MY CHOICE OF BOOKS
William Pannell recalls the road signs that have steered his thinking.
William Pannell
July 1, 1983
I discovered books late in life. Our home, like others in our neighborhood, was not literary, the margin of survival a bit too narrow for book acquisition. I recall my astonishment when I enrolled in Bible college and discovered the other students' shelves of books. I couldn't believe they owned them all. At eighteen years old, a personal library had never been part of my life. I hadn't realized the loss. The only exception was a book I came across shortly after my conversion at age sixteen: the Book of Ephesians. It was my first exposure to God's family planning and the first time I felt the exhilaration that comes from knowing I had been chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. What joy for a teenager trying to find himself in a society where already he felt alien. Bible college exposed me to some theology, most of it eminently forgettable. What impressed me most was a small volume (the title escapes me) which told the stories of "famous" Christians from William Carey onward who initiated the great missionary thrusts of the Western church. In retrospect, the stories were more romantic than factual in crucial areas, but they served to stimulate my thinking about "the regions beyond" and the price God's people have paid to proclaim good news to the nations. Books became even more important to me when I entered full-time evangelism. James Stewart's A Man in Christ became a solid basis for studying the life of Paul and the central themes of his theology. It also provided much sermon material, as did Stewart's Heralds of God and A Faith to Proclaim. These books combined good scholarship, fine writing style, and a warm evangelical tone. Around this same time, I came across the writings of Ruth Paxson. Her Life on the ...
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