The Lord has used many resources and teachers to grow my love for Him and His Word, to increase my understanding and faith, and to show me how to better study His Word and to implement biblical truth into my life. While no resource outside of Scripture will be perfect, and my recommendation should not be taken as agreement with everything any of these resources teach or promote, overall I’m happy to share and recommend the resources below because they all strive to be biblically accurate and they’ve been particularly helpful for me. It’s not an exhaustive list, by any means; just some current favorites. I hope and pray they will be blessings to you as well. Do be sure, as always, to take everything back to God’s Word to check for accuracy!
In no particular order:
Mike Winger at BibleThinker
Mike’s goal is to help us all learn to think biblically about everything. His content (always free and available as video or podcast through YouTube, BibleThinker.org, and the free BibleThinker app) ranges from deep, thorough verse-by-verse and topical teaching to apologetic defenses of the faith to community-submitted Q&A sessions. And if my own growth is any indication, he is successful in his ministry goal! My love for God and His Word, my understanding and ability to study well, and my application of Scripture to daily life have all increased by leaps and bounds through this resource!
Some of the content that has blessed me the most: the Evidence for the Bible series, the Jesus in the Old Testament series, the How to Understand the Old Testament Law series (this one is only two videos), the Women in Ministry series, the Mike Winger on Calvinism playlist, and the Q&A sessions (two links there). And the “Q&A Clip Search” feature on the BibleThinker website has been SO helpful! We can search for any term (like “doubt” or “hearing from God” or even “1 John“), and it will bring up the exact part of every video that’s tagged with that term.
Randy Alcorn at Eternal Perspective Ministries
About fifteen years ago, the Lord used Randy Alcorn’s book, Heaven, and the Bible study based on it, to truly change my life. Understanding more about what the Lord has in store for us, and getting even a glimpse of how beautiful and wonderful it will be, truly changed how I see everything about life here and now. It has been the most freeing and motivating and comforting knowledge – and showed me so much more about who God really is, and how good He is, and what hope He truly has for us. I highly recommend this book in particular, as well as Randy’s other writings. You can find more at his blog page, Eternal Perspective Ministries. (And I’m beyond honored to say that he shared one of my own posts on his blog!)
A.W. Tozer
Among many other books, A.W. Tozer wrote The Pursuit of God and The Knowledge of the Holy, two books deeply rooted in Scripture that have had a profound influence on my understanding of who God is and how He would have us live. You can read a helpful overview of Tozer here. And I hope you’ll read those books, too.
C.S. Lewis
C.S. Lewis is one of the most well-known names in Christian circles. I’m not sure you can go wrong, really, with any of his books, but I think my favorites off the top of my head are Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, The Chronicles of Narnia (please please please read them in publication order!), and The Space Trilogy (yes, I do enjoy myself some sci-fi).
Greg Koukl and Stand to Reason University
Greg Koukl’s book Tactics is a great start for those who want to learn to defend the faith and have fruitful, helpful, and even comfortable (!) conversations with those who believe differently. Stand to Reason and Stand to Reason University are great free resources to get you started! I hope you’ll take some of the free STR U courses (they consist of several 5- to 15-minute videos and a few follow-up questions). If you do, I’d recommend starting with “Tactics” by Greg Koukl, “Never Read a Bible Verse” by Alan Shlemon, and “Truth is Not Ice Cream” by Tim Barnett.
Frank Turek at CrossExamined
CrossExamined is Frank Turek’s ministry, where he and others work to equip us to better defend the truth of Christianity. He has written several books (I especially recommend I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be An Atheist), and has many helpful Q&A videos on YouTube. And I am grateful to be a 2024 alum of the CrossExamined Instructor Academy, an intense 3-day training conference designed to help students improve at their apologetics presentation and question-answering skills.
Alisa Childers
Alisa Childers is a wonderful resource for understanding and defending the authentic Christian faith and understanding and defending against progressive Christianity. She has a blog, several books, and a YouTube channel, as well as a podcast with Natasha Crain called “Unshaken Faith.”
Natasha Crain
Natasha Crain’s goal is to “equip Christians to think biblically about worldviews, apologetics, culture, and parenting in a challenging secular world.” She has written three books to help equip parents to walk with their children through faith questions that will inevitably surface as they grow and face the world, as well as Faithfully Different, which points out the scarcity of the biblical worldview (even within the church) and helps us to think and live rightly in this post-Christian era. I highly recommend them all. She also has a blog, the Natasha Crain Podcast, and the “Unshaken Faith” podcast I mentioned above with Alisa Childers. I am grateful to be leading a local chapter of GAP (Grassroots Apologetics for Parents), a Bible-centered ministry founded by Natasha that helps equip parents with a deeper understanding of the Christian worldview and apologetics.
