Faith Firmly Rooted

Since I never quite finished up a series of posts that I had been doing on reading some time ago, I figured today's post could loop back around to add some more thoughts to the subject.  And this time, you don't have to take my word for it alone.  Just watch this video.


At one point, Dr. Mohler says we won't start growing until we start reading.  I don't think he meant that there were no ways to grow spiritually without reading.  (i.e. I doubt if Dr. Mohler is going to tell a blind person who can't read Braille that they are just sore out of luck and can't hope to grow spiritually since they can't read.)

What do you think?  Did you agree/disagree with anything?
-RCW

Last year, I was doing a series of entries on reading. Several entries were about Augustine and Reading. Here's another installment. Just read Augustine's Egyptian Gold Analogy. It can be found in both De Doctrina Christiana (In English that title means On Christian Doctrine or Teaching Christianity) as well as The Confessions. In it, Augustine shares an analogy that allows us to answer the question "Is there some sort of value for Christians to read pagan works or works that are written either by non-believers or from a non-Christian perspective. He writes:

If those, however, who are called philosophers happen to have said anything that is true, agreeable to our faith, the Platonists above all, not only should we not be afraid of them, but we should even claim back for our own use what they have said, as from its unjust possessors.  It is like the Egyptians, who not only had idols and heavy burdens, which the people of Israel abominated and fled from, but also vessels and ornaments of gold and silver, and fine raiment, which the people secretly appropriated for their own, and indeed better use as they went forth from Egypt; and this not on their own initiative, but on God’s instructions, with the Egyptians unwittingly lending them things they were not themselves making good use of.

In the same way, while the heathen certainly have counterfeit and superstitious fictions in all their teachings, and the heavy burdens of entirely unnecessary labor, which everyone of us must abominate and shun as we go forth from the company of the heathen under the leadership of Christ, their teachings also contain liberal disciplines which are more suited to the service of the truth, as well as a number of most useful ethical principles, and some true things are to be found among them about worshiping only the one God. All this is like their gold and silver, and not something they instituted themselves, but something which they mined, so to say, from the ore of divine providence, veins of which are everywhere to be found. As they for their part make perverse and unjust use of it in the service of demons, so Christians for theirs ought, when they separate themselves in spirit from their hapless company, to take these things away from them for proper use of preaching the gospel. Their fine raiment too, meaning, that is, what are indeed their human institutions, but still ones that are suitable for human society, which we cannot do without in this life, are things that it will be lawful to take over and convert to Christian use.

So what does it mean? Click this link for some great insights from Dr. Naugle of Dallas Baptist University distributed at his summer institute in Christian scholarship.

As a Christian, don't be afraid to read a different perspective.  Read Oscar Wilde or a Hindu text or The Celestine Prophecy.  You'll find falsehoods.  But you might find something useful and true as well.  Search for the truth as for gold and silver, harvest it wherever it may be found, sanctify it unto God, and put it in service to Christ--for it is there that it finds its true value.

-RCW

• This blog
• This Conference on April 1-2 in Dallas at one of my alma maters
• This bookstore / blog

A Brief Review
In my last post, I mentioned Augustine and how reading was instrumental in his own coming to faith in Jesus Christ as his own Savior and Lord (or to call those roles something less familiar - his Rescuer and his King).


I mentioned how at first, Augustine had turned his back on God (and that according to his own acknowledgement, this had resulted in part from reading authors like Cicero.  Apparently, Augustine's self-serving ego and arrogance inflated as he acquired knowledge from them).  But later, Augustine was brought by God to pick up a book by Cicero that is now lost to antiquity...Cicero's Hortensius, which was essentially a work that praised and encouraged people toward the discipline of philosophy, since philosophy is by its very etymology and definition the love of wisdom.  Suddenly, Augustine found within himself a desire to know real wisdom, to be taught truth, to personally love wisdom intensely enough to pursue it as a prize.  Augustine also said that he knew that to acquire real wisdom, he would have to travel in the direction of understanding the scriptures that he had grown up with, but had eventually neglected and scorned.  As Paul stated, in his letter to the Colossians, Augustine was well aware that "in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (2:3).  Or to state it yet another way, Augustine knew deep within himself that to get to truth, he would have to be moved closer toward The Truth, Christ Himself, the God of the Bible, Ultimate Reality.  

