{"id":5588,"date":"2015-06-12T00:00:30","date_gmt":"2015-06-12T05:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.twocities.org\/?p=5588"},"modified":"2015-06-11T20:09:37","modified_gmt":"2015-06-12T01:09:37","slug":"thoughts-on-reading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/?p=5588","title":{"rendered":"MOORE THOUGHTS ON READING"},"content":{"rendered":"

I asked a number of friends to answer the following question: If you could wave a magical wand which caused all Christians to read five books, what works would you pick?\u00a0Here are my suggestions with some recent reflection on reading:
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is fun to read haphazardly.\u00a0 Picking up whatever strikes one\u2019s fancy is quite enjoyable.\u00a0 This is better than not reading at all, but we will not benefit from what a more disciplined approach has to offer.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

For the Christian, we should read the kinds of things that increase our love for God and love for others.\u00a0 We know that the Bible is designed to do this, but I am speaking about reading material outside of God\u2019s Word.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is certainly important to read books written by non-Christians, especially the so-called \u201cgreat\u201d or \u201cclassic\u201d works.\u00a0 These have stood the test of time so we can be confident they will speak to us in ways we need to hear.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Time, however, is limited.\u00a0 If the highest goal of reading is to increase our love of God and love of others, it seems wise to give pride of place to works which intentionally seek to do just that.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

I am still formulating my own convictions here, but perhaps Augustine and Pascal should take priority over Voltaire and Emerson.\u00a0 I certainly would encourage Christians to read all four, especially since the latter two have taught me some invaluable things.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Indeed, the old adage that \u201call truth is God\u2019s truth\u201d still applies.\u00a0 However, books that don\u2019t care to increase our love for God and others require more effort and discernment on our part.\u00a0 More effort and discernment are not bad things per se, but we must clarify what are worthy priorities for our reading.<\/strong><\/p>\n

C.S. Lewis wrote an essay called \u201cOn the Reading of Old Books.\u201d\u00a0 If you have not read the essay, I highly recommend it.\u00a0 In short compass, Lewis offers many wise insights.\u00a0 Among other things, Lewis says we ought to strive to read one old book for every new book we read.\u00a0 \u00a0My somewhat tentative thoughts<\/i> here might want to tweak Lewis a bit.\u00a0 Perhaps the \u201cold books\u201d should be (heavily?) geared to works within the Christian tradition.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

How about first reading two so-called classics from the Christian tradition before tackling one outside the Christian tradition?\u00a0 It seems this would have a couple big advantages.\u00a0 It would encourage us to love better, and I need all the help there I can get.\u00a0 Furthermore, a reading plan like the one I propose here would give us greater ease in extracting \u201cGod\u2019s truth\u201d from authors who never intended to write anything of eternal worth.\u00a0 As I mentioned earlier, both Voltaire and Emerson have taught me important things.\u00a0 However, it is my reading of great Christian writers which help me to be more discerning when I am interacting with those who write from outside the Christian tradition.\u00a0 Great Christian writers definitely equip us to know how best to \u201cplunder the Egyptians.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

My five would be: Augustine’s Confessions, Pascal’s Writings, Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress, Chesterton’s Orthodoxy, and something\/anything by C.S. Lewis
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I asked a number of friends to answer the following question: If you could wave a magical wand which caused all Christians to read five books, what works would you pick?\u00a0Here are my suggestions with some recent reflection on reading: It is fun to read haphazardly.\u00a0 Picking up whatever strikes one\u2019s fancy is quite enjoyable.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,16,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity","category-reading","category-spiritual-life"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5588"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5588\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5592,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5588\/revisions\/5592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}