Love With All Your Mind
Apply Your heart to instruction
and your ears to words of knowledge.
Proverbs 23:12
A few years ago theology never even crossed my mind, and I bought a lot of Christian books based on cover and not on content. And when reading them I only managed to finish the biographies; I had a short attention span and little perseverance when it came to non-fiction. (Nor did I have any appreciation for them, thinking at the time that I knew a lot!)
I rated sermons on how well they were delivered or whether the application at the end was challenging enough. And the way I read stories for years involved skipping over everything bar the parts with dialogue. It made for some confusing narratives, to be honest, and re-reading the Narnia books the second time around revealed some amazing new parts I could not remember in the slightest from the previous reading!
Now you’ll find that most (hopefully all) Christians agree it is important to read your Bible. You’ll also find that a lot of Christians believe it’s important to go further afield and read theological books as well. I’m in a camp that believes that we should be reading even more than that.
My mind goes back to a story about Jim Elliot, a missionary killed by the tribesmen in Ecuador he was reaching out to. While studying in university he ate healthily in accordance with his ideas ‘about preserving a rugged body for missionary work in the future’ (Shadow of the Almighty, 1958, p. 39), and took up wrestling, believing that ‘participation in some sport contributed to his training as a soldier in Jesus Christ’ (p. 45). While wrestling wasn’t a ‘Christian’ endeavour, the reasoning behind it was for Christ’s glory – if not in the present, then in the future.
I believe there should be a similar motivation in what we read – we should learn what this world believes, and it should send us back to the Bible to confirm and reaffirm our own beliefs.
We should learn about effective communication and marketing, so that our churches can break through and capture the attention of an advertising-saturated audience.
We should learn about design and aesthetics, so our creations will reflect the beauty of our Creator and raise people’s eyes heavenward.
We should learn business and finance management so that we can be wise stewards of our time and money.
We should learn new languages to communicate the truth more clearly to others and grow in our awareness of cultures other than our own.
But in all this, it is important to remember Paul’s warning that ‘knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know. But the man who loves God is known by God.’ (1 Cor 8:1-3).
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Further Reading
If you so wish!
The Art of Non-Conformity – Hints, life-hacks, tips, inspiration.
The Well-Read Christian – Why saints should read.
Between Two Worlds – Collection of mostly-Christian blog posts, articles, book reviews, videos and interviews.
Are You Easily Edified? – Challenging post from the Rebelution blog.
i like! always want to read more, never get the chance. got a few books by alastair mcgrath, apologetics re dawkins, etc.. someone said to me, “why don’t you just read dawkins direct??” and they had a point… not got round to it yet mind.
i’ve been finding that i like… stories. or maybe characters. dunno. i like reading comics when the story and characters are good. films… generally dont have very interesting stories, so i am more drawn by character.
but back to your original point… yes, we should be generally well-read.
Reading will always take more effort than it ever used to, I guess because there’s so many other forms of ‘leisure activities’ that are offered now that didn’t used to be offered. My parents own God Delusion and a commentary thing on it… Haven’t been that interested in reading it, though, because none of my contemporaries care either!
Stories are awesome. Fantastic actors are even better. What do you think of Shawshank Redemption though, character-wise and story-wise? Came free with the Sunday Times last weekend.
i don’t think it’s just about reading – it’s the idea of the renaissance man; well rounded and well informed in all subjects with a few specialties of which Leonardo Da Vinci (my hero) is a a prime example.
Dawkins tries to replace and ridicule God by scientific processes and social responses, which is his point of view and interpretation. He can never replace God as there are plenty of other questions that need explanations that he cannot give and won’t address – at best again it is his own interpretation and ideals presented as argument.
Shawshank Redemption was originally a short story by Stephen King (as were many Oscar worthy movie scripts). That man can create good stories whatever you may think of him. For a film, the most basic need is a good script, without that you can never build anything else.
Sure. And my take on it here is that it is mostly through reading that we get around to knowing a lot of this stuff; there is a place for educational TV programs and school but reading has the added benefit of sharpening your mind by increasing your vocabulary, literacy and perseverance (hard books will do that, anyway, not Jack and Jane or whatever).
With regards to Stephen King: yes, a great story teller. Yet Shawshank (the movie) was not a box office hit and only became popular years after its original release. Somehow the story wasn’t enough towards the beginning. Could have been because it had a first-time director.
Strangely enough I don’t think I’ve ever actually sat down and watched Shawshank – when I was younger I used to catch a lot of snippets of film – which, considering my brother likes to re-watch films now and then – probably means that I’ve seen the entirety of it,but in jumbled up snippets (sounds like memento!).
So, er… i can’t really say what i think of shawshank i’m afraid… =p
I agree, reading definitely sharpens the mind… there just is… no substitute for reading. i like a lot of manga, but dont necessary like the animated anime as it’s just so short and lacking in the time needed to develop characters, etc. i’m not much of a traveller, but i guess that as ppl say that travelling opens one’s mind and is an enriching experience in itself, the same can be said of reading.