A pastor friend asked several of us to recommend one book that’s not the Bible for his reading plan for this year.

ONE book! That’s tough.

I’m going to say Tim Keller, Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith.  One of my all-time favorites. But more than anything, if you haven’t read Keller, it introduces you to his writing. But it’s a favorite because it addresses the centrality of the gospel in the most unique and refreshing way.

If you’ve read that one, then a more challenging but incredible book is Keller, The Reason for God: Belief in the Age of Skepticism. You’ll not only be encouraged, but you’ll draw on it for sermons for years.

And if you’ve read those two, my suggestion is a good overview of the Bible from a biblical theology standpoint. Two very accessible but good books for that are Tim Chester, From Creation to New Creation: Making Sense of the Whole Bible Story, or Vaughan Roberts, God's Big Picture: Tracing the storyline of the Bible.

I didn't have a lot of time to think about it, but what would you recommend?

Audio of Award-winning Bonhoeffer on Sale!

Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxis. It's one of the best biographies I've ever read and it's on sale for only $9.98 through the end of the month at ChristianAudio.com. It recently was awarded the 2011 Evangelical Christian Publisher's Association Book of the Year. This is a great deal.

Here's the description.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Amazing Grace, this is a groundbreaking biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one of the greatest heroes of the twentieth century, the man who stood up to Hitler. A definitive, deeply moving narrative, Bonhoeffer is a story of moral courage in the face of the monstrous evil that was Nazism.

After discovering the fire of true faith in a Harlem church, Bonhoeffer returned to Germany and became one of the first to speak out against Hitler. As a double agent, he joined the plot to assassinate the Führer and was hanged in Flossenbürg concentration camp at age thirty-nine. Since his death, Bonhoeffer has grown to be one of the most fascinating, complex figures of the twentieth century.

Bonhoeffer presents a profoundly orthodox Christian theologian whose faith led him to boldly confront the greatest evil of the twentieth century and uncovers never-before-revealed facts, including the story of his passionate romance.