More to the Story
But I also mentioned that there was more to the story.  There is a second major way that Augustine's conversion was tied to the discipline of reading.*  He tells us of it in Book VIII of his Confessions.

Through a continual lifelong series of events and experiences--an experience reading Cicero in the midst of his very rigorous academic pursuits, encounters with Christians, exposure to the scriptures, through the constant prayers of his faithful Christian mother, through the influence of Ambrose, and much more--Augustine reached a personal crisis of sorts.  He had to wrestle with his will.  He was divided within himself.  On the one hand, he wanted to retain his own selfish pleasures and ungodly habits.  On the other hand, he was increasingly unable to resist the persistent calling of God unto Himself.  

 Eventually, Augustine claims that God allowed him to see himself clearly and become aware of his own sinful and wicked condition.  Distraught, Augustine retreats to a garden and the tears start pouring.  As Augustine pours his heart out to God in agony, he asks the Lord how long he will be torn between belief and unbelief, how long will he remain a miserable slave to his own evil desires.  

But I can summarize no longer.  Augustine must share it with you himself:
 
As I was saying this and weeping in the bitter agony of my heart, suddenly I heard a voice from the nearby house chanting as if it might be a boy or a girl (I do not know which), saying and repeating over and over again 'Pick up and read, pick up and read.' At once my countenance changed...I checked the flood of tears and stood up. I interpreted it solely solely as a divine command to me to open the book...So I hurried back to the place where...I had put down the book of the apostle when I had got up.  I seized it, opened it and in silence read the first passage on which my eyes lit: 'Not in riots and drunken parties, not in eroticism and indecencies, not in strife and rivalry, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh in its lusts' (Rom. 13:13-14). 
 
I neither wished nor needed to read further.   At once, with the last words of this sentence, it was as if a light of relief from all anxiety flooded into my heart.  All the shadows of doubt were dispelled [VIII.XII].**

The Latin phrase "Tolle Lege, Tolle Lege" (Take up, Read!  Take up, Read!) continues to resound for those who would seek to know Christ and follow after him. 

-RCW

*Certainly there were other ways that reading influenced his conversion and faith.  For example, Augustine speaks of he and his friends' experiences watching (and intruding upon) Ambrose's very disciplined reading habits. 

**Translation is Chadwick's.

I mentioned previously that several early Christians had a more positive opinion than Tertullian did concerning the value of reading both inside and outside of scripture.

For one of the most amazing and influential Christians, St. Augustine, reading was a key that God used to bring about his conversion.  In Augustine's famous Confessions (a classic work in literature, philosophy, theology, spirituality, and Christianity), Augustine cites several ways that reading influenced his spirituality and even his conversion to Christianity.

Augustine explains that even though reading Cicero had originally helped to push him away from God, he had been living apart from God and living entirely for himself until reading Cicero pushed him to return to God...
 
In the ordinary course of study, I fell upon a certain book of Cicero, whose speech almost all admire, not so his heart. This book of his contains an exhortation to philosophy, and is called Hortensius*. But this book altered my affections, and turned my prayers to Thyself, O Lord; and made me have other purposes and desires. Suddenly every vain hope became empty to me, and I longed for the immortality of wisdom with an incredible ardour in my heart. I began to rise up and return to you.  [Confessions, III. IV].**
 
He continues: 

My God, how I burned, how I burned with longing to leave earthly things and fly back to you. I did not know what you were doing with me. For "with you is wisdom" (Job 12:13, 16)...This book [Cicero's Hortensius] kindled my love for it [wisdom].  There are some people who use philosophy to lead people astray...That text is a clear demonstration of the salutary admonition given by your Spirit through your good and devoted servant (Paul): "See that no one deceives you by philosophy and vain seduction following human tradition; following the elements of this world and not following Christ, in him dwells all the fullness of divinity in bodily form" (Col. 2:8-9).  At that time, as you know...I did not yet know these words of the apostle.  Nevertheless, the one thing that delighted me in Cicero's exhortation was the advice "not to study one particular sect, but to love and seek and pursue and hold fast and strongly embrace wisdom itself, wherever found". [ibid.]

And yet, Augustine explains that that Cicero's book couldn't entirely grip him because it failed to mention Christ, whom he almost innately knew to be the real source of truth.  He "therefore decided to give attention to the holy scriptures and to find out what they were like" [ibid, III.V].

