Deserted Island Top 5: Guy Richard

Stephen Nichols (SN): Welcome back to 5 Minutes in Church History. Today, we are returning to our deserted island, and we are going to put our good friend Dr. Guy Richard on that island. Dr. Richard, welcome to 5 Minutes in Church History.

Guy Richard (GR): Thank you, Steve. It is great to be with you today.

SN: You are the senior minister at First Presbyterian Church in Gulfport, Miss. And you earned your M.Div. at Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Miss., and went on to do your doctorate at the University of Edinburgh. You also do some teaching at Reformed Theological Seminary and for us here at Ligonier and our Doctor of Ministry program. And we're going to give you a gift: we're going to send you to a deserted island and let you just read some books. This is a theologically engaged island. It has the works of Augustine on it. It has the works of Edwards and Calvin. So it's already pretty well stocked with the standard texts. In addition to that, you can take five books with you. So, what five books would you take?

GR: So does the island come stocked with Calvin's Institutes already?

SN: They're there.

GR: OK. Well, that changes things, I guess. I think first I'd take J.I. Packer's Knowing God. That has had a tremendous impact on me and my view of God, especially his chapter on adoption and how we're sons of God and what that means for us. And John Owen's The Mortification of Sin had a huge impact on me in terms of my view of sin and putting sin to death at its first rising.

SN: Owen was a prolific author. Since you picked The Mortification of Sin, we might even be able to sneak in another. What would be another Owen book that you would want to bring with you?

GR: If I had to choose another, it would be The Glory of Christ.

SN: I've heard Dr. Sinclair Ferguson speak of that book so many times. So, we're doing great. What is your third?

GR: I can't get away without mentioning Rutherford's letters. Samuel Rutherford wrote 365 letters to parishioners and friends. They are extremely devotional and something that I still go back to and read several times throughout the year. And so I would definitely have to include Rutherford's letters. And as well, maybe Donald Macleod's book The Person of Christ from the Contours of Christian Theology series.

SN: I remember first reading that book as a textbook.

GR: It is absolutely beautiful, and I find it quite devotional, in fact. He engages with many different aspects of Christology, and it is quite heartwarming as well. I had the privilege of sitting in some of his classes in Edinburgh. His Christology class especially was very devotional, quite warm.

SN: We'll have to compare notes sometime, because I was taking Dr. Ferguson's class on the Holy Spirit just before he published his book on the Holy Spirit in that same series. So we'll have to see if they were using their material for their books that then got published in that same series. That's a delightful book, so glad to hear that. And what would be next?

GR: I think I would have to say in terms of influence in my life, I'd have to mention R.C. Sproul's Chosen by God. I came from a more Arminian background that did not believe in predestination, or at least, it held to a different doctrine of predestination. As I came to grips with the Reformed, biblical understanding of predestination, Chosen by God was seminal in my own experience. And also with The Holiness of God, R.C. has made a mark in restoring doctrine to the church.

SN: Well, we will let you sneak in both of those R.C. books with you onto the island. Thank you for joining us. We're going to leave you now to your deserted island and to your books. Happy reading.