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Discernment is the ability to do three things: the ability to “test everything,” to “hold fast what is good,” and to “abstain from every form of evil” (1 Thess. 5:21–22).
This is why what we can learn about God by looking at his visible creation (general revelation) is limited. We need his word (special revelation) to help “see” what is invisible.
Viewed from this angle, the Reformation was “a recovery of the biblical centrality of words.”
Revelation (words) makes it possible for us to gaze into the unseen and see him by faith.
Because language enables us to believe in the unseen, language makes faith possible.
“Faith attaches itself to a thing that is still an utter nothing, and waits until everything comes about,” writes Martin Luther. “It is a knowledge and wisdom of darkness and nothingness, that is, of things which it has not experienced and are unseen and almost impossible.”12 Faith requires language.
God’s words and promises deliver hope to our souls. These words equip Christians to rest on their deathbeds, as they cling in their hearts to spiritual realities that they have never held i...
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Images can capture our attention, move our emotions, and provide us with a lifetime of God-glorifying aesthetic delight. But we must have revelation...
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The opposite of fragmentation is cohesion, and cohesion is vital to the Christian worldview. With language we can learn or express ideas, abstractions, the internal, and the unseen. Only language makes it possible for us to develop and understand and communicate a cohesive worldview
as a word-centered people we must learn to prize language in a visually-dominated world. If our hearts prioritize images over language, our hunger for books will erode.
Art may be powerless to save sinners, but it is a powerful tool to remind us of truth and to illustrate truth.
We are prone to revere images that are beautiful, and then to misuse them. We can make idols out of anything visual: crucifixes, icons of the saints, images of Mary, images of Jesus, the profile of a potato chip, the outline created by the water stain on a wall, etc. The danger is rooted in our hearts. Our tendency is to worship bronze and to ignore the God who heals the dying. Nevertheless, when language takes its proper priority in our lives, we can appreciate images and art as a source of God-glorifying beauty.
And on the glorious day when we see Jesus, our temporary faith in Jesus will be replaced by an eternal enjoyment of the sight of Jesus.
What we’ve read about God will be reconciled to what we see of God.
the difficult work required to benefit from books is at odds with the immediate appeal of images.
As Christians living in an image-saturated world, we must guard our conviction about the vital importance of words and language. For it is words and language that best communicate meaning.
The universe was conceived in God’s imagination and birthed by his spoken word
Even after sin entered into creation, mankind retained something of the image of God. The Bible reconciles the mystery of human splendor and wickedness. Man is complex. Man is a paradox. Man is both “the glory and the garbage of the universe.”4 “We human beings are a mystery to ourselves,” writes theologian Daniel Migliore. “We are rational and irrational, civilized and savage, capable of deep friendship and murderous hostility, free and in bondage, the pinnacle of creation and its greatest danger. We are Rembrandt and Hitler, Mozart and Stalin, Antigone and Lady Macbeth, Ruth and Jezebel.”5
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In the gospel of Jesus Christ we see our greatest need.
There is wisdom in non-Christian books that is consistent with Scripture and useful for wise living.
Throughout history Christians have appreciated portions of non-Christian wisdom, not because Christians have a high view of human authors, but because they have an exalted appreciation for the Giver who is the source of all moral goodness, even the moral goodness perceived in the conscience of a pagan writer (Rom. 2:14–16).12
All the elements and forms that are essential to religion (a concept of God, a sense of guilt, a desire for redemption, sacrifice, priesthood, temple, cult, prayer, etc.), though corrupted, nevertheless do also occur in pagan religions. . . . Hence Christianity is not only positioned antithetically toward paganism; it is also paganism’s fulfillment. Christianity is the true religion, therefore also the highest and purest; it is the truth of all religions. What in paganism is the caricature, the living original is here. What is appearance there is essence here. What is sought there can be found
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The imagination is a God-given ability to receive truth and meaning.
In an essay, C. S. Lewis wrote, “For me reason is the natural organ of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning.”
We read the Bible to know the heart of our God, to understand better the work of our Savior, to find spiritual food for our souls, and to discover God’s wisdom for our lives. Scripture is delightful, too, sweet to the soul and more valuable than gold (Pss. 19:10;
The bottom line is that no single book should receive more attention in our lives than Scripture. The Bible is the greatest book and our highest priority—it ignites us with spiritual light and life, it fuels us with eternal hope and grace, and it stokes us with inexhaustible pleasure and delight.
Often our frustration with slow reading stems from a wrong attitude—of viewing books as a task to be accomplished, not as a difficult pleasure to be enjoyed.
Christians can and should read literature simply for the pleasure of it.
C. S. Lewis made this point in chapter 7. By appreciating the beauty of literature, we honor God, the Giver of all beauty.
If we are honest, we admit that we don’t write things down to remember them; usually we write things down to forget them.
He was concerned with externalized knowledge replacing internalized wisdom.
The oral tradition encouraged a healthy fostering of internal wisdom; libraries of books would become crutches of external reminders.
Reading is a way to preserve and cultivate the sustained linear concentration we need for life.
Book readers must work to sharpen their attention. Like marathon runners who train daily to stretch their endurance, book readers must discipline themselves to read one book for thirty to sixty or ninety minutes at a time, struggling to increase their mental concentration. This will be impossible unless there are times when we are unplugged from the fragmented distractions of life.
Of all the people surrounded by data in the information age, Christians should be especially protective of the time required to slowly meditate (Proverbs 4).
Remember, it is not hasty reading, but serious meditating upon holy and heavenly truths, that makes them prove sweet and profitable to the soul. It is not the bee’s touching of the flower that gathers honey, but her abiding for a time upon the flower that draws out the sweet. It is not he that reads most, but he that meditates most, that will prove the choicest, sweetest, wisest, and strongest Christian.10
In order to feel deeply about spiritual truths we must think deeply. And to think deeply we must read deeply. And to read deeply we must read attentively, not hastily.
If we discipline ourselves to read attentively and to think deeply about our reading, we will position our souls to delight. But our souls cannot delight in what our minds merely skim.
We don’t read to read; we read to think.
“My own conviction is that fruitful study is primarily thinking, not reading,” John Piper says. “My guess is that reading, which was meant to become a stimulus and guide to independent thinking, usually becomes a substitute for it. The evidence for this is how many books we read and how little we write down.”1
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Readers who cherish wisdom will reread great books five or ten or even twenty times.
Always beware of an approach to reading books that fails to delight in wisdom.
First, old books are the best way to understand people and thoughts and debates from the past.
Second, Lewis argues that old books are trusted books.
They have been authenticated through the ages. A new book is still on trial, and its long-term value is yet to be decided.
Third, Lewis argues that old books freshen our minds from the stale air that settles in contemporary literature.
