Deserted Island with Harry Reeder

What five books would you take with you on a deserted island? On this episode of 5 Minutes in Church History, Dr. Stephen Nichols interviews special guest Dr. Harry Reeder about several books that have impacted him.

Stephen Nichols: Welcome back to another episode of 5 Minutes in Church History. For this episode, we're at Ligonier's National Conference here in Orlando, and I managed to pull away one of our speakers, Dr. Harry Reeder. Dr. Reeder is the pastor at Briarwood Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, Alabama. He is the author of The Leadership Dynamic and a great book on church revitalization, From Embers to Flame. Dr. Reeder, it's great to have you.

Harry Reeder: Steve, it's good. If I could say, they republished, or put it into a second printing, and they changed the name from The Leadership Dynamic and added about twenty percent material, so now it's called 3D Leadership.

SN: 3D Leadership. Well, it's great to have you. We're grateful for these books; grateful for your pastoral service. I'm going to give you a real gift, Dr. Reeder. I'm going to relieve you of your pastoral duties for a time, and we're going to send you off to a deserted island.

HR: I have a couple of elders that have suggested that. That's good.

SN: Well, they let us know that. But we're going to send you off to this deserted island, and you can take only five books with you. What five books would you take with you?

HR: I would always take Preaching and Preachers, and I would take The Discipline of Grace by Jerry Bridges, which is my go-to discipleship book when I'm working with people.

SN: And Preaching and Preachers was the great Martyn Lloyd-Jones.

HR: His lectures at Westminster Seminary turned into the book. And given your scenario, number one book I would take with me would be Calvin's Institutes; and that's two volumes, but I'm only going to count that as one book, all right?

SN: We'll let you do that.

HR: Thank you. So, I'm going to take Calvin's Institutes. I'm so grateful for it as kind of a foundational systematic theology, but I would also take another. You can see my penchant for church history and systematic theology, but I would take another one, and that's from our dear friend, R.C.—the collection of his lectures on the Westminster Confession, Truths We Confess. And then another friend of Ligonier and R.C.'s, and another mentor of mine, Dr. James Boice. They put together the lectures that he gave for discipling students, and it's called Foundations. That is marvelous. His wife, actually, Linda, went back to help edit that, so it really has Jim's voice. I love that book. I think it's an extremely helpful instrument.

SN: I first came into contact with that book when I was in college, and I was just above Philadelphia, so my girlfriend then, wife now, she and I would go down to Tenth Pres[byterian Church]. We had Jim Boice as our pastor, and I loved both hearing Boice, and also reading Boice.

HR: Right. Right.

SN: When did you first read Foundations?

HR: I just got it about last year.

SN: Interesting.

HR: I think just a little bit over a year ago. Now, I had read excerpts of it and the things that he had developed that were collected into that book and stuff that he's done throughout the years. But the editing of it, the arranging of it, has made it extremely helpful, almost devotional, in its value.

SN Well, that's true of Calvin's Institutes, too.

HR: Exactly.

SN: You talk about this as a systematic theology textbook. We use it at Reformation Bible College as a textbook. But it is full of moments where you are just stopped and almost brought into a moment of worship.

HR: Well, let's go to the other one I mentioned, Truths We Confess. R.C.'s book on the Westminster has the R.C. touch of his preaching in the way that it is written out, and you can feel it so that it is somewhat not only instructive—but it is obviously—but it is somewhat aspirational and inspirational, so I really like it for that purpose.

SN: You know, I had Dr. Sproul on this, and we did the five books on a deserted island episode.

HR: Right.

SN: You can only imagine, Dr. Reeder, what he said his first book was.

HR: I have no idea.

SN: It was How to Get Off a Deserted Island. Wasn't that classic R.C.?

HR: That's not a shock. Let me give my last two because they're very important, okay? Redemption Accomplished and Applied, John Murray.

SN: John Murray.

HR: I read it regularly.

SN: It's a classic.

HR: And again, almost devotionally. Then finally, the two-volume biography on George Whitefield. That would round up my five for you.

SN: Well, we will leave you be in peace with your books. Thanks for joining us.

HR: All right, thanks.

SN: Well, that was Dr. Harry Reeder with his five books for his deserted island, and I'm Steve Nichols. Thanks for listening to 5 Minutes in Church History.