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But beyond this, my son, be warned: the writing of many books is endless, and excessive devotion to books is wearying to the body (Ecclesiastes 12:12, NASB1995).
Most believers never experience “the writing of too many books” or “excessive devotion to books,” but I do. I have three million words of content that I’ve written in my computer files. And at 50,000 words per average Christian book, that’s 60 books.
I qualify under the category of “the writing of too many books.”
I had 1,500 books in a real, bound-book library until many were destroyed by a leaking roof, and now I have 1,191 books in my Kindle® library. I consider myself negligent because I’ve only purchased three books this month. (However, I’m writing this blog on July 2!)
So, I contend for the “excessive devotion to books” description too.
Having provided my book vitae, if you are looking for good books to read at the beach this summer, I would suggest the following:
Jake Needham with The Inspector Samuel Tay Novels.
There are nine books in this series, featuring a rather plump police inspector from Singapore with great plots and some of the best self-deprecating humor I’ve read. If political leaders had Samuel Tay’s opinion of himself, the world would be a safer place. Start with the first one: The Ambassador’s Wife.
Benjamin Shaw with Trustworthy: Thirteen Arguments for the Reliability of the New Testament.
I’ve used this book as inspiration for my Reliability of the New Testament blog posts that I’ve been writing every Friday.
I enjoyed this quote from the book: “The result, then, is that when it comes to the New Testament, we can be confident that we have the right words, a necessity for establishing reliability.” To find out the evidence behind this quote, after reading a “Tay” novel noted previously, open “Trustworthy,” as it will either stimulate your thinking or, because it’s somewhat scholastic, put you to sleep for a nice beach nap.
John Mark Comer’s book Practicing the Way: Be with Jesus. Become like him. Do as he did.
Several years back, I read a note somewhere (too much weariness of books and research to remember exactly where) that college students at Bible colleges and seminaries throughout the U.S.A. were reading John Mark Comer books. First, I was convicted that I had not read any John Mark Comer books, and second, having purchased this book, saw that John Mark Comer made an amateurish Greek word study mistake.
Being the Greek snob that I am, I stopped reading, but I recently picked the book up again.
Overlooking the poor Greek, I began to understand why John Mark Comer’s books are popular with college students. First, He uses his full name, which gives him a scholastic air, just like you would get if I called myself Grant Clinton Edwards instead of “the OG,” and second, I loved this statement, which gives an overview of the contents of this book:
There is so much we can’t do in our spiritual formation; we cannot fix or heal or transform ourselves. But we can do this: We can be with Jesus.
I hope all college students (and the rest of us) read a book by John Mark Comer and learn to be with Jesus.
That’s it, only three books. I have many more that I could suggest, but only limited space. I pray that we grow weary from reading great books this summer.
OG at the beach in 2026!
