In my book Unfashionable I have a chapter on the need for the church to exhibit more anger. Of course, the anger I describe is not self-centered anger, but God-centered anger.

God-centered anger is when you get angry because God has been dishonored and his ways have been maligned. Self-centered anger is when you're angry because you have been dishonored or your ways have been maligned.

In my book I highlight Mark 3:1-5 which provides us with a memorable example of God-centered anger.

One day Jesus "entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand." Meanwhile the Pharisees in the crowd "watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him." Jesus didn't hold back: "He said to the man with the withered hand, ‘Come here.' And he said to them, ‘Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?' But they were silent."

Notice carefully what comes next: "And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.' He stretched it out, and his hand was restored."

Jesus, the God-man, was angry. And then we read immediately that he was also grieved, seeing the hardness of the Pharisees' hearts.

Here is a super-important characteristic of God's anger that we need to understand: God's anger is a grieving anger. It grieves because it sees the devastation that sin has on human life.

Jesus was angry because God's ways were being maligned and God was being dishonored by these legalistic Pharisees. But his anger was fueled by grief—he saw sin's deadening effects in the lives of these hardened Pharisees. It was as if he asked them, "Why do you continue like this? Don't you see that you were created and designed for so much more than this?" It grieved him to see that these Pharisees, because of their sin, were only shadows of what God originally intended for them to be. They had been made to live for so much more.

God is grievingly angry when our sin causes us to become less and less of what he created us to be, because we were fearfully and wonderfully made to live for so much more.

Our anger should be a grieving anger as well. When we see immorality and injustice, our anger should be stoked because of the devastating effects these things have on human life and community.

Grieving anger is far different from the kind of anger commonly associated with Christians. Lots of people think of Christians as embittered, angry people. They view Christians as being frustrated by our culture because things just aren't going our way—our conservative political agenda is being thwarted.

Years ago I was one of five thousand people listening to a panel discussion at a Christian conference. An editor of a conservative political-theological magazine was expressing his frustration with many of the political left-wingers, and doing so in an unnecessarily sarcastic and condescending way. When he finished, John Piper (another speaker on the panel) turned to him, and with utmost seriousness and precision, he said, "For a long time I have appreciated your ministry. You are an astute observer of our culture. I read your magazine every month. It's always insightful. But there's one thing missing from your ministry."

The editor looked at Dr. Piper and asked what it was.

"Tears," Piper replied.

The world so often senses our anger—but do they ever sense our grief? They think we're angry simply because we're not getting our way, but I'm afraid they don't feel our sorrow over sin's negative, dehumanizing effects. We fail to communicate our anger in a way that says, "You were made for so much more than this." They assume our anger is only because we're not getting what we want. No wonder they tune us out.

When we see the restlessness and wreckage in people's lives because they're not in relationship with God and they're living sin-filled lives, it should stoke our anger—an anger that arises because we love them and we grieve to see them living for something so destructive when God created them to live for something beautiful and satisfying.

Self-centered anger is not a grieving, love-fueled anger; that's what God-centered anger is. So does your anger rage because your love for God and your love for others is radical? When people see us hating what God hates because our love for God and people is real and deep, they may be more open to hear what we have to say.

My forthcoming book, Surprised by Grace: God's Relentless Pursuit of Rebels, is finished-at least my work is done. It comes out in May but I should have my first copies by April (oh the painful wait!). And while I'm excited about the fact that it's done, there's always a sense of angst knowing that I cannot add to, or subtract anything from, the book. I'll read something and think to myself, "I wish I could add that quote" or "I wish I would have said it more like this."

This happened to me last night.

As a writer, reading Paul Tripp is always frustrating because he always says what I want to say but he says it so much better! Essentially, Surprised by Grace is a book on the gospel (taken from the book of Jonah) and few people understand the gospel better than Paul Tripp (if you're not familiar with Paul, click here). He is a bona fide Christian realist. He refuses to underestimate either the seriousness of our remaining sin or the sweetness of God's restoring salvation.

These breathtaking lines from his recent book, A Shelter in the Time of Storm: Meditations on God and Trouble, were used by God to re-orient me in a profound way.  

Based on Psalm 27:5-"He will conceal me under the cover of his tent; he will lift me high upon a rock"-he writes:

We all look for it. We all refuse to live without it. We all think we've found it, but it can only really be found in one place. What is it that I'm talking about? Well, here it is: all human beings are on a search somehow someway to find that solid rock on which to stand. That one thing that they can bank on. That one thing that will keep them upright when the storms of life are raging. That one thing that will remain firm for the duration. That one thing that will give them security when nothing else does.

No human being enjoys feeling that he is living in the sinking sand of unpredictability, disappointment, and danger with no rock to reach for and stand on…We long for our lives to make sense. We long to have meaning and purpose, and we long to have lasting stability.

The problem is that the longer we live, the more we know that there is little around us in this fallen world that's truly stable. I have a wonderful marriage to a lady who in many ways is my hero, but our marriage is still marred by our sin, and this reality still introduces pain and unpredictability into a relationship we have been working on for thirty-seven years! You may think your job is a source of stability, but a bit of a turn in the global economy could have you out on the street in a relatively short period of time. It may seem that your material possessions are permanent, but every physical thing that exists is in a state of decay, and even in its greatest longevity it doesn't have the ability to quiet your heart.

