5 Books That Changed My Life: Keith Mathison

Posted On August 04, 2023

Written by Dr. Keith Mathison, professor of systematic theology

When asked to write a blog post listing the five books that changed my life, I was at a bit of a loss. I read a lot of books and have always read a lot of books. Ultimately, there’s only one book that changed my life, and that was the Bible. Within the Bible, it was while reading the gospel of John that the Lord opened my eyes and gave me faith. Outside of the Bible, thinking of life-changing books is more difficult. I will give it a shot, however.

1. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago

I read The Gulag Archipelago during my first semester of college in the mid-1980s and was floored. If you have ever seen the photograph of the Chinese man standing alone in front of a column of tanks in Tiananmen Square, China, that is who Solzhenitsyn was to the Soviet Union. Only in Solzhenitsyn’s case, the tyrants blinked first. Every student should, at the very least, read his speeches “Live Not by Lies” and “A World Split Apart.”

2. John Gerstner, Wrongly Dividing the Word of Truth

I ran across Gerstner’s book while a student at Dallas Theological Seminary. It was the first time I had ever read a critique of dispensational theology, which I adhered to at the time. Gerstner didn’t convince me immediately, but as a result of reading that book, I started asking questions that ultimately led me to realize that dispensationalism is biblically indefensible.

3. Francis Turretin, The Institutes of Elenctic Theology

Turretin’s Institutes began to be translated and published while I was a student at Reformed Theological Seminary. Reading his work completely changed my life, because it was my first true introduction to the riches of Reformed scholastic theology. It helped me to see that some of the popular criticisms I was hearing about these theologians were inaccurate, as Dr. R.C. Sproul has also shown in a column for Tabletalk magazine.

4. John Calvin, Short Treatise on the Lord’s Supper

The first time I read this short work some twenty-five years ago, I was stunned by its depth. I started digging, and the digging eventually resulted in a book, Given for You: Reclaiming Calvin’s Doctrine of the Lord’s Supper. The theology and practice of the Lord’s Supper has been a major area of research interest for me ever since.

5. Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death

This book is one of the few books having to do with culture that I return to repeatedly, even though it is somewhat dated now. Postman does a brilliant job of showing how the impact of television resulted in many areas of life (e.g., education, politics, religion) becoming forms of entertainment. I only wish he had lived long enough to comment on the similar impact of the internet.