The Best Christian Books to Read This Spring

Most Christian reading lists are too long and too polite. They tell you that twenty books are essential, which is the same as telling you none of them are. So this is a shorter list, and a more opinionated one. Eight titles, four categories, with the honest reason each one earned its spot — and the kind of reader who should probably skip it.

One housekeeping note. The list below skews toward books that are still in print, still being read by serious people, and still earning their place — not just the new spring releases the publisher catalogues are pushing. A book that's been useful for fifty years is more likely to be useful next year than one that just dropped.

For the Deep Thinker

Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

Originally a series of BBC radio broadcasts during the Second World War, gathered into a book in 1952. Lewis's argument for Christianity moves from moral law to the person of Christ to the practical shape of the Christian life, and he does it with a clarity that humbles most modern apologists. Best read in three sittings rather than fifteen — the argument builds. Skip if: you've read it three times already; read Lewis's The Weight of Glory instead.

The Reason for God by Timothy Keller

Keller's 2008 book is the closest thing the post-Lewis era has to Mere Christianity. The first half walks through the seven objections to Christian faith Keller heard most often as a Manhattan pastor; the second half makes a positive case. The footnotes alone are worth the price. Skip if: you want fire — Keller is patient and pastoral, which some readers find frustratingly even-tempered.

For Daily Devotion

My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers

Compiled by Chambers's wife from his lectures after his death in 1917 and continuously in print since 1935. It is the only daily devotional in English that is genuinely theologically heavy — most entries reward being read twice, and a few will sit with you for a week. The language is old-fashioned. That's the point.

Jesus Calling by Sarah Young

One of the best-selling Christian books of the last twenty years. The format — daily entries written in first-person voice as if Jesus is speaking directly to the reader — has drawn principled critique from theologians who worry about the implicit claim to revelation, and the critique is worth taking seriously. Many readers also find it genuinely sustaining. Read with both pieces in view: a gentle on-ramp into daily devotion, with the awareness that the words are Young's, not Jesus's.

For the Story Lover

Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers

A novel-length retelling of the book of Hosea, set in California's 1850 Gold Rush. Rivers takes the marriage-to-a-prostitute metaphor literally and follows the story through, which makes the book confronting in places — there's a reason the cover often warns of "mature themes." It is also one of the few Christian novels that has stayed in print for thirty-plus years on word-of-mouth alone. Worth the discomfort.

The Shack by William Paul Young

Young's 2007 novel about a grieving father's encounter with the Trinity sold tens of millions of copies and got several capable theologians genuinely worried about its trinitarian framing. Read it as a novel, not a doctrinal statement, and have the conversation about where it stretches orthodoxy — that conversation is the most useful thing the book has produced. Skip if: you want a book you can recommend without footnotes.

For Practical Living

Boundaries by Henry Cloud and John Townsend

The original 1992 edition has been updated repeatedly because the underlying problem — Christians taught that all yes-saying is godly — hasn't gone anywhere. Cloud and Townsend, both psychologists, give you the biblical and clinical case for saying no. The chapter on boundaries with parents and adult children alone is worth the cover price.

The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer

Comer's 2019 book grew out of his decision to slow down his own ministry life on the advice of Dallas Willard ("Hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our day"). The book is short, the practices are concrete — Sabbath, silence, simplicity, slowing — and the diagnosis is the most accurate description of what's wrong with modern Christian life that's been written this century. Read it slowly. Ironically.

"Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path." — Psalm 119:105

Pick one. Read it before May. If you finish it and want a second, pick from a different category than the first — variety in spiritual reading beats depth in a single lane. For more on building a daily reading rhythm at all, see our piece on a Christ-centered morning routine.