So here is the dilemma of your humanity: you are clearly not in control of the details or destiny of your life, yet as a rational, purposeful, emotional being, you cry for a deep and abiding sense of well-being. In your quest, what you are actually discovering is that you were hardwired to be connected to Another. You weren't hardwired to walk the pathway of life all by yourself. You weren't hardwired to be independently okay. You weren't hardwired to produce in yourself a system of experiences, relationships, and conclusions that would give you rest. You were designed to find your "solid rock" only in a dependent, loving, worshipful relationship with Another. In this way, every human being is on a quest for God; the problem is we don't know that, and in our quest for stability, we attempt to stand on an endless catalog of God-replacements that end up sinking with us.

In fact, our inability to find security for ourselves is so profound that we'd never find on our own the One who is to be our rock; no, he must find us. The language of Psalm 27 is quite precise here: "He will lift me high upon a rock." It doesn't say, "I will find the rock and I will climb up on it."

Here is the hope for every weary traveler whose feet are tired of the slippery instability of mud of a fallen world. Your weariness is a signpost. It's meant to cause you to cry out for help. It's meant to cause you to quit looking for your stability horizontally and begin to cry out for it vertically. It's meant to put an end to your belief that situations, people, locations, possessions, positions, or answers will satisfy the longing of your heart. Your weariness is meant to drive you to God. He is the Rock for which you are longing. He is the one who alone is able to give to you the sense that all is well. And as you abandon your hope in the mirage rocks of this fallen world and begin to hunger for the true Rock, he will reach out and place you on solid ground.

There is a Rock to be found. There is an inner rest to be experienced that's deeper than conceptual understanding, human love, personal success, and the accumulation of possessions. There is a rock that will give you rest even when all of those things have been taken away. That rock is Christ, and you were hardwired to find what you are seeking in him. In his grace, he won't play hide-and-seek with you. In your weakness and weariness, cry out to him. He will find you, and he will be your Rock.

On Christ the solid rock I stand,
all other ground is sinking sand.

The Bible makes clear that Christians must be people of double listening—listening both to the questions of the world and to the answers of the Word. We're to be good interpreters not only of Scripture but also of culture. God wants us to be like the men of Issachar, "who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do" (1 Chronicles 12:32). Faithfulness to Christ means we can't afford to leave our culture unexamined. We're to think long and hard, deep and wide about our times and all the issues surrounding the church's mission—its proper relationship to this world and its proper place in it.

I don't claim to understand all of the complexities involved and the challenges that face Christians in different parts of the world, but I would like to offer some direction regarding what I consider must-read books that can help us think through these issues biblically. No one will agree with all of the content in these books. In fact, some of these books represent opposing perspectives on how Christians should relate to the culture around them. But all of these books will help you develop your own conclusions.

As I once heard Tim Keller say, "Read one thinker and you become a clone. Read two and you become confused. Read a hundred and you start to become wise." While I don't list a hundred books here, these are my Top 40, and I'm convinced they'll help you on that road to wisdom. All these books are well written but none of them is easy reading. They all require an engaged mind. I know this sounds crazy, but I suggest that over time you try to read them all.

I also urge you to be a diligent and intentional reader. Highlight and underline key phrases and sentences, and make notes in the margins. As C. S. Lewis said, "The best way to read is with book in lap, pen in hand, and pipe in teeth." So enjoy these books—but easy on the tobacco.

Here are my top fifteen recommendations (in alphabetical order):

American Evangelicalism by James Davison Hunter
Chameleon Christianity by Dick Keyes
Christ and Culture Revisited by D. A. Carson
Christian Mission in the Modern World by John Stott
Culture Making by Andy Crouch
Engaging God's World by Cornelius Plantinga
God in the Wasteland by David Wells
The Gospel in a Pluralist Society by Lesslie Newbigin
The Gravedigger File by Os Guinness
How Now Shall We Live? by Chuck Colson and Nancy Pearcey
Lectures on Calvinism by Abraham Kuyper
No Place for Truth by David Wells
Resident Aliens by Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon
The Way of the Modern World by Craig Gay
Where in the World Is the Church? by Michael Horton

And here are twenty-five more I highly recommend:

The Abolition of Man by C. S. Lewis
All God's Children in Blue Suede Shoes by Ken Myers
Christ and Culture by H. Richard Niebuhr
The Church Before the Watching World by Francis Schaeffer
The Contemporary Christian by John Stott
Creation Regained by Albert Wolters
The Culturally Savvy Christian by Dick Staub
Culture Matters by T. M. Moore
He Shines in All That's Fair by Richard Mouw
Heaven Is a Place on Earth by Michael Wittmer
Heaven Is Not My Home by Paul Marshall
Making the Best of It: Following Christ in the Real World by John G. Stackhouse Jr.
No God but God by John Seel and Os Guinness
The Noise of Solemn Assemblies by Peter Berger
Not the Way It's Supposed to Be by Cornelius Plantinga
A Peculiar People by Rodney Clapp
Prophetic Untimeliness by Os Guinness
Redeeming Pop-Culture by T. M. Moore
Rumor of Angels by Peter Berger
Surprised by Hope by N. T. Wright
The Transforming Vision by Brian Walsh and Richard Middleton
Too Christian, Too Pagan by Dick Staub
Total Truth by Nancy Pearcey
When the Kings Come Marching In by Richard Mouw
Where Resident Aliens Live by Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon