Take Care How You Read | Behold Your God Podcast

Hey, I'm Matthew Robinson, director of Media Gratiae, and I'm here at Christ Church New Albany again with my good friend and pastor, John Snyder, author of The Behold Your God Study and pastor of Christ Church New Albany.

We're here at Christ Church New Albany again in your library. John, we're surrounded by at least a couple thousand volumes, so obviously you feel that Christian books are helpful. Our subject today is how to benefit from Christian books.

So tell us some of the ways that, I mean, why have you found books to be good and helpful and how do you navigate which ones are good and aren't good? These are the things that we want to talk about today.

Yeah, I really think that Christian books can be a significant help to us. They can do the soul good. They can be friends that walk alongside of us even when we're not in church with other Christians, when we're just alone and we have some quiet moments to read.

Now Christian books aren't the Scripture, of course, and there is more value in one phrase of the Bible than in a library. But Christian books, I believe, are a gift from the Lord. They are a tool that He's given us.

And the reason I think that is because we know that the Scriptures teach us, Ephesians for example, that God has given gifts to the church. And one of the gifts that He gives is teachers. And so while teachers are not on the same level as Scripture, as they bring Scripture to us and help us to understand what it means, how do you live on those things?

It's a real gift to the church. So when we have Christian books, we have the teaching of teachers who many of them have already passed on and we can invite them into our lives and we can sit down and listen to what they learn through their studies of the Scripture.

And sometimes these are men or women that lived two, three, four, five hundred or more years ago. Now I think that there are different categories and they have to be treated differently. Of course, we have the Scriptures, but how do our Christian books connect to that?

Well, we could say there's a foundational category. There are commentaries, Bible dictionaries, concordances. And these are books that help us to directly deal with the text, to understand what is it saying and how does that apply to us.

But then there are also historical helps like confessions, catechisms, where believers who have gone before us have gathered together. And this is not just one man or a couple of people's opinions, but this is generally a wide range of pastors, usually theologians, who have given a lot of thought to understand how do we summarize the key statements of Scripture and how do they fit together, which is not always easy.

And so those are foundational. But then that leads us to devotional books. How do we take those truths and apply them in a warm and an experiential way to our lives today? And finally, the last category I want us to think about today would be biographies.

How do we see the foundational truths of Scripture explained, connected, warmly applied, and lived out? Well, one of the ways we have is the great benefit of seeing that illustrated in the life of a believer.

Now each of these, and let's just take those last two categories today, devotional works and biographies. Each has their purpose in the Christian life, but each also has a danger. And there are dangers that we need to be aware of so that we can benefit from these but not be damaged by them.

Obviously, I think that reading good Christian books is a great benefit to the Christian life. But I also believe that just going to a religious bookstore and picking up books off the shelf that seem interesting, you could give a lifetime to reading books indiscriminately, carelessly so to speak, but zealously.

And you could, at the end of your life, be no better for all that effort. In fact, I think many people are damaged by just picking up the newest Christian book or the newest religious book and just giving it access to all their life.

Yeah, I think about Charles Spurgeon from his little book, The Greatest Fight in the World, which I think was a speech or a talk that he gave to a group of evangelical pastors after the controversy there.

And he said, You may also get great harm from divines in whom there is much pretense of the Jerusalem dialect, but their speech is half of Ashdod. These will confuse your mind and defile your faith. It may chance that a book which is upon the whole excellent, which has a little taint about it, may do you more mischief than a thoroughly bad one.

So what would you make from Spurgeon's advice there?

Yeah, there are some guidelines that personally I use for my own walk with the Lord in how I approach books, because not all books are the same. Not all books are equally helpful and some are downright dangerous.

And then there are also guidelines, I try to apply that as a pastor. How do you recommend books to younger believers or older believers who come to you and they say, Well, hey, I found this book at the Christian bookstore.

What do you think of it? Well, you don't want to always be, you know, so negative. You want to be able to encourage people in reading. You want to give them the very best books so that they don't waste their time.

