Last week I began writing on what I require of authors I read. I gave correct bibliology and hermeneutics as the starting point for judging the worthiness of an author’s work. How helpful is that, though, if it is true that “you can’t judge a book by its cover”? What if there is no statement concerning those things on the inside flap of the book? Well, of course there never is, unless the subject of the book happens to be bibliology or hermeneutics.

Even if an author does claim orthodox bibliology and sound hermeneutics, you’re going to have to judge whether or not it is so by examining the fruit of his labor. Good bibliology and hermeneutics will produce good theology. So now you’re going to have to look into his product. You can do this in a couple of ways. You can sample some of his work, giving it the Berean test; and you can read what others who have already earned your trust say about him. I recommend doing both. The latter is especially wise, considering that life is short and you don’t want to waste it on unprofitable reading. A visit to discerningreader.com is time well spent.

Get all the good advice you can, but you’re still going to have to learn to judge for yourself. You cannot remain entirely dependent on the judgment of others. After all, you had to judge their trustworthiness, didn’t you? So there is no bypassing your own responsibility to be discerning. You’re going to have to develop some criteria for choosing who you will read (or to whom you will listen). I’ll present you with mine.

First, I should confess that some books just don’t get a chance, even though I may know nothing of their authors or content. Sometimes you can judge a book by its cover. If a book is called 90 Minutes in Heaven or 23 Minutes in Hell, or How to Hear from God: Learn to Know His Voice and Make the Right Decisions (all actual titles of really bad books by really bad authors), well, that’s just silly. Other books may have innocuous titles, but the silliness begins within the first few pages: “I want to teach you how to pray a daring prayer that God always answers. It is brief—only one sentence with four parts—and tucked away in the Bible, but I believe it contains the key to a life of extraordinary favor with God.” Okay, well, thanks for putting that right up front in the preface!

I have three categories of theology that I consider absolutely foundational (not including bibliology, already discussed). They are theology proper (the doctrine of God), anthropology (the doctrine of man), and soteriology (the doctrine of salvation).

It should be obvious that if an author doesn’t know who God is, he’s going to be off-track in general. Does he deny the Trinity? Is he an open theist? Does he demonstrate an understanding of the attributes of God, or is he ignorant or even antagonistic toward them? If he doesn’t know God, there isn’t much I can learn from him. He ought to be learning from me, and if that isn’t a rebuke, I don’t know what is!

Closely following (in importance) the knowledge of God is the knowledge of man. We must know who we are to know what we need. We must understand that we are, in our natural state, dead in sin. We are not mostly dead, or spiritually sick. We are dead. We are as Lazarus, laying dead in the tomb, stinking, with no hope unless we here the call of God, “Come forth!” Does an author believe we just need some help, even a lot of help? Does he — or she — claim not to be a sinner? If an author doesn’t understand my condition, he really has nothing for me.

An author must first know who God is, second, what is wrong with me, and third, what to do about it, or rather, what God has done about it. He needs to understand the atonement. He needs to understand God’s eternal plan for the redemption of his people. He must be a thoroughgoing monergist.

Those are my basic criteria for narrowing the field of those who would be my teachers. There are other doctrines that will knock an author off my reading list — theistic evolution and egalitarianism, for example — but they are seldom encountered among those who get these fundamentals right. Am I too narrow? I don’t think so. I frequently encounter ideas in my reading that I disagree with — strongly, even — but do not consider fundamental. There is much I can learn from teachers who disagree on such things as eschatology, ecclesiology, holy ordinances, etc.; but some things are foundational to the Christian faith, and if you don’t get them right, you can’t be my teacher, and I won’t buy your book.