Mama Bear Apologetics
Mama Bear Apologetics is a wonderful resource for any woman who has any influence on any children or young adults – actually, it’s a wonderful resource for any person of any age in any walk of life! But it is specifically geared towards women, to equip them to help the younger generations understand the truth behind Christianity and be able to identify and discern the truth and falsehood of the messages and worldviews that are being taught to them so strongly by the culture around them. Mama Bears fight for their kids, demolishing the wrong ideas (not people) that attack them, and help them grow in strength and knowledge so they’re equipped to hold onto the Truth no matter what. You can find them at their website, on YouTube (where they frequently ROAR through cultural issues we and our kids are dealing with), and on your favorite social media and podcast platforms.
Melissa Dougherty
Melissa Dougherty (on YouTube and at CrossExamined) is a great resource for information about New Age/New Thought and how it’s creeping into churches, as well as general apologetics, theology, and culturally relevant truth. And if you like satire, she’s definitely someone you want to follow!
Redemption Hill Church
My family and I are glad to serve and be part of Redemption Hill Church. You can access the excellent teaching on the website and YouTube Channel (I especially recommend the Romans series!). And in case you’re wondering where I stand, I am in agreement with the church’s Statement of Faith.
The Center for Biblical Unity
From their website: “In a culture polarized by race, and where conversations about race often lead to division, strife, and blame, the Center For Biblical Unity exists to lead respectful and Bible-centered conversations on race, unity, and justice.” I have been so grateful for their voices pointing to biblical truth on these highly charged and highly important issues! Their book, Walking in Unity, provides biblical clarity on how we should see race and deal with racism (as opposed to the culture’s unbiblical approach). I highly recommend it for every Christian. Follow them on Facebook and YouTube, too.
BibleHub
BibleHub is my go-to online Bible resource. I use it just about every day – the free app on my phone is so convenient! I link to it in most posts, and I mentioned it by name in this one. There are other very good online Bible resources, of course; this is simply the one I’m most used to. It offers many helpful resources: Greek and Hebrew word studies; parallel verses with 30+ translations on one page; parallel chapters with five translations on one page; verse-by-verse commentaries; topical studies; the ability to search Scripture by reference or by word/phrase (anyone else have trouble with references, but you just know there’s a verse somewhere that has the phrase “help my unbelief,” or “in Him all things hold together”? This will find it for you!); book outlines; Bible timelines; and more.
Chicago and Nashville Statements
I have found the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy and the Nashville Statement on biblical sexuality to be clear, accurate, and helpful descriptions of what Scripture teaches, and I hold to and highly recommend both.
Elizabeth Urbanowicz at Foundation Worldview
I first ‘met’ Elizabeth Urbanowicz and learned about Foundation Worldview through this interview she did with Mike Winger. Her emphasis is working with children, but I highly recommend watching it, whether you work with children or not! She offers curriculum that teaches children to study the Bible rightly, think critically, and have a biblical worldview (and we adults can learn with them along the way!). She also provides many helpful free webinars and a Q&A podcast.
Mr. Forrest
While we’re on the topic of the younger set, if you have influence with any kiddos (or if you’re a kid at heart), I highly, highly recommend Mr. Forrest on YouTube. His Bible teaching has been a literal Godsend for one of my own kiddos! We’ve even used it for our homeschool Bible curriculum. Mr. Forrest teaches deep biblical truths in an engaging way that kids can understand and apply, but it isn’t watered down or oversimplified at all. And he teaches through both Ephesians and Ezekiel! For kids! (I learned a lot about Ezekiel, myself!) It’s so awesome.
I recommend starting with the overviews of Biblical truths: Know Your Bible, Know Your God, then Big Truths and God is…. After that, you’re ready for Ed Encounters Ephesians, Ed Encounters Ezekiel, and then any other teaching/story series playlist (all of which, I think, feature Ed). I think I’ve enjoyed these as much as my son has! And most importantly, he’s learned some major (and majorly important) biblical truths. Mr. Forrest is mostly geared toward elementary through mid-school, in my opinion. And there are a few videos that deal with difficult topics (like death) that he recommends for 4th grade and up; keep an eye on the video descriptions for those.
More Than This Mess 