And we don't have time to read every okay book. We really only have time to read the very best. And so I do have these guidelines. My first guideline is to ask myself this, How does following Jesus Christ affect my Christian library, affect my Christian reading?

And that might seem a little strange at first because we don't have any example in scripture of Jesus showing up at the local Jewish bookstore. So did he buy Banner of Truth, Crossway, Evangelical Press, Reformation Heritage books?

I mean, where would Jesus shop online? I think if we look at the basic principles that Christ gives us, it does help. And there are two in particular. One is the command to beware what we hear. So when we're purchased by a king and brought out of a kingdom of darkness and deceit, and we're brought into the kingdom of light, and we belong to the one being who can say, I am the truth, then we no longer are free.

We're no longer at leisure to bring error into our life and say, well, it doesn't hurt too bad. I can figure things out. So we want to be very sure that what we read is as close as possible to the truth of our king.

Another command that he gives is not only be careful what you hear, but also be careful how you hear. If truth comes from our king, and we are subjects of a king, and we're not autonomous, we're not here just to figure our way out and to live by what we think's best as if there were no king, then how we respond to the truths that we're finding in good Christian books is pretty important to Christ, and it affects his honor.

But books aren't always the same. Here's what I mean. I think of myself walking into a room, and there's just a great banquet, all right? And I have a hungry soul. I've been living in the world, and I've been talking to people who are needy, and my own soul is hungry.

And, of course, there's the Scripture, and that's the main food. But then there's also this. And so I walk into the room, and there's three tables at the banquet. One, I would say, is a table full of the very best food by the best chefs.

Everything there tastes good, and everything there is good for me. And that's the kind of table you could go to. And you don't even necessarily know what you call all these fancy foods, you know, but you know that you could put everything on that table could go on your plate, and you'd be okay.

And to me, that represents the very best of books. There are authors that I think are, that I trust so much that I'm willing to just open the door of my heart and let the author come in and sit in the living room of my soul and say anything he wants to me.

And I'm not on guard. I'm very happy to have that book. I'm very happy to take everything from that table. Then there's another table. The other table is full of poison and rot. And everyone that eats at that table, everyone that eats anything from that table, without exception, is hurt, is sick, is damaged.

And those are the bad books. Those are authors that I don't trust them at all. And the things they say, even though they use religious language, they may even say the same things that we would say. They talk about Jesus.

They talk about happiness. They talk about being effective in His kingdom, having a purpose in your life. But when you compare that to Scripture, they really haven't been careful. And so, those are books that I don't even pick up.

But then there's a third table. Now, this is the, in some ways, this is the most dangerous and the most difficult. And the third table is a table in between those two. And it's a table with authors who say a lot of good things, but they also say a lot of bad things.

It's not just that we disagree with them on secondary areas. I'm a Baptist. He's a Presbyterian, so I can't trust him. Not that at all. But there are authors who are very clever, very capable writers.

And sometimes, they say things that are so helpful. But at other times, they say things that are so wrong on key doctrines, like justification. And so, one author may be really good when he talks about raising children, or educating your family, or how to do church.

But when he talks about the doctrine of justification, he's dead wrong. And so, those are books that I think, as you mentioned with Spurgeon's quote, those are books that really, I would recommend that we leave alone.

If you have to use them, you have to be very discerning and careful.

Yeah, so I think all this can be kind of overwhelming, especially initially. So, let's say that someone is converted. Maybe they've gone from a church where it's just a direct line. Everything that comes down the so-called Christian publishing pipe goes right into their diet.

And they've just read indiscriminately their entire life. And then, maybe they come into a more careful church. They become more careful in their own theology and approach. And so, they walk into a bookshop.

How do they know how to distinguish? Is every old book good and no new books are good? Clearly, that's not the case. That can't be what we go by. So, how do you distinguish between these kinds of things?

