On Reading

For the first 18 years of my life, I hated reading.  Seriously.  If I had to choose between pulling weeds, chopping firewood, file my taxes, or read a book, one thing's for sure...  I would never have chosen to read a book.  This even included reading my bible.  As a Christian, I knew that reading my bible (along with prayer) was the only way I could commune with the God I loved.  But the times I spent in His Word would sadly be short because I loathed reading.  Then, during the summer of my freshman year of college, God did a work in me that only He could have done.  I picked up a copy of Desiring God by John Piper and read it fervently to the end.  Since that time, I haven't stopped reading.

I now look back on those years when I hated reading and see one thing.  Pride.  Reading is an act of humility.  The act of reading says this:  "I don't know everything.  In fact, there are many other people out there who know much more than I do.  So I'm going to take some time out of my day to have a conversation with someone else about the things of God."  Reading our bible is a given.  God has spoken to us and has written it done in the form of a book so that we could read it.  We have to do this daily.

But we begin to walk a slippery slope when we read our bible in isolation, with only our own interpretations.  Theology must be done in community.  That's why we have bible studies, where we can gather together to discuss God's Word.  That's why we gather at coffee shops with friends to talk about the hard questions of the Christian faith.  And that's why we read.  We read to converse with other Christian saints (living and dead) around the globe about the things of God.  I cannot tell you the profound influence that men like John Piper, Jonathan Edwards, DA Carson, and Charles Spurgeon have had on my life, and I have never even met them (besides John Piper... I met him at T4G 2010. But I think you still get my point.).

Take it from a former book-hater.  We are not as smart as we think we are.  Let's humble ourselves and gather together in community with the friends around us, the living Christians around the globe, and the past saints of old to push one another closer to the God we love.

And if you don't listen to me, at least hear the prodding of the late English pastor, Charles Spurgeon.  Here's a quote from his sermon on 2 Timothy 4:13 ("When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, also the books, and above all the parchments" ).

"We will look at Paul’s books. We do not know what the books were about, and we can only form some guess as to what the parchments were. Paul had a few books which were left, perhaps wrapped up in the cloak, and Timothy was to be careful to bring them.

Even an apostle must read. Some of our very ultra-Calvinistic brethren think that a minister who reads books and studies his sermon must be a very deplorable specimen of a preacher. A man who comes up into the pulpit, professes to take his text on the spot and talks any quantity of nonsense is the idol of many. If he will speak without premeditation, or pretend to do so, and never produce what they call a dish of dead men’s brains – oh, that is the preacher!

How rebuked they are by the apostle! He is inspired, and yet he wants books! He has been preaching for at least thirty years, and yet he wants books! He had seen the Lord, and yet he wants books! He had had a wider experience than most men, and yet wants books!

He had been caught up into the Third Heaven and had heard things which it was unlawful for a man to utter, yet he wants books! He had written the major part of the New Testament, and yet he wants books! The apostle says to Timothy, and so he says to every preacher, “Give attendance to reading” (1 Tim. 4:13).

The man who never reads will never be read. He who never quotes will never be quoted. He who will not use the thoughts of other men’s brains proves that he has no brains of his own.

Brethren, what is true of ministers is true of all our people. You need to read. Renounce as much as you will all light literature, but study as much as possible sound theological works, especially the Puritanic writers and expositions of the Bible."

Thanks to Trevin Wax for pointing me to this quote from Spurgeon.