A few days ago on a comment thread, Tim Challies was queried about his methods of selecting books and managing his reading time. His response was a fairly normal self-deprecating, “I don’t know. I just read.” Well, as one who has see the fruits of Tim’s book selection and reading time on the front lines of Discerning Reader, I thought I could put a bit of meat on Tim’s sketchy response, as well as make known some of my own tips, tricks, and tendencies when it comes to reading.
Back in 2005, Tim answered a question from the Challies Dot Com Feedback Files, which you can find here. His comment about topical reading is particularly insightful. It boils down to this: ingesting all you can on a topic enables you to read increasingly faster and more discerningly on that topic. True to form, Tim practices this mainly with books about discernment.
In a Together for the Gospel blog entry reposted on his own site due to popular demand, Al Mohler fleshes out six points regarding his personal reading habits, a few of which bear commenting on here.
Maintain regular reading projects, Mohler first advises. He reads across six disciplines: Theology, Biblical Studies, Church Life, History, Cultural Studies, and Literature. Your areas, or mine, may number more or less than six, and may span different categories. I would subsume Theology and Biblical Studies under the same heading, for example. Literature comprises a large part of my reading by virtue of my employment as an English teacher.
Work through major sections of Scripture, Mohler then recommends. It goes without saying that we should be reading quantitatively and qualitatively more Bible than other literary works combined. There was a time not so long ago that I did not hunger for the Word as much as I do now, and my resultant Scripture to non-inspired texts time-spent ratio was not pretty. Choosing books carefully can help guide your reading in a more scriptural direction. Late in 2007, Baker Academic kindly sent me the Carson/Beale Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament for review. At that time I resolved to read through the New Testament in preparation for reviewing this massive commentary, which has had the wonderful byproduct of immersing me in Scripture more than I would have otherwise.
Mohler’s final point worth mentioning in this context is to read all the titles written by some authors. Granted, for some authors, namely D.A. Carson, John MacArthur and John Piper, this will take you some time. A side benefit of this is that by dedicating yourself to reading, say, Carson, you will be exposing yourself to an erudite voice that you may not be used to. And Piper’s use of hyphenated adjectives will either inspire you or irritate you (I’m in the first group).
As C.J. Mahaney says, God is the only one who always crosses every item off his to-do list. This goes for reading plans as well; they are subject to change, like anything else. Let God have a hand in your reading, and you will grow in ways you never thought possible. Tolle lege!