Yeah, that really is a challenge. I remember when I first came to the Lord. It was at age 20, in the midst of studying for the ministry at a Christian college. And I had a lot of devotional books already.

But as I began to grow as a Christian and began to study the Bible with my eyes opened, I began to realize that a lot of my Christian books were, they were taking up space on my shelf that they didn't need to be there.

And I had to do some trips to the garbage can, you know, and to replace them with what I felt were the better books. So, how do you know? I went to a college with a lot of godly friends, but they didn't read very much either.

And so, we were all kind of a bit confused. Well, where do we start? Well, there are a number of guidelines that I've used for myself and would recommend for others. One is what you mentioned, the age of a book.

Old things are not better than new things just because they're old. And new things are not better than old things just because they're new. But, what happens with marketing? There is a really helpful thing.

If a book was written a couple of hundred years ago, and it just wasn't that helpful to people through the centuries, it doesn't tend to be republished over and over. So, many of the older writers, we think of Puritans, for example, or Jonathan Edwards, or some of the 18th century writers, and since then, many of the older writers wrote things that weren't so good.

Not Jonathan Edwards and the Puritans, but they were bad writers, and they didn't get republished. So, the books that we have from two, three, even four hundred years ago tend to have been the very best of that century.

So, that's one place I look. Is it an older writer, and his material is so good, it's been republished for four hundred years? Generally, that's a good sign. But, there are other things. And the main thing, of course, is does it match Scripture?

But, here's the trick. A man may be quoting Scripture, as we mentioned, but he may not really be teaching what the Bible's teaching, even though he's using the same words as the Bible uses. So, my counsel, and this is not easy, but it's essential.

My counsel is that as you read a book, you ask yourself, does the general flavor, the general bent of this book, the general overall approach to Christianity, to God, to whatever area it's dealing with, does it match the whole teaching of Scripture?

And not just one verse, not just one emphasis of the Bible. But, if you come to the Bible with this devotional book, and you lay them side by side, do they say the same thing to me as a whole? Another thing is you can look at the author.

If you can find an author you trust, then you probably can read other books he's written, and trust those as well. Now, one helpful thing is to read the authors that your favorite authors read. So, I remember in college, I read some John MacArthur, and I read R .C. Sproul.

And I read them, and I was really benefited. And I looked at Scripture, and I looked at what they wrote, and I thought, you know, they're saying the same thing. They're making it very clear, and they're boiling it down for me, but it's the same thing that the Scripture says.

Now, then I read where they mentioned their favorite authors. So, they may mention a Charles Spurgeon, or a Puritan, a John Owen, a Richard Sibbes. And I thought, well, who are these guys? I had never heard of them.

So, I went back and started to look for their books. So, read the heroes of your heroes. Read the authors of your favorite authors. So, in a sense, you get to go drink at the same fountain that they drink at.

So, I've used that. Another guideline I've used when I'm not sure about the book, I'm not sure about the author, is the publisher. There are publishers that we trust more than others. And so, one of my favorite publishers throughout the years has been The Banner of Truth.

But that's not the only good publisher. But I pretty much trust any book that comes from The Banner of Truth. Now, there may be authors that, again, on secondary issues, you disagree with them. But they are not going to give you a wrong view of God.

And they are not going to point you to an ungodly lifestyle. So, Banner of Truth is one. Reformation Heritage Books has published a lot of good things. And both of those companies have taken a lot of the old books and boiled them down.

The Puritan paperback series is one of my favorites. But there are other ones. There's Evangelical Press. There's many. And so, that's how I would say a young Christian could do. Go to the publisher if you don't know the author and you're not sure who to trust.

One more thing about that. Now that we have online shopping, it can be pretty difficult. It's not like you walk into a Christian bookshop anymore and you trust the man behind the counter or the lady and you say, I need a book on prayer.

Who could I trust? And they would say, oh, there's a wonderful book by John Bunyan on prayer. Well, you go to Amazon and you don't have anybody to tell you. You have a wide range, very different backgrounds talking about prayer.

