's crucifixion, I recommend John MacArthur's The Murder of Jesus. MacArthur masterfully details the story of Christ's final hours without theological or doctrinal reflection. To simply get the story of Jesus death, this is a great resource.

Frederick Leahy's The Cross He Bore is a small, but rich devotional highlighting several themes from Jesus' passion. I've read this little book several times and find it moving, convicting and worship-inducing each time I pick it up.

Scandalous: The Cross and Resurrection of Jesus by D.A. Carson offers some theological reflection in sermonic form about the Gospel. The first chapter in the book, "The Ironies of the Cross" is powerful.

Andreas Kostenberger and Justin Taylor have done us all a wonderful service by writing The Final Days of Jesus. They harmonize the Scriptural account of Jesus' final week and offer brief, but helpful comments throughout. The introduction to the book provides a great explanation for the perceived differences and contradictions some see in the four Gospel accounts.

Finally, another John MacArthur book. One Perfect Life is a "composite harmony" of the Gospels. Using the text of the New King James Version, MacArthur carefully blends all four accounts into one unified story. He also includes several important doctrinal passages in addition to the Gospels. This book is an outstanding resource for personal devotion, worship, and study.

Happy reading!