Give Attendance To Reading
Another Short Essay about Reading for Christians
If we went for a coffee today, I might get you to read this quote and tell me what you thought about it.
It’s from the last leafs of “John Jasper” by William E. Hatcher. The book was published by Larry Harrison of “Christian Book Gallery” in St. John, Indiana. He included some quotes and essays about reading in the back of the book.
“Give Attendance to Reading”
“Paul has not lost his delight in books, even when he is near his death,” said John Calvin. He alluded to Paul’s counsel, “Give attendance to reading,” written from his prison in Rome. Down to the moment that he prepared for death, Paul was still the book lover!
There is his touching message to Timothy as the aging apostle pleads, “The cloak that I left at Torah with Carpus, when thou comets, bring with thee, and the books, but especially the parchments.”
Paul leaves no doubt in any mind that Christian preachers and teachers ought to be readers.
Of course there is always the danger of reading too much and thinking too little. Too much reading, however, is not a fault that many American pastors have taken time to acquire.
A visiting English preacher observed: “In America every minister has a fine car and a television set. He seems always to be talking on the telephone or rushing somewhere. But your ministers do not have libraries. In England our clergy do not have fine cars and usually no telephone, but our ministers do have libraries.
“Sell your shirt, and buy books,” was a motto that helped make Scotland a land of great preachers.
But the truth is, many a minister simply cannot afford to buy the necessary books. Therefore, every church ought to put into its budget, each year, a substantial sum for the purchase of books for its pastor. If this is not made an item in the budget, as it it ought to be, then his congregation ought to give the pastor money earmarked “for the purpose of books.” Books will enrich his mind, illumine his should, and enliven his preaching. “Much reading doth make a full man,” said Bacon.
In this respect, Catholics are far more alert and logical than Protestants. A Catholic publishing house writes to every Catholic: “Dear Catholic Readers: With a merry Christmas the Catholic way. Give Catholic books to everyone. Catholic books are among the best books that offer something of your most precious possession - your faith.”
Do not be surprised if your Catholic friends present you with a Catholic book. They are instructed to do so. Then why should not Protestants purchase and scatter books of the Gospel of redemption and freedom among their friends too.
The Communists make tremendous gains by promoting their books. It is time to scatter Christian books like the leaves of the autumn. When we buy a book on the Christian faith and give it to a non-believer, we are sending out a missionary. The Christian church must be a “propagandist society.”
Lincoln is a classic example of what a few books can do to educate and inspire a humble personality into greatness. In youth Lincoln read the Bible through six times. It is difficult to imagine what the history of America might have been had not that blessed Book been available to the boy Lincoln.
What better counsel have we after nineteen hundred years than teh dying Pal’s admonition, “Give attendance to reading”?
What do you think about that?
andy
