Growing Your Passion for Reading

Dru Ashwell, Executive Editor
College Press Publishing Company

”The Church will only go as far as her leadership.” 
--Chuck Swindoll

Readers are leaders and leaders are readers.
– Warren Wiersbe

“Bring. . .the books, especially the parchments.”
– the Apostle Paul, during his final imprisonment (2 Tim. 4:13, NASB)1

“He is inspired and yet he wants books.  He has had wider experiences than most men, and yet he wants books.  He has been caught up to the third heaven, and yet he wants books.  He has written major portions of the New Testament, and yet he wants books. He has seen the Lord, and yet he wants books. The apostle says to Timothy and so says to every minister, “Give thyself unto reading.”  The man who never reads will never be read.  The man who never quotes will never be quoted.  And the man who will not use the thoughts of other men’s brains
proves he has no brains himself.”
 – Charles Spurgeon

No book is really worth reading at the age of ten
which is not equally (and often far more) worth reading at the age of fifty and beyond.
– C.S. Lewis

Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend.  Inside a dog, it’s too dark to read.
--Groucho Marx

A home without books is like a room without windows.
A little library, growing every year, is an honorable part of a man’s history.
It is a man’s duty to have books. 
A library is not a luxury, but one of the necessities of life.
--Henry Ward Beecher

There are essentially two things that will make you wiser-- the books you read and the people you meet.
--Charley “Tremendous” Jones

If you read one book every month about your industry, in ten years you’ll have read 120 books.  That will put you in the top 1 % of your field.
All the books you haven’t read won’t help you.
--Jim Rohn

Reading good books today is an investment for tomorrow.

Man’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.
--Oliver Wendell Holmes

“Growing Christians are more evangelistic
than evangelistic sermons. 
Inspire the members of your church—get them
on fire for Jesus and excited about
growing spiritually—and then they can’t help but
tell their friends about it. 
The best evangelism is that which comes as
a natural outpouring of believers’ excitement
about what they’ve discovered.”
--Bob Russell, When God Builds a Church, p. 259 (Howard Pub., 2000)

Read, not to contradict or confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider.  Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.”
--Francis Bacon

“Read, read, read!  Use the Bible as your home base, but vary your diet.
 I usually have several books going at once,
tucked around here and there for easy access.”
--Ruth Bell Graham

“When you sell a man a book
you don’t sell him just twelve ounces of
paper and ink and glue—
you sell him a whole new life.”
--Christopher Morley

“Reading is a way of trapping the mind into doing its own thinking.”
--Christopher Morley

“Reading aloud is one of the best kept secrets of good parenting.”
—Barbara Bush

Acts 26:1, 24-27 (The Message)

Agrippa spoke directly to Paul: "Go ahead— tell us about yourself."
Paul took the stand and told his story.
    24 That was too much for Festus. He interrupted with a shout: "Paul, you're crazy! You've read too many books, spent too much time staring off into space! Get a grip on yourself, get back in the real world!"
    25 But Paul stood his ground. "With all respect, Festus, Your Honor, I'm not crazy. I'm both accurate and sane in what I'm saying. 26 The King knows what I'm talking about. I'm sure that nothing of what I've said sounds crazy to him. He's known all about it for a long time. You must realize that this wasn't done behind the scenes. 27 You believe the prophets, don't you, King Agrippa? Don't answer that— I know you believe." 2 

Recommended Reading (A Primer)

Glaspey, Terry W.  A Passion for Books. Harvest House ’98.

Glaspey, Terry W.  Great Books of the Christian Tradition. Harvest House ’96.

Glaspey, Terry W.  The Book Lover’s Guide to Great Reading. IVP, 2001.

Moreland, J.P. Love Your God With All Your Mind :  The Role of Reason in the Life of the Soul. NavPress, ’97.

MacDonald, Gordon.  “The Sadness of a Book Never Read,” Chapter 9 in Ordering Your Private World.  Nelson, 1984 (pgs. 100-112).

McKenna, David.  How to Read a Christian Book.  Baker/Revell, 2001.

Petersen, William J. &  Randy.  100 Christian Books That Changed the Century. Baker/Revell, 2000.

Sanders, Oswald.  Spiritual Leadership. Moody Press, 1967 (pages. 95-102).

 

“If [one] must read only the new or only the old, I would advise him to read the old . . . 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.”
—C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock (Eerdman’s, ’70), pgs. 201-202.

“Many Christians are so busy trying to keep up with the books of the hour that they never catch up with the past to meet the people who belong to the ages.”

– Warren Weirsbe

“I used to not trust anyone over thirty.  Now I hesitate to trust anyone under 300.”

--Thomas Oden

“Book collectors, whatever their vanity or skulduggery,
have been [at least partially]responsible for
the preservation of knowledge
that might otherwise have been lost.”
from a New York Times Book Review of Nicholas Basbanes’ A Gentle Madness (8/20/95)

1 The content of these materials is still open to debate. The terms could refer to sacred Scripture (i.e., the OT), to written accounts of the Jesus’ sayings and doings, or to Paul’s legal papers (e.g., his certificate of Roman citizenship). Any of the above conjectures or even a combination of those conjectures is possible. Whatever their contents, they were especially valued by Paul.—College Press NIV New Testament Commentary CD.

2Obviously Paul’s education had gotten the best of him, Festus thought. “You are out of your mind,” Festus shouted at Paul, “your great learning is driving you insane.” His diagnosis of Paul’s state was in a sense a compliment. He was acknowledging, at least, that Paul possessed a credible education.—College Press N.T. NIV Commentary CD