Another Top Book: Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert

I recently posted my top twelve reads from 2013. I somehow neglected to mention one that should have made the list: The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert by Rosaria Butterfield. I have no idea how I managed to miss this one.

Here are three reasons why this book is great:

1. It’s a spiritual autobiography. If you want to be encouraged by God’s grace at work in someone’s life, read this book. It’s a great reminder that God continues to be at work among the people we wouldn’t have expected.
2. It’s an evangelism primer. If you want a good model of how to be a winsome, faithful, wise, and grace-filled friend and evangelist, then read this book. Sometimes we need a model more than we need a set of principles; this book provides that.
3. It will awaken you to some truths that you may have forgotten: what it’s like to be in the process of coming to Christ; that nobody is out of God’s reach; of the intolerance of supposedly tolerant academics; of the common cup we drink when we come to the Lord’s Table. Butterfield writes:

We love these women between the pages of our Bible, but we don’t want to sit at the Lord’s Table with them— with people like me— drinking from a common cup. That’s the real ringer: the common cup— that is, our common origin in depravity. We are only righteous in Christ and in him alone. But that’s a hard pill to swallow, especially if you give yourself kudos for good choices.

Seriously, how did I forget to include this book? So, so good.