The Rooted content team had fun adding a new category to this year’s book awards: best new books to help youth workers teach the Bible!
Here at Rooted, theological depth through expository Bible teaching is one of our five pillars of gospel-centered youth ministry. As we work to equip teenagers with a biblical worldview, those who teach must seek to understand the Scriptures as throughly as possible. While the Holy Spirit is always our best and first guide, faithful Bible scholars can be excellent teachers too. We selected the award winners in this category with an eye to resources that will be most helpful in ministry to youth. Enjoy!
Honorable Mention
Roadmap to Jesus by Alistair Chalmers (10 Publishing)
Whether they ask us outright or not, the teenagers who study the Bible in our ministries are often wondering: What does the Old Testament have to do with the story of Jesus? The covenantal laws and sacrificial code seem so remote to the way we see Jesus interacting in the New Testament—much less to our modern context. In Road Map to Jesus, Alistair Chalmers addresses this fundamental question with pastoral sensitivity and the heart of a teacher. Chalmers takes us back to the Road to Emmaus, where Jesus himself gave the disciples a Bible study about how his life, death, and resurrection fulfilled the Old Testament’s teaching (Luke 24:27).
In simple terms, Chalmers tackles a complex subject; namely, how all of Scripture represents a single story with Jesus at the center. To this end, Chalmers even provides an entry-level explanation of typology—for example, showing how Isaac‘s near death points us forward to the actual death of Christ on our behalf. While this short book doesn’t attempt to answer other questions teenagers ask, such as the problem of evil or supposed Canaanite genocide in the conquest narratives, it does offer a starting point for these conversations by focusing on the character of God in Christ.
The pocket-sized format and brief, straightforward chapters of this little book make it readable even for younger teenagers. Youth ministers could consider teaching through its contents and providing each student with a copy, using it as the basis for discussion in a small discipleship group, or simply giving it to a teenager wanting to learn more about the Bible.
Honorable Mention
Being God’s Image: Why Creation Still Matters by Carmen Joy Imes (IVP)
As youth ministers, we find ourselves returning again and again to the doctrine of the imago dei as the Bible’s framework for humanity’s place in salvation history. At a time in history ripe with anthropological controversy and confusion, youth ministers need equipping to teach the place of human beings within the biblical story. In Being God’s Image: Why Creation Still Matters, Carmen Joy Imes weaves together various strands of biblical and theological thought to help us better understand and teach the storyline of the Bible.
The book’s first section will be especially helpful for youth ministers as they field questions about the biblical account of creation. A teacher in the truest sense of the word, Imes has a gift for putting biblical studies into the vernacular of everyday life. Her writing is approachable enough for non-academic types but still nuanced enough for those with a background in the biblical languages. (Her earlier book in a planned trilogy, Bearing God’s Name: Why Sinai Still Matters is also a must-read, and one that I could even see youth ministers sharing with their students.)
Imes skillfully traces the important theme of God’s image from creation to final restoration, tackling several significant debates within biblical studies along the way. She suggests we replace the translation so many of us have learned of “bearing God’s image” with “being God’s image,” language that she argues has more basis in the Hebrew text. The implications for our human identity are far-reaching, touching on timely topics such as creation care, the significance of gender for human flourishing, the dignity of those with special needs, concern for the world’s poor, and more. This book will help youth ministers teach Genesis—and all of Scripture—with increased clarity and with compelling application for teenagers.
Winner
The Atonement: An Introduction by Jeremy Treat, (from “Short Studies in Systematic Theology) Edited by Graham A. Cole and Oren R. Martin (Crossway)
In Jeremy Treat’s readable study on the atonement, he endeavors to bring back together two biblical themes that have often been wrongly separated: the kingdom and the cross. Treat rejects the old divide between evangelical churches and the mainline tradition, insisting that a truly biblical understanding of Christ’s work involves both personal salvation and cosmic redemption. He contends that only as we take these two complementary realities together can we appreciate the beauty of the atonement (the means for “at-one-ment” between God and human beings).
Treat’s goal has important implications for youth ministers. Many will relate to his description of the gospel he heard at church camp as a middle schooler: a message of individual sin and the need for salvation, leading to Christ’s coming so that those who trust him can go to heaven. While these are all elements of the gospel, Treat demonstrates how this delivery sadly truncates the gospel. He insists we need to present both the personal and the corporate elements of atonement in order to tell the full gospel. As those who regularly teach Scripture and present the good news of Christ’s finished work, youth ministers will benefit from Treat’s thoughtful instruction.
One of the many strengths of Treat’s short study is his multiethnic and historical lens for examining theories on the atonement. Beginning with the doctrine of substitutionary atonement and moving to the outcomes, or benefits, of the atonement to believers, Treat consults scholars from many traditions and backgrounds, seeking to offer a nuanced picture of atonement. His bibliography itself provides a useful guide for youth ministers looking to represent a more diverse cross-section of the Church in their teaching. Another significant contribution is Treat’s explanation of dimensions of the atonement (what we have elsewhere referred to as “benefits of the gospel”). Treat lists 20 of these and explains the relevant metaphors the Bible uses to explain each of them, an invaluable resource for youth ministers to teach and apply the good news of Christ’s finished work.
The 2023 Rooted Book Awards Team included Chelsea Kingston Erickson, Tim Franks, Rebecca Lankford, and Tracy Yi.
