Don't Abandon Scripture for Good Books | Clip from How to Read as a Christian

A fifth principle, the need to guard reading, as we read good books, even the best books that men write, they must not interfere with the book for the Christian, the scriptures. Let me give you a historical example.

John Wesley, John Berridge, and the Place of Good Books

John Wesley put together a set of Christian, what he felt was the greatest collection of the great Christian classics for his day, about 40 plus volumes. He edited them down, sometimes theologically, because strangely, the great majority of those books were Puritan writers.

But he felt that the Puritans were really good pastors. So he edited out some of the Puritan doctrine that he found offensive and kept what he agreed.

With.

Well, so let's leave that aside. He also made them smaller so they could be printed in small volumes, so they could be less expensive. Average Christians could afford these. And these were really meant for the young converts during the evangelical revival.

He encouraged all of his preachers to take sets of these with them in their saddlebags and to distribute them or to sell them, and it really wasn't a money-making venture. He wanted it to get into the hands of the people.

I remember one man that he encouraged to do this was a man named John Berridge, who was actually more, he was on the Calvinistic side of the revival, but they were friends. And Berridge was encouraged to get his people in the north of England reading these great Christian classics, and Berridge refused.

And I read a letter by John Wesley to a mutual friend that he and Berridge had saying, good reading is important for Christian life. He said, although Mr. Berridge does not agree with me. Now, the problem was this, it wasn't that Berridge didn't like Wesley's books because they had edited out the reform doctrines.

Berridge wrote back to the friend and he clarified the issue. It was that he had people who struggled with reading. They weren't very educated. He had poor people who could not afford the candles or the oil to read late into the night for very long.

Shepherding Christians to Read Scripture First

So with limited resources, mentally, perhaps time, certainly money, Berridge wanted them to devote what little time they had to reading the great book that God had written. And he was afraid if he recommended too many good books that men have written, that it would draw them off reading of scripture.

So let me ask you this, Jeremy, as a pastor, where, as we mentioned, there are many avenues for getting information now. How do you guide your folks that you shepherd in reading so as to guard against scripture being neglected?

One of the first things that we do is to simply encourage and exhort with regard to reading of the Bible. Now, you might say, why do you need to do that with God's people? Because it's often hard, because we can be distracted and discouraged.

We produce a simple sheet with the ability to tick off every chapter in the Bible. And I particularly encourage people often at the beginning of the year to take that sheet and to try and make their way through the whole scripture so that we're not cherry picking from one part or another.

When I go on a pastoral visit, I sit down, I'll often ask people, how are you getting on with your devotions, your private devotions or family worship? How are you engaging with the word of God? Is it feeding you?

Is it feeding you when it's preached publicly? Is it feeding your soul as you read it and dwell upon it and delight in it for yourself? Are you having any particular questions or problems with it? So I think just that general encouragement.

I want to preach the Bible in such a way that when people then read again, they say, oh, now I've got more of this. Now I understand this better. Now I'm beginning to see this more clearly. So as well as my, if you like, immediate pastoral investment in encouraging people to read, I want my general example and the impact of my ministry to be that the word of God truly becomes precious in the eyes of God's people.

Public Reading, Psalm 119, and Appetite for Divine Truth

Public reading of the scriptures as well in our church services can be a real help in this regard. We read Old and New Testament morning and evening, the new and the old. We read through the Psalms together.

We're just coming to the end of working away through Psalm 119 over a course of weeks. You look at the delight that that man takes in the written word of God, more precious to me than thousands of pieces of gold and silver.

So working through that and trying to encourage and to pray that that kind of example would get a hold upon our souls and fill us with the same kind of appetite for divine truth.

Good Preaching, Bible Reading, and the Priority of the Word

As you mentioned, good preaching drives people back to scripture in a way that they benefit even more from it. And I think that that's also a good guide for books. Does a book become a substitute for scripture, a substitute for the hard work that you mentioned of meditation, of really honest dealing between your soul and the Lord, of really finding room for those words on the page in the shoe leather of your life, even if you have to take a pickaxe to your life to make room for it.

And I find that to become more difficult as I grow older, not easier. As a baby Christian, every passage I read, I would automatically think, what has to change? And everything needed to change. I had just come to the Lord.

So, but after being a believer for 30 years and especially, you know, being in a profession where you're handling the word of God professionally, it is very tempting to forget that these words have to find a place in the life.

So yeah, I have to read my Bible as a man before I read it as a minister. And I have to prioritize it. And sometimes, but John Bunyan somewhere talks about finding the Bible dry as a stick. And you think, what, Bunyan, you know, you're struggling with the word of God.

Yeah, I'm trying to read it, but it just doesn't, there's just no juice here. And on the one hand, we don't want to turn it into a merely formal exercise. So we must pray that God would speak to us by his word, that his spirit would illuminate us as we read.

On the other hand, simply making it a priority. I will have a time every day where, regardless of what I feel as if I'm getting out of it, I will go to the word of God and I will hear what he has to say.

So, yeah, there's a real challenge. And you've mentioned that the passage of time as well. When you're a teenager in your 20s, life may seem busy, but then as responsibilities and opportunities accumulate, ensuring that the word of God remains our priority, will perhaps become more of a battle than otherwise.

And again, it's love for God that will help us to overcome those obstacles.

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