“A wisdom seeker will
read a great book, savour it, and reread it in the future”
(Tony Reinke, Lit!)
My leader asked me, “You read a lot of books, is this a form of
escapism for you?” My answers was (and is): “Yes, in one sense it is for the purpose of escape, but not so much as
escapism. I’m not reading to avoid reality, but I do read to temporarily escape
to another world.” For me what’s dangerous is when we read to escape from reality. What I’m promoting is that
we read to escape to another world
where we get help, encouragement and inspiration in order for us to return home
to reality. Great books – Christian books or non-Christian books – can
bring glory and honour to God, the Giver of Thought and Word, when those books
help me to see more of God’s greatness, beauty and creativity. To these kind of
books I want to escape to.
As Christians who treasure
an ancient book – the Bible – we by new nature in Christ also (can or/and
should) esteem old books. To be honest, many contemporary ‘Christian’ books
today are not worth reading, and some are spiritually dangerous and somewhat
very shallow. Given the vast number of such books in the marketplace, we need
wisdom and discernment in what we read, lest we be unwittingly led astray.
Therefore, it is recommendable that we read wisdom-proved old/classic books. C.
S. Lewis values old books that he writes, “It
is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new
one till you have read an old one in between. If that is too much for you, you
should at least read one old one to every three new ones.”
Reading old/classic books
is a good way to gain the perspective we need to guard our hearts and minds in
this age of abundant nonsense and heresy. Having said that, I also would like
to recommend great contemporary books that I think should be listed as classic
(at least in my opinion). Here are my lists of classic and contemporary books
that I will surely reread it again and again:
My Top Classic Books
1. Knowing God (First
Published 1973) by J. I. Packer
2. Desiring God: Meditations of a
Christian Hedonist (First Published 1986) by John Piper
3. Celebration of Discipline: The
Path to Spiritual Growth (First Published 1978) by Richard Foster
4. Charismatic Chaos (First
Published 1992) by John MacArthur
5. Foxe’s Book of Martyrs
(First Published 1563) by John Foxe
6. The Pilgrim’s Progress
(First Published 1678) by John Bunyan
7. Mere Christianity (First
Published 1952) by C. S. Lewis
8. Spurgeon: A New Biography
(First Published 1984) by Arnold Dallimore
9. Bible Speaks Today Series: The
Message of 2 Timothy (First Published 1973) by John Stott
10. The Challenge of Mission
(First Published 1959) by Oswald J. Smith
11. The Holiness of God
(First Published 1985) by R. C. Sproul
12. The Mind on Fire: An Anthology of
the Writings of Blaise Pascal (First Published 1989) edited by James
Houston
13. Expository Thoughts on Matthew,
Mark, Luke and John (First Published 1857) by John C. Ryle
14. The Confessions of St. Augustine
(First known as “Confessions” written between AD397-400)
15. The Upside-Down Kingdom
(First Published 1978) by Donald B Kraybill
16. Whatever Happened to Worship?
(First Published 1985) by A. W. Tozer
My Top Contemporary Books (should be classic! Maybe some of it are)
1. God’s Passion for His Glory:
Living the Vision of Jonathan Edwards (First Published 1998, but
Jonathan Edwards’s The End For Which God Created the World was published in 1765)
by John Piper
2. Don’t Waste Your Life
(First Published 2003) by John Piper
3. The Supremacy of God in Preaching
(First Published 1990) by John Piper
4. Ashamed of the Gospel: When the
Church Becomes Like the World (First Published 1993) by John MacArthur
5. Eat This Book: A Conversation in
the Art of Spiritual Reading (First Published 2006) by Eugene H.
Peterson
6. Jesus the King: Understanding the
Life and Death of the Son of God (First Published 2011) by Timothy
Keller
7. Beautiful Outlaw: Experiencing
the Playful, Disruptive, Extravagant Personality of Jesus (First
Published 2011) by John Eldredge
8. Lit!: A Christian Guide to Reading
Books (First Published 2011) by Tony Reinke
9. Unlocking the Bible: A Unique
Overview of the Whole Bible (First Published 2003) by David Pawson
My favourite preacher,
Charles H. Spurgeon, writes this about rereading books: ““Master those books you have. Read them thoroughly. Bathe in them until
they saturate you. Read and reread them…digest them. Let them go into your very
self. Peruse a good book several times and make notes and analyses of it. A
student will find that his mental constitution is more affected by one book
thoroughly mastered than by twenty books he has merely skimmed. Little learning
and much pride comes from hasty reading. Some men are disabled from thinking by
their putting meditation away for the sake of much reading. In reading let your
motto be ‘much not many.” Now, go, read book!
THINK BIG.
START SMALL. GO DEEP.
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