And I would think that's a pretty dangerous approach. So, there are certain online retailers that I trust because they only sell books that they feel are very careful. And I would agree with them. One of them is a company called the Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com.

And so, they're a retailer, very low prices. And the books that they sell there, I always find helpful.

You've mentioned two categories specifically that you want to talk about today, devotional books and biographies. So, getting more specific, what are some guidelines that you've used and that you would suggest to other people as they approach those two genres of Christian books?

Yeah, let's take biography first. I think a wrong way to read biography, there are a number of them. Reading a biography and it becomes a substitute, reading another person's consecration, becomes a substitute for just the daily consecration of your own life, the daily obedience in the mundane tasks God has given you.

That's a danger. So, I read Spurgeon and it just seems like everything on the pages, I get this idea that everything in his life just glowed with a holy glow. And then I look at John Snyder's life and there's a lot of mundane, simple tasks that don't seem so spiritual.

And Tozer warned about this. Tozer said there can be an ungodly, unholy ambition that creeps in. We want to be great. I want to be a Spurgeon. I'm not happy to be a John Snyder who's faithful in the place that God puts John Snyder.

I want to be a great Christian. And so, we begin to complain. You know, you hear it in the way we talk. How, oh, if only I were like this. Or, you know, and we begin to bemoan. And it sounds so holy. It sounds so humble.

But Tozer warned it may be nothing more than an ungodly, undealt with pride that has come under a religious mask. So, be careful when you read biography not to look at their consecration and let it become a substitution for simple obedience in your life.

Not to look at their life and have an unholy ambition. I want to be great. Another way I think that's wrong to read biographies is admiring this person that you're reading about. So, a Robert Murray McShane.

But then you don't imitate him in the ways you ought to imitate him. So, like Paul said to the Corinthians, follow me because I follow Christ. Well, the biography can be like that to us. I can see where McShane followed Jesus Christ.

And I can follow him in the same way, at least in principle. So, if McShane wakes up and meets with the Lord, it's a reminder that John Snyder needs to wake up and meet with the Lord. If Hudson Taylor makes sacrifices for the gospel, it reminds me that John Snyder would need to make sacrifices for the gospel.

So, we see these truths printed on a human life. But it is very tempting to admire them, to talk about them, and not to follow them. One other thing I would say is there are times where we become so enamored with the individual we're reading about, particularly some of the more interesting peculiarities of their character in life, that we become more impressed with the person than with the image of Christ that's stamped on that person.

So, I can read Spurgeon and I can see some of the unique things of his life and some of the more peculiar things. So, I might read Spurgeon and then I might get caught up in the fact that he liked smoking cigars.

And so, you know, you get together with your friends, you go, man, did you know Spurgeon smoked cigars? Did you hear the quote? And you forget that the reason God allowed you to have that biography was to see the image of Jesus of Nazareth and to fall in love with Christ more as you're looking at the common life of a Charles Spurgeon.

So, it's not Charles Spurgeon that I love so much. It's the Lord Jesus Christ in the life of Charles Spurgeon that I find so impressive. So, I think those are all things that are dangerous. But what's the right way?

Biographies shake us. We look around at our Christian culture and we usually have a tendency to rise up to the level of consecration that's around us. And then we read these people, these men, these women of the past.

And it really bothers us. And we realize there is a level of holiness that I have allowed myself to think is no longer available to us. But it is. And there is a nearness to God that I thought maybe was just limited to the New Testament.

But it's not. And so, these people are like older brothers and sisters on the path ahead of us. And they turn around and they say to us, hey, this is no time to slow down. Pick up the pace. You can walk like this.

And while they're imperfect, of course, they have their own sins and struggles, they do really challenge us. And the final thing I would say, the good about biographies is, because of the imperfection, now some biographies ignore those, but the best biographies don't.

Because of the imperfections in these people, when we read them and we see their own soul agonies, their struggle in the prayer closet with God, their questions, when we read those, we know we're not alone.

