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Pastor's Pen
Stay up to date on the life of our church with Pastor Gary Turk's blog, updated monthly. His blog features devotional reflections, reports, observations, and more!Jul 2009
Read Any Good Books Lately?
03 July 2009 / 08:39 PM
As summertime approaches I find that writers in some of the magazines I receive list their summer reading recommendations. The idea is that summer offers us a little more leisure time and we ought to spend some of it reading and thus broaden our knowledge and our horizons.
I believe that reading is one of the essential parts of a growing mind. When we neglect reading we are starving our mind and stunting our mental growth. Warren Wiersbe, in an article taken from his book Victorious Christians You Should Know, says “reading is to the mind what eating is to the body: it provides nourishment….Many people are starving their minds by neglecting the nutritious volumes that are available for their reading.”
A.W. Tozer, in his book Man: the Dwelling Place of God, writes: “While it is impossible to live even a short time without learning something, unfortunately it is possible to live a long time and not learn very much….To think without a proper amount of good reading is to limit our thinking to our own tiny plot of ground. The crop cannot be large.”
Reading is an important element that all too many people neglect today. As Christians we need not only to be readers, but we need to encourage others to read. Reading is the building block of the mind, as well as our faith.
Because there is so much to read out there, we need to be very selective in our reading. Of course the Bible is the first and most important book we should be reading every day. Then we should be reading books that help build our faith, our lives, our homes, our relationships, etc. We should also be widely read, as that will broaden our knowledge and understanding of life and the world in which we live.
There is a lot of Christian fiction available today and some of it is quite good. However, a steady diet of good fiction is like a steady diet of fast food; it may fill you up and make you feel good but it isn’t very nourishing. I would encourage you to read biographies of great Christians, as well as those of other great men and women of history. Read the classics that have endured the test of time. Read books that stretch your mind. You’ll find many of these in our church library.
Whatever you do, read! The results will be more wonderful than you can imagine.
I believe that reading is one of the essential parts of a growing mind. When we neglect reading we are starving our mind and stunting our mental growth. Warren Wiersbe, in an article taken from his book Victorious Christians You Should Know, says “reading is to the mind what eating is to the body: it provides nourishment….Many people are starving their minds by neglecting the nutritious volumes that are available for their reading.”
A.W. Tozer, in his book Man: the Dwelling Place of God, writes: “While it is impossible to live even a short time without learning something, unfortunately it is possible to live a long time and not learn very much….To think without a proper amount of good reading is to limit our thinking to our own tiny plot of ground. The crop cannot be large.”
Reading is an important element that all too many people neglect today. As Christians we need not only to be readers, but we need to encourage others to read. Reading is the building block of the mind, as well as our faith.
Because there is so much to read out there, we need to be very selective in our reading. Of course the Bible is the first and most important book we should be reading every day. Then we should be reading books that help build our faith, our lives, our homes, our relationships, etc. We should also be widely read, as that will broaden our knowledge and understanding of life and the world in which we live.
There is a lot of Christian fiction available today and some of it is quite good. However, a steady diet of good fiction is like a steady diet of fast food; it may fill you up and make you feel good but it isn’t very nourishing. I would encourage you to read biographies of great Christians, as well as those of other great men and women of history. Read the classics that have endured the test of time. Read books that stretch your mind. You’ll find many of these in our church library.
Whatever you do, read! The results will be more wonderful than you can imagine.