BOOKS-READING
Why does
today's Christian find the reading of great books always beyond him? Certainly
intellectual powers do not wane from one generation to another. We are as smart
as our fathers, and any thought they could entertain we can entertain if we are
sufficiently interested to make the effort. The major cause of the decline in
the quality of current Christian literature is not intellectual but spiritual.
To enjoy a great religious book requires a degree of consecration to God and
detachment from the world that few modern Christians have. The early Christian
Fathers, the Mystics, the Puritans, are not hard to understand, but they
inhabit the highlands where the air is crisp and rarefied, and none but the
God-enamored can come.
The printed
page never flinches, it never shows cowardice; it is never tempted to
compromise. The printed page never gets tired; it never gets disheartened. The printed page travels cheaply- you can be
a missionary for the price of a stamp. It requires no building in which to
operate. The printed page works while you sleep. It never loses its temper in
discussion. And it works when you are gone from the scene. The printed page is
a visitor that gets inside the home and stays there. It always catches a man in
the right mood. It speaks to him only when he is reading it. It never answer’s
back and it sticks to the point.
An adventure
awaits us in reading Christian books. Once we see the connection between the
Word of God and the books we read, we will embark on a search and discovery
mission in the expanding field of human knowledge, where all truth is God's
truth and Jesus Christ is the center that holds all things together. A nonreading Christian is a contradiction in terms. With the
Bible as our primary source, we read other books that serve as teaching tools
for the Holy Spirit in order that we may become men and women of God,
"thoroughly equipped for every good work."
How
to Read a Christian Book, 2001, p. 27. Used by
permission of Baker, a division of Baker Book House Company.
Interior
decorators tell us that the items on a coffee table reveal the personality of
the family. With this thought in mind, in our home my wife and I have open
Bibles on our coffee tables in the living and family rooms so that all visitors
will know that the Word of God shapes the personality of our home. Remembering
that children become readers by picking up books around the house and seeing
their parents reading, we also keep Christian books we are reading next to the
Bible on the coffee table.
How to Read a Christian Book, 2001, p. 31. Used by permission of Baker, a division of Baker Book House Company.
While quality
writing is important when judging a book, Christian books should meet an even
higher standard. Because the canon of Scripture is the final authority for the
revelation of God's truth, all other Christian writing is commentary. This
means that all Christian writing should be judged against the standard of the
Word of God.
How
to Read a Christian Book, 2001, p. 44. Used by
permission of Baker, a division of Baker Book House Company.
Immature
readers of Christian books will take one book and view it as the summation of
whole truth. More mature readers, however, will hold one book in abeyance until
they have a chance to read other sources on the same subject. Then, always
looking through the lens of the God-breathed Word, they put different
viewpoints into the perspective of the whole, relate the viewpoints one to
another, and draw them together into a composite conclusion without sacrificing
the truth.
How to Read a Christian Book, 2001, p.
67. Used by permission of Baker, a division of
Baker Book House Company.
It seems odd
that certain who talk so much of what the Holy Spirit reveals to themselves,
should think so little of what he has revealed to others.
Next to the
Bible, the book that I value most is John Bunyan's Pilgrim’s Progress. I
believe I have read it through at least a hundred times. It is a volume of
which I never seem to tire.
C.H. Spurgeon
Master those
books you have. Read them thoroughly. Bathe in them until they saturate you. Read
and reread them, masticate and digest them. Let them go into your very self. Peruse
a good book several times and make notes and analyses of it. A student will
find that his mental constitution is more affected by one book thoroughly
mastered than by twenty books he has merely skimmed. Little learning and much pride
comes from hasty reading. Some men are disabled from thinking by their putting
meditation away for the sake of much reading. In reading let your motto be
“much not many.”
Letters to My Students
Be careful
what books you read, for as water tastes of the soil it runs though, so does
the soul taste of the authors that a man reads.
Remember that
it is not hasty reading, but serious meditation on holy and
heavenly truths, that makes them prove
sweet and profitable to the soul. It is not the mere touching of the
flower by the bee that gathers honey, but her abiding for a time on the flower
that draws out the sweet. It is not he that reads most, but he that meditates
most, that will prove to be the choicest, sweetest, wisest and strongest
Christian.
Before
picking up a book, ask yourself: Would Christ approve of this book? Will it
increase my love for the Word of God, help me to conquer sin, offer abiding
wisdom, and prepare me for the life to come? Or could I better spend time
reading another book?
Feed My Sheep, ed. Don Kistler, Soli Deo Gloria Ministries, 2002, p. 120.
Read as an
act of worship. Read to be elevated into the great truths of God so that you
may worship the Trinity in Spirit and in truth. Be selective about what you
read, however. Measure all your reading against the
touchstone of Scripture. So much of today’s Christian literature is froth,
riddled with Arminian theology or secular thinking. Time is too precious to
waste on nonsense. Read more for eternity than time, more for spiritual growth
than professional advancement.
Feed My Sheep, ed. Don Kistler, Soli Deo Gloria Ministries, 2002, p. 120.
In my library I have profitably dwelt among the shining lights,
with which the learned, wise, and holy men of all ages have illuminated the
world.
Let all writers have their due esteem, but compare none of them
with the Word of God. We will not refuse their service, but we must abhor them
as rivals or competitors. It is the sign of a distempered heart that loseth the relish of Scripture excellency.
Seven
benefits of books over preached sermons:
1.
You
may read an able preacher when you have but a mean one to hear.
2.
Every
congregation cannot hear the most judicious or powerful preachers, but every
single person may read the books of the most powerful and judicious.
3.
Preachers
may be silenced or banished, when books may be at hand.
4.
Books
may be kept at a smaller charge than preachers.
5.
We
may choose books which treat that very subject which we desire to hear, but we
cannot choose what subject the preacher shall treat.
6.
Books
may be at hand every day and hour, when we cannot have sermons but seldom, and
at set times.
7.
If
sermons are forgotten, they are gone, but a book we may read over and over till
we remember it; and if we forget it, may again peruse it at our leisure, or at
our pleasure.
Richard Baxter
Quoted
in: Why Read a Good Book? Christian Communicators Worldwide, www.CCWtoday.org. Used by Permission.
Beware that you are not swallowed up in books! An ounce of love is
worth a pound of knowledge.
When buying
books remember the following:
1.
Buy
only the best books since you will only read a few hundred in your lifetime.
When possible seek a recommendation first.
2.
Don’t
excessively fret over the price, since the cost of a book is always small if it
impacts your life for good.
3.
Buy
to preserve the truth for your family or some deserving friends or institution
in the future, for they will inherit your library when you die.
4.
Never
let the reading of books replace the reading of the Bible. Instead of one or
the other, do both.
5.
Let
a good book humble you and not make you proud, by seeking God in what you read.
Jim Elliff
Why
Read a Good Book? Christian Communicators Worldwide, www.CCWtoday.org. Used by Permission.
Value all
books in proportion as they are agreeable to Scripture. Those that are nearest
to it are the best, and those that are farthest from it, and most contrary to
it, the worst.
Thoughts for Young Men