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You cannot cultivate affection for the Savior without reading and studying the Word of God.
Scripture is the ultimate grid by which we read every book. Scripture is perfect, sufficient, and eternal. All other books, to some degree, are imperfect, deficient, and temporary. That means that when we pick books from the bookstore shelves, we read those imperfect books in light of the perfect Book, the deficient books in light of the sufficient Book, and the temporary books in light of the eternal Book.
But nothing changed. My reading did not make me godly. I was powerless to obey the commands simply by reading them.
For to this day, when they read the old covenant [Moses], that same veil remains unlifted. . . . Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their hearts. (2 Cor. 3:14–15)
Sin blinds our hearts to the true meaning and purpose of the Bible, even if we carry well-highlighted copies in our hands. The problem is not with our Bibles; the problem is with our sinful hearts.
Sin darkens and deadens our spiritual perceptions. God must illuminate our hearts. God must act. God must remove the blindfolds.
“For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ”
The removal of a blindfold from the sinner’s spiritual eyes is a work of God’s sovereign grace. And once the blindfold is removed, the purposes of God’s law and commandments become clear.
It is possible to have a photographic memory and the capacity to remember everything you read with flawless recollection. But if the Spirit of God has not reached down and unwrapped the black veil from over from your heart, eternal truth will be pitch darkness to you.
Faith in Jesus brings with it a critically important benefit for the Christian reader—discernment. 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).
The grace of God in our lives is the foundation of all our discernment. Christian discernment begins when the veil is removed and we behold the glory of Christ.
Unbelievers, some of them, know more about God, his perfections, and his will, than many believers do; but they know nothing as they ought, nothing in a right manner, nothing spiritually and savingly, nothing with a holy and heavenly light. The excellence of a believer is not that he has a large grasp of things, but that what he does grasp, which may be very little, he sees it in the light of the Spirit of God, in a saving, soul-transforming light; and this is that which gives us communion with God.4
Gleaning facts and information is not the highest purpose of reading. Reading can be ultimately a means to eternally benefit our soul.
We tap into the eternal value of literature when we read in the presence of God, unveiled to the glory of our Savior.
Or as Martin Luther said, “To possess Scripture without knowing Christ, is to have no Scripture.”5
Without Christ, we remain blind to the most profound and glorious realities of the universe, we cannot understand the Bible rightly, and we cannot see and delight in the truth, goodness, and beauty of God that we read. And we cannot use our reading as a means of enjoying the presence of God.
“The cultural mantle has passed from the users of words to the makers of images.”3 And most of us have only known a world dominated by images: glossy magazines, wide billboards, corporate icons, realistic video games, 3D movies, and high-definition TVs.
This trend is troubling because the immediate appeal of visual entertainment is at odds with the gradual unveiling of literary treasure. Entertainment is passive and easy; books require an active mind and diligence. Books typically get ignored.
In part, the Old Testament is God’s struggle to lead a language-centered people through the allurements of an image-dominated world. And it makes me ask: are we safe?
“Paralleling the rise of the television-driven visual culture has been the collapse in confidence in language.”6
The concern is whether Christians (like us) will be patient enough to find meaning embedded in words, or if we will grow content with the superficial pleasures offered to us in the rapidly shifting images in our culture.
In four ways, words are better suited to communicate precise meaning.
1. Language Best Captures the Meaning of Visible Realities
Does he weep at the news that his child, once thought dead, is alive and healthy? I cannot tell from the picture whether the man weeps because of grief or relief. Without a caption, without an interview of the man, without more detail, the picture cannot provide any more meaning than what we can see on the surface of the image itself.
2. Language Best Communicates Invisible Realities
The Roman Catholic Church had attempted to teach religious truth to the illiterate through icons, paintings, and sculptures. Having refused to teach the Bible in the common language of the people, they turned to images, insisting that “images are the books of the unlearned.” But this idea was reckless, said the Reformers. John Calvin pointed out that while those images could capture life experiences and beauty, they were unable to teach eternal truth.9
3. Language Best Informs Our Eternal Hope
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 in their hands or seen with their eyes (Heb. 11:13).
4. Language Makes Worldview Possible
One thousand images stitched together may reveal a panoramic landscape, but they cannot capture a 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.
Scripture tells us that God appreciates visual art. In the Old Testament, God filled men with artistic skill in order to decorate both the tabernacle and the temple with beauty (Ex. 31:1–11; 1 Kings 6:1–7:51).
We do not yet live in the age of the eye; we live in the age of the ear, we live in the age of revelation and promises and books.16 The implanted desire to see God will be continually frustrated. For now we sing, “Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight.”
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.
But stories do more than entertain and inspire us. Stories make claims about the world in which we live. Stories can also inform the mind and edify the soul. If we have the right story, we can learn a lot about our world, our problems, and even ourselves.
it is impossible to be a discerning reader of books without first understanding the Christian worldview.
The human alienation from God breeds thinking (and the publishing of books) that is hostile toward God and ignorant of his true character (Romans 1–2; 12:2; 1 John 2:15–17).
The fatal problem with a nonbiblical worldview is that the fragments of truth, goodness, and beauty that are perceived can never be assembled into a cohesive picture of God’s world. The best non-Christian worldviews may include truth, but those random truths will never reveal the scope of God’s saving plan.
Scripture provides us with the only cohesive and consistent worldview. Scripture equips us to evaluate what we read in books, and helps us better perceive truth wherever it appears.
Christian poet T. S. Eliot wrote, “So long as we are conscious of the gulf fixed between ourselves and the greater part of contemporary literature, we are more or less protected from being harmed by it, and are in a position to extract from it what good it has to offer us.”13
the most treacherous spiritual dangers arise from theologically twisted books written by wolves in sheepskin. The greatest dangers arise when the gap is assumed to be small.
Luther is quick to affirm here that Scripture is pure and unadulterated in itself. But when a truth of Scripture is pulled out and warped in the hands of someone within the church, heresy is born.
1. Avoid Certain Books because of Timing
We have chosen to limit his private reading diet for the same fundamental reason that we don’t send young boys into war. For a young man to develop into a warrior, he first must learn the tactics of battle and develop the muscles and instincts of a warrior. So, too, our children—and those who are children in the faith—need time to grow the deep roots of a biblical worldview before being called to exercise that worldview against the force of culture displayed in non-Christian books.
2. Avoid Certain Books That Glorify Evil
We approach all books with a discerning mind and a guarded heart. If the author intends to glorify sin and unbelief, we should not read the book, unless our goal is criticism.
Scripture does not forbid us from reading books that include descriptions of evil.
3. Avoid Certain Books for Conscience’s Sake
The Universe Next Door: A Basic Worldview Catalog by James Sire,
All truth is from God; and consequently, if wicked men have said anything that is true and just, we ought not to reject it; for it has come from God.
