Books for Every Season: Resources to Read Through the Church Year

Wed, 29 Apr 2026 18:21:00 GMT

Reading with the Church Through the Year

The church year is one of Christianity's oldest gifts to its people. For centuries and across traditions, Christians around the world have been ordering their lives around a shared calendar that moves through the story of Christ's life, death, and resurrection and invites us to inhabit that story season by season.

Whether you've observed the liturgical calendar your whole life or are just discovering it, this page is your guide to IVP resources organized by the rhythms of the church year. You don't need to belong to a particular tradition to observe and benefit from these seasons. The church year belongs to the whole church.

How to use this page: Browse by season to find books that fit where you are right now, or explore the full collection to build a year-round reading life rooted in the historic Christian story.

"No Country for Two Kings"

Mon, 09 Oct 2023 11:00:00 GMT

By Leslie Leyland Fields, coeditor of A Radiant Birth

How fitting that the Advent season often comes during the U.S. election season. I would not have designed it so, but here we are, and I cannot turn away. Two kingdoms are in the offering. Both are offering light and hope and promises of peace. Both are asking for singular allegiance. Both will spare no means to that end. So has it always been since the radiant birth of our Savior in that dim Bethlehem cave. As Advent opens up before us once again, we get another chance to choose.

"No Country for Two Kings"

A king is come. There is no bed

in hostel or hearth for a girl

bursting with child. No bed for a birth

and less room for a king, no matter how infant

and Hebrew he is, no matter how long

the signs of his coming. See,

there he lies among dung and black sheep

in a two-mule town:

This is no place for a king.

But Herod hears. When you're the solo royal

any rumor of a rival is good enough

to make the mad exchange:

1000 babies dying for his crown,

1000 mothers wailing grief

for his relief.

This is no country for two kings.

And when that child grows up crude

with tools and wood, yet dares to rule

over sickness, greed and fear,

he wins a timber throne, is crowned

with thorns and irony—

King of the Jews.

The signs are clear:

this is how kings are kept,

how man redeems:

Yes, let all the children die for me,

while another, lifts his bloody head, decrees

Let me die to make my children royalty.

This is no country for two kings.

Content - Christmas Category

Books for Every Season: Resources to Read Through the Church Year

Reading with the Church Through the Year

"No Country for Two Kings"

By Leslie Leyland Fields, coeditor of A Radiant Birth

"No Country for Two Kings"