I wish every Christian in the world would read Preston Sprinkle’s Exiles: The Church in the Shadow of Empire. I highly recommend it as hands down the best exposition of Biblical political theology I have yet to run across. One foremost strength is his approach: letting the unfolding of the Kingdom of God through redemptive history speak for itself and only then (briefly) considering applications of those lessons to today, rather than seeking to surgically extract answers to the hot questions of the modern context which the text itself is not directly oriented towards addressing.

Rarely have I read a book with such Scriptural faithfulness, relevance, readability, and importance as to wish that every member of the global church(!) would hear and absorb its message. “Desiring God” has held that status in my esteem since the 90s. “Mere Christianity,” “Knowing God,” Andrew Murray’s “Jesus Himself,” and Sproul’s “Holiness of God” are likewise universally relevant and valuable for the body of Christ as a whole. But given the fact that the much-neglected and much-misunderstood “Kingdom of God” is arguably the main theme of the Old Testament, the gospels, and the book of Revelation, I would say that Sprinkle’s Exiles is now pretty near the top of books outside the canon which I would suggest all folks prioritize reading.

Indeed, the Kingdom of God is such a central Biblical theme, there remains much more to be said and considered and studied and applied than the relatively quick overview found in Exiles. But I count that as a feature of the book rather than a bug. I am able to recommend Exiles to Christian friends and family who hold widely(!) differing views on many hot-button topics of the day and honestly say to them that even if our downstream applications end up looking (very) different, I personally believe that the foundational framework in Exiles can and should serve as something of a common consensus among all who “seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.”