The Importance of Fiction in Bible Reading

I think reading as much fiction as I always have has changed the way that I see the, the emphasis of scripture. When I was teaching at a seminary, how many of my students would want to take narratives and change them into Pauline epistles or parables. And so there were times when I would say to somebody who was really struggling with preaching, read some fiction and learn how to actually inhabit a story. This is happening over and over again throughout the Scriptures.

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It’s time for the quarterly books episode of The Russell Moore Show!

On this episode, Russell shares the books on his desert island bookshelf. He and producer Ashley Hales discuss what it takes for a title to belong on that shelf. They consider the power of finding a book for a specific season and how such reads take root in our hearts. Their conversation spans genres and generations as they talk about books that range from centuries old to just published.

Visit [link to come] to see a picture of Russell’s desert island bookshelf.

Books mentioned in this episode include:

A Theology of the New Testament by George Eldon Ladd
Selected Poems: 1931-2004 by Czeslaw Milosz
Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry
Confessions by Saint Augustine
The Table Talk of Martin Luther by Martin Luther
Signposts in a Strange Land by Walker Percy
The Message in the Bottle by Walker Percy
A Room Called Remember by Frederick Buechner
The Alphabet of Grace by Frederick Buechner
Strength to Love by Martin Luther King, Jr.
Pensées by Blaise Pascal
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Provocations by Søren Kierkegaard
The Complete Stories by Flannery O’Connor
The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty
Early Christian Fathers by Cyril Richardson
The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis
The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot
The Weight of Glory by C.S. Lewis
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
On the Apostolic Preaching by Irenaeus of Lyons
The 1662 Book of Common Prayer edited by Samuel L. Bray and Drew Nathaniel Keane
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Message of Romans (The Bible Speaks Today Series) by John Stott
As Kingfishers Catch Fire by Eugene Peterson
Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
The Call of the Wild by Jack London
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry