Read For Root, Not Just Fruit | Clip from How to read as a Christian

Reading for Root Truths, Not Just Fruit Solutions

Another good principle, reading being guided by a focus on the great root truths, not just the fruit truths. And what I mean by that is that to give the lion's share of our reading to those books which deal with the most fundamental objective realities behind the so the character of God, the work of redemption, the walk of the Christian with God.

Not primarily running to what I think of as kind of shortcut books or quick fix books, so how to fix your marriage, how to fix your church, etc. Jeremy, how has you pursued reading.

Root Matters and Fruit Matters in Preaching and Reading

With regard to kind of root matters and fruit matters? I think that's an important distinction. I think, again, we've already talked a little bit about how the same sort of thing happens with preaching.

You have people who say, well, I want how-to sermons, tell me how to fix this, how to do that, five steps to this. But it's that principle, isn't it, of laying a foundation so that once you get the foundation laid, once you get the major building blocks in place, once you have the cornerstone and the other key elements, then you can begin to build up onto that and around that and from that guided and established.

Knowing God, Union with Christ, and the Source of Spiritual Fruit

So if you get the bedrock principles right, if you know who God is, if you understand that the nature and the character of the Almighty, if you begin to understand the person and the work of the Lord Jesus, if you're grasping something of the ministry of the Holy Spirit, then there's going to be a fundamental reorientation or calibration so that with regard to some of these other matters, they are falling more naturally into place.

I mean, you could preach or write a book or a hundred books on a particular topic, but if you're not properly in union and communion with God in Christ by His Spirit, if you don't understand the nature of regeneration, the pursuit of godliness, then all of these things are going to be disconnected from the root itself and the fruit then will never truly come.

Cultivating Healthy Fruit from Good Ground

So I'd agree with you and we're not saying don't worry about the fruit. You have to cultivate the fruit, but that fruit grows on a plant that is established in good ground. That root has to be right if the fruit's going to be healthy.

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