The Outreach Resources of the Year honors the past year’s best books that emphasize outreach-oriented ideas.
Last fall we invited publishers and authors to submit resources that released between Nov. 1, 2022, and Oct. 31, 2023. The Outreach magazine editorial team then placed the qualifying titles into 13 key categories for review by expert panelists in each field. After thoughtful consideration, they selected one or more entries as an Outreach Resource of the Year and spotlighted some titles as “Also Recommended.”
In this section you will discover valuable tools that belong on your bookshelf. You will reach for them time and again as they enhance your effectiveness in ministry through the years.
THEOLOGY AND BIBLICAL STUDIES
Evaluated by Scot McKnight, author or editor of some 60 books and the Julius R. Mantey Chair of New Testament at Northern Seminary in Lisle, Illinois.
RESOURCE OF THE YEAR
Why the Gospel? Living the Good News of King Jesus With Purpose by Matthew W. Bates (Eerdmans)
So many gospel presentations and simple summaries present the gospel as escape from sin and the world and entrance into eternal life. Such gospels skip life now and head for the eternal prize. Why the Gospel? not only challenges such gospels, which is easy to do, but also sketches the divine purposes of the gospel for believers in the here and now.
As Bates has been writing for a decade, if Jesus is the King, then we are citizens of the kingdom created to live as kingdom people in the world as witnesses to the power of the gospel to transform lives.
ALSO RECOMMENDED
Into the Heart of Romans: A Deep Dive Into Paul’s Greatest Letter by N.T. Wright (Zondervan Academic)
No New Testament text has had more influence in the history of the church than Romans. No chapter in Romans has had more influence than Romans 8. With the skill of a veteran student of the apostle Paul, Wright ushers us into Romans 8 and we, like the Pevensie children, enter into a Narnia-like experience.