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One Day Incomprehensible - Six Days Invisible?
Just what do preachers do? Monday to Friday, I mean?
The old adage, "Six days invisible, one day incomprehensible" may have fit the Victorian parish vicar who spent his week in leisure or amateur scientifics, but that glove does not fit the pastor's hand.
Christian preachers, following Paul's lead, read. Paul urged young Timothy to bring not only his cloak but also his "scrolls, especially the parchments." (2 Timothy 4:13)
Why do Pastors read?
Pastors do not have to be scholars, far less academics, but reading helps to keep their mental muscles agile. Study days are never over for preachers because thinking tendons, if not used, grow weak, minds become lazy, intellects atrophy. And where the mind leads, the sermon is sure to follow. We read to keep our God-given minds alive.
We read, secondly, to balance ourselves. For example, if someone has spent a lifetime reading the famous reformers, such as Zwingli, Luther and Calvin, it would be wise to spend time reading the forgotten reformers, the Anabaptists; men like Peter Riedemann, Dirk Philips and Menno Simons. To read only what confirms our biases maketh a narrow man.
Thirdly, we read to be challenged. Christian doctrine is like a map. Although we may have mastered the broad outlines of every doctrinal continent, there are so many smaller islands to discover, and more detailed coastlines to explore. While we should never change our fundamental beliefs, we may - and must - grow in areas of secondary truth.
In the fourth place, we read because we want to advance in knowledge and doctrine. He who thinks he has arrived because he has Berkhof or Grudem sitting on his shelves is mistaken. As if ants will ever grasp the Everest of divine truth! We want our hearers to sense their preachers are growing. (One sign of that growth may be that we find it ever more difficult to return to old sermon notes: we read them today and ask the Lord not to remember the sins of our youth).
We read, fifthly, because we want to fill up the well. The preacher who does not read can easily preach the same sermon every week, no matter what the passage. There is nothing new, the well has run dry long ago. The congregation, longsuffering souls, has heard everything the preacher has to offer. For the sake of the congregation, then, pastors read.
Finally, we read because we want to understand the people we preach to. Our own backgrounds are limited, our associations circumscribed. How will we understand bankers and bakers, factory workers and farmers, teachers, terrorists and tattooists unless we read about their lives? The narrower our past, the more we ought to read.
The content of our reading
What then shall we read?
Preachers read the Scriptures
The first priority is to read spiritually. Most of our reading must be in God's inexhaustible Word. Just this morning, for example, I was taught something new and comforting about the way the Lord leads his people, from my daily reading through the Psalms:
"Your path led through the sea, your way through the mighty waters, though your footprints were not seen." (Psalm 77:19)
The Lord leads his people even though they can't always see tangible evidence of him going before them. Just as there were no footprints before Israel as they crossed the sea - just an open pathway between towering waters - so we need not worry if no signs and trumpets are heard when the Lord leads; an open door is enough.
Scripture must be a preacher's most important source of reading.
Preachers are helped by spiritual books
Next come spiritual books - biographies of great Christian men and women of old, doctrine books, devotional reads, books on church history, books on topics such a prayer. There is a world of blessing to be had from spiritual classics such as Pilgrim's Progress and the works of thoughtful and thought-provoking saints from Tersteegen to Tozer, from Bernard to Bunyan.
Preachers are helped by secular books of general interest
It was said of a leader who fell not so many decades ago, that for every Christian book he read he devoured two secular ones. That may have explained his fall. It is not a good boast. We can know all the twists and turns of contemporary thought but end up useless in God's kingdom because a rich diet of foolishness - and the wisdom of the world is passing foolishness - easily turns the reader into a fool: we are, after all, what we eat.
Most reading should be spiritual, but not all. We must understand the world we live in, the people who live in it, the passing philosophies (however foolish), the struggles, trials and temptations of our age.
A preacher's reading must be disciplined
Lastly, a pastor's reading must be disciplined. It is easy to read what comes easy to us, to read what takes our fancy. But like everything else in a life of discipleship, reading must be disciplined. Here are a my six top tips:
1. Read old books (mainly) but also read a few new.
2. Read deep books (mainly) and read simple ones.
3. Read widely, not narrowly.
4. Read regularly, not occasionally.
5. Take notes if it helps, translate the illustrations into a lessons bank if you can.
6. Don't read too much - if you like reading. There's other stuff to do.
Know yourself, find your own rythm. Are you a grazer or a three-courser? Some of us can only read an hour every day, others can get lost in words for half a day. Some can read only in serial, one book at a time, others find it easier to have a dozen books on the go. Don't be afraid to give up on a book (I once gave up on a two-volume biography because it was all hagiogrpahy). But don't be afraid to come back to a book you gave up on and try to read it another way. A few years I gave up on "Dominion" by Tom Holland because the style was so flowery; I have returned to it with a new method - one chapter per week and it is working.
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