Best Christian Books on Love: 12 Classics on God's Love and Ours
Start with Henry Drummond's The Greatest Thing in the World. It is a single short address on 1 Corinthians 13, about half an hour's reading, and it has been reprinted for well over a century because it makes love concrete. Then read Andrew Murray's Love Made Perfect, which is even shorter and goes back one step further, to the love of God that our love comes from.
The old writers kept three loves together and in order. First, God's love for us. "We love him, because he first loved us" (1 John 4:19). Second, our love for God, with the whole heart. Third, love for our neighbor and especially for other believers, which Jesus called the mark of His disciples. They insisted that Christian love is not a mood. It is patient, kind and humble in ordinary life, and it shows up in how we treat the people we disagree with. They also said we can't produce it by trying harder. It is the fruit of the Spirit and grows as we come to know the love of God in Christ.
Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
1 John 4:7
Here are twelve of the best in TheWay Library, grouped by those three loves.
Start here
1. The Greatest Thing in the World, by Henry Drummond
Drummond calls love the supreme good and then breaks it into its parts, like light passed through a prism: patience, kindness, generosity, humility, courtesy, unselfishness, good temper, guilelessness and sincerity. Each one is something you can practice this week.
You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments that stand out, the moments when you have really lived, are the moments when you have done things in a spirit of love.
The Greatest Thing in the World
Read The Greatest Thing in the World. See also who Henry Drummond was and his best quotes.
2. Love Made Perfect, by Andrew Murray
Two addresses from 1893, the first on 1 John 4. Murray says the love we need is not ours to make. It is God's own love, and it comes by abiding in Him.
If I want love I must seek God, for love is the very nature of God.
Love Made Perfect, chapter I
Read Love Made Perfect, and see Andrew Murray's books.
God's love for us
3. Things That Matter Most, by J. H. Jowett
Thirty-eight short meditations. The first, "The Illimitable Love of God," is one of Jowett's finest pages, and the next, "Lovers of God," shows what that love does in a person.
The biggest thing you and I will ever know is the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Things That Matter Most, chapter I
Read Things That Matter Most. See J. H. Jowett's books.
4. Quiet Talks on John's Gospel, by S. D. Gordon
Gordon reads the Gospel of John as a love story: God wooing people through Jesus. The early talks, "The Wooing Lover" and "The Lover Wooing," are the heart of it.
We don't know the real thing of love because we don't know the real thing of God.
Quiet Talks on John's Gospel, chapter I
Read Quiet Talks on John's Gospel, and see S. D. Gordon's books.
Our love for God
5. Practical Sermons, by Archibald Alexander
The Princeton professor's plain sermons include a run on this subject: "The Love of Christ," "Love to Christ," "Keeping Alive the Love of God" and "Returning to Our First Love." They suit anyone whose love has gone cold and who wants it warmed again.
They did not first love him, but he loved them.
Practical Sermons, Sermon XIV
Read Practical Sermons, and see who Archibald Alexander was.
6. Discourses of the Love of God, by Isaac Watts
The hymn writer's discourses on loving God with all the heart, and on the right use of the feelings in religion. Watts defends a warm, affectionate faith against those who distrusted feeling. He also warns against feeling cut loose from truth. Read them in The Life and Choice Works of Isaac Watts, which has a cleaner text than the separate edition.
Such a sight of God is the first attractive of our love.
The Life and Choice Works of Isaac Watts, The Affectionate and Supreme Love of God
See also Isaac Watts' books.
Love for one another
7. Christian Charity Explained, by John Angell James
A full, practical exposition of 1 Corinthians 13, phrase by phrase: the meekness of love, its kindness, its contentment and the rest. James also warns that love is not the same as not caring what anyone believes.
Love is the Divine nature, the image of God, which is communicated to the soul of man by the renewing influence of the Holy Ghost.
Christian Charity Explained, chapter II
Read Christian Charity Explained. See John Angell James' books.
8. Last Sheaves, by Alexander Maclaren
A run of Maclaren's sermons follows John 13. Read "As I Have Loved," on the new commandment Jesus gave the night before He died. Maclaren asks why a command as old as "love thy neighbour" could be called new, and finds the answer in the words "as I have loved you."
Do not let us suppose that Christian love is mere sentiment.
Last Sheaves, As I Have Loved
Read Last Sheaves, and see Alexander Maclaren's books.
Love across our differences
9. Catholic Spirit, in The Works of John Wesley, Vol. 3
Wesley's sermon on 2 Kings 10:15, "Is thine heart right, as my heart is with thy heart?" He doesn't say that beliefs don't matter. He holds his own firmly. But he asks whether Christians who differ on worship and church order can still love one another and work together.
If thine heart is as my heart, if thou lovest God and all mankind, I ask no more: give me thine hand.
The Works of John Wesley, Vol. 3, Sermon XXXIX: Catholic Spirit
Read the sermon in Wesley's Works, Vol. 3. See John Wesley's books.
10. An Exhortation to Peace and Unity, printed with John Bunyan's works
A short treatise on Ephesians 4:3, "endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." It is wise about church quarrels: what unity is, what breaks it, and why strife keeps outsiders from coming in.
Let us therefore be cautious that we do not so press after unity in practice and opinion as to break the bond of peace and affection.
An Exhortation to Peace and Unity
Read An Exhortation to Peace and Unity.
11. The Causes, Evils, and Cures of Heart and Church Divisions, by Jeremiah Burroughs and Richard Baxter
Two Puritans on why Christians divide and how to heal it, abridged by Francis Asbury for American Methodists. Burroughs traces divisions to pride and other "distempers" of the heart. Baxter gives directions to people and pastors for keeping peace.
God shows that he can own us, notwithstanding all our infirmities; why should not we own our brethren, notwithstanding their infirmities?
The Causes, Evils, and Cures of Heart and Church Divisions, Distempers That Divide
Read it here. See Richard Baxter's books.
Going deeper
12. Charity and Its Fruits, by Jonathan Edwards
Edwards' lectures on 1 Corinthians 13 are the deepest classic on the subject. He argues that all saving virtue is summed up in love, and his last lecture, on heaven as "a world of charity or love," is famous on its own. Our copy still has some scanning errors, so read it after the books above. Read Charity and Its Fruits, and see Jonathan Edwards' books.
Thomas Chalmers' sermon "The Expulsive Power of a New Affection," in his Sermons Preached in St. John's Church, Glasgow, is the classic statement of one more truth about love: the only way to drive the love of the world out of a heart is to fill it with a greater love, the love of God. This copy also has scanning errors, but the sermon is worth the effort.
Where to begin
Read Drummond today. Then take one of Drummond's nine ingredients of love each week and ask God for it. When you want to go deeper, Murray and Jowett will take you back to the source. For the character that love produces, see our guide to the best Christian books on humility.