We have the same agonies. We have the same struggles and the same questions. And we see the Lord Jesus meet them in that valley and bring them out. And it really brings a courage to us. He will do the same with us.

So that's biographies. But what about devotional books? I think some of the guidelines for those would be this. Choose the devotional books that give you the clearest help with the more important truths.

So there are a lot of truths in Scripture. But I would start particularly with books that help me to get the clearest view of God and the clearest view or the most accurate view of the Christian life.

Now, those are big categories. But it's very tempting to rush to the maybe what we would consider tertiary, you know, areas. So not primary or secondary. But like, well, okay, so how do I fix my wife?

Freudian slip. How do I fix my marriage? How do I fix my kids? How do I grow my church? Well, those books seem to be so attractive because they kind of take you from where you are to where you want to be in six easy steps.

I have not found those to be helpful. But a book that shows me the truth about God in a warm way, I find, eventually helps me reach those areas. Along those lines, read so as to become better acquainted with those great truths rather than reading to have a great experience.

If we can get those truths of the Scripture clearly, warmly applied to our lives and lived upon, we will have the experiences God wants us to have. But if we try to read a book so that we can have an experience that someone else had when they read the book, we may miss the truths.

We may pick books that lead, that promise us wonderful experiences but don't have much truth. And then we're in a dangerous territory. So read books that focus on the great truths and read for the truth, trusting that truth will produce experience.

We want to read books that have also two elements, light and heat. So in a sense, we don't want a book that is a spiritual book that is a fluorescent light bulb that gives us really bright crisp light but no heat.

We want, it's more like the fireplace, you know, we want to sit there. We want light because we want truth. But we want that light to be brought in a devotional book, to be brought to our souls in a warm experiential way so that the heart and mind are captured at the same time.

We want to also read, Tozer said this in one of his small editorials, when you're reading a devotional book, read until something in that book really grabs you. And then put your bookmark in there, shut the book and take that thought, shut the door, you know, to your room, kneel beside your bed, wherever you are and just let it drive you to God and to the Scripture.

Really, the use of the devotional book is not to replace a Bible but to warm our hearts and send us right back to the Scripture and back to God. So just stop, open the Scriptures and talk with God about the thing that you're learning from a devotional book.

And you don't want to get into the habit of thinking, I've got to finish that chapter today because that's not really what the devotional book is meant to do. So I think that having said all that, good Christian books can be like inviting some of the greatest Christians in the history of Christianity, Christians that died long before us, long before we were born.

And we can bring them into our lives and there is a sympathy of heart and there is a sympathy of thoughts and we hold communion with them. And they walk alongside of us the rest of our Christian life.

In a sense, sometimes I feel like the authors haunt you in a beneficial way. They're there to speak to you when you start putting your fingers in your ears. And we have them until we see those people face to face when on that great day Christ gathers the entire kingdom together and we see Him clothed in His glory and we are clothed with that same glory.

Well John, thanks for taking time today to talk through these things with us. Hopefully these things have been helpful to you guys who are watching along. We're going to bring this part to a close now.

Before we do, I do want to tell you that in the show notes there will be links to the publishers that we talked about, some of the books that we talked about, some of the retailers. So take a look at those and go and see our friends.

We're going to bring this part to a close now and we're going to start the second part of our podcast, which is for our supporters. Media Gratia has a small group of monthly supporters that believe in the work that we do and that get behind us financially to help us create projects, documentaries, Bible studies, and other things that we do.

If you want to find out more about that, you can go to mediagratia .org and see the button that says Partner With Us. When you do that monthly, you'll be given access to the extended versions of these podcasts.

Today we're going to be talking about specific books that have been helpful to us over the course of our life and even recently, as well as what do you say to people who say, we shouldn't read what other people say, it should just be God and me and the Bible.

So things like that, if you're interested in that, take a look at mediagratia .org, become a monthly supporter and access that content. Thanks again for watching. Have a good week.