Augustine's story gets better and involves more about reading...But I will have to continue his story in the next entry.   

-RCW

*One of my biggest disappointments in life is that we don't really have an existing copy of Cicero's Hortensius, which was basically an "Exhortation to Philosophy." All we have are small fragments that give us a general idea of its outline. 

**My translation is mostly that of Henry Chadwick and only minimally from Edward Pusey's.

One of my many favorite philosophers is Francis Bacon...*

Bacon had some pretty sound advice when it comes to reading.  You can find it in his essay                "Of Studies":


              Read not to contradict and 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; that is, some books are to be read only in parts;                     
              others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention... 

In layman's language,  Bacon is saying:

    Don't read a book...

• simply to prove it wrong.   [He wasn't really talking about the Bible, but many skeptics read the Bible this way...with their conclusions already deeply fixed in their mind before they've read a single word.] 

• thinking it or its author is beyond error.  [Again, he wasn't really talking about the Bible, but many people do read it this way**...and I'm not entirely sure that Bacon would have had a problem with it though I'm definitely no Francis Bacon expert.] 

• just to have something to talk about with others.  [These people are annoying...especially since they rarely choose anything worthwhile to read.  I don't think Francis Bacon would think of People magazine or Cosmo as "reading" or "studies" if you're wondering.]

    Instead, Bacon suggests that we read a book in order that we might weigh and consider what it
    is saying.  Read a book with your brain turned on, using your critical thinking skills -- not distrusting
    the book, nor being overly trusting of the book to the point of naivety.   

Many Christians I know (and tragically, even some pastors) have far too much trouble even knowing how to discern what is a good book from what is in all reality not.  I have personally lamented that the problem with America is not that we can't read, it is that we don't read.  And even the people who do read, too often don't read anything worthwhile. 

Thoughts?  Comments?

-RCW

* I mostly enjoy Bacon's essays and am much less fond of his idealistic modernist belief that science and technology could ultimately create a Utopian society.  The twentieth century, postmodernism, and human experience have since well-refuted that fanciful notion [although Biblical wisdom had refuted the idea ages before].  If you want to understand modernity and my last couple of sentences a little bit better, read this book.  As for Bacon, I know for certain that he was a theist, and I think to a lesser extent some people conclude he was a Christian.  And if you're wondering, No, I don't believe he's any relation to Kevin Bacon.
 
** I have no problem with people reading the Bible this way provided they also at some point recognize that while the Bible is a divine book, the Bible didn't magically float down from heaven.  God didn't bypass the humanity of the human writers, their circumstances, their language, their personalities, their brains, their emotions, or the like when He inspired them to write. But this blog entry is not really meant to be about Biblical inerrancy, infallibility, inspiration, etc.

In my last entry, I shared that this year I hope to blog more frequently than I did last year…but I’m still not getting crazy with 1 post per day or anything.  To help me blog more, I have a plan that I believe most of you will appreciate. And it has to do with a time long ago and a land far away...Africa in fact!  It involves 2 cities in particular -- Alexandria and the city formerly known as Hippo -- along with a few of those cities' noteworthy locals.  Curious yet?

To get you started thinking about this subject, let me ask you a question:

           Do you think that it is beneficial to a person’s growth as a Christian to read:

                 A) Christian books and non-Christian books and the Bible

                 B) Just Christian books and the Bible

                 C) Just the Bible

                    [or]

                 D) Reading isn’t important at all in the growth of a Christian


You may choose only one. Why did you answer the way you did?

-RCW

I'll never forget the first few weeks when I began to understand that God was leading and calling me into ministry.    I recall walking into my youth pastor's office and letting him know what I understood God to be doing in my life and communicating to me. 

His response was simple.  He first told me that he would meet with me once a week at 5 am on a certain day.  At the first meeting, he asked me a question.  "Are you a reader?"

I was dumbfounded.  I thought quickly about the fact that I despised reading and loathed the very thought of English class.  I stammered -- "Uh.....not really."  His response was direct and firm, "Well, you're going to have to become one."

I began to love reading from those few weeks onward and to this day I absolutely cannot get enough.  (I have a lifetime reading plan for myself!)   

Does it seem like an odd connection to you?  Why in the world would someone who is heading toward ministry need to become a reader?  Do you think he was right?  Do you think he was wrong?  Why?  I'd love to hear your "take."