The Bible

Thanks to Glenn Bosarge for the tip about the new link in our Blogroll…Unashamed Workman. This is a blog by a pastor in Scotland with lots of good resource links and suggestions for reading and listening. Make sure to visit.

 …But what more oft, in nations grown corrupt,                   

    And by their vices brought to servitude,

    Than to love bondage more than liberty,

    Bondage with ease than strenuous liberty…

-John Milton, Samson Agonistes

Americans can still be smart and creative, but the pressure of the times is oriented toward quickness–we want instant messaging, live news breaks, fast food, mobile phoning, and snap judgements.  As a result, we are growing into a shallow people, happy enough with the easy gratifications of mere speed and spectacle in all aspects of life.  Real books are simply too serious for us.  Too slow.  Too hard.  Too long.  Now and again, we may feel that just maybe we’ve short-changed our better selves, that we might have listened to great music, contemplated profoundly moving works of art, read books that mattered, but instead we turned away from them because it was time to tune in to Law and Order reruns, or jack into a Warcraft game on our home computer, or get back to the latest made-for-TV best seller. 

…In short, we turn toward the bright and shiny, the meretricious tinsel, the strings of brightly colored beads for which we exchange our intellectual birthright as for a mess of pottage.  For all too many twenty-first century Americans, only the unexamined life is worth living.

-Michael Dirda, Reading Beyond the Best-Seller List: A Polemic and a Plea

“There is a vitiated literary taste, arising not so much from reading what is bad, as from exclusive study of one class of books, and these perhaps the more exciting.  There is also a vitiated spiritual taste, not necessarily growing out of error or the study of unsound books, but arising from favoritism in the reading of Scripture, which shows itself both in the preference of certain parts to others, and in the propensity to search these others only for their references to certain favorite truths.  Let the whole soul be fed by the whole Bible … ”

-Horatius Bonar, God’s Way of Holiness

This is a quote I came across that relates to Ken’s post on Dr. Mohler’s refreshingly unpretentious suggestions for reading.  He mentions that he is reading in six different subjects at any given time.  The point is that he reads widely.  Just as we cannot (or should not) read only particular portions of Scripture ( … two chapters in Leviticus is enough, right?) and leave the rest out, so also we should not limit our selections of other books to one or two subjects.  We won’t take to every subject, and some we shouldn’t take to, but we should make an effort with unfamiliar subjects.  We might be surprised by what we find. 

I came across another quote in my reading that fits in here on another level.  Not only should we read widely, we should live widely.  What I mean is that we should interact outside of our comfort zone.  We should not limit our selections of people to one or two “types.”  We won’t take to every type, and some we shouldn’t take to, but we should make an effort with unfamiliar types.  We might be surprised by who we find.

 “The truly wide taste in humanity will … find something to appreciate in the cross-section of humanity whom one has to meet everyday. … Made for us?  Thank God, no.  They are themselves, odder than you could have believed and worth far more than we guessed.”

-C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

For those of you looking to expand your library of apologetics and theological books, Spencer Haygood has prepared a list over on his blog site at BibleDriven.com. This is in addition to the recommended list for 2007 posted on this site earlier this year. See the links to both in the Links list on the right hand side of this page.

    I am posting one of my favorite poems, written by Matthew Arnold, entitled Desire.  I know it’s a bit long, but it is necessary to keep the proper format.  I was hesitant at first to put this poem out there because I feared some readers may not grasp it’s power and scope. This fear was not from any literary arrogance but welled up from that protective instinct we often develop toward favorite things. It differs very little from a mother’s protectiveness of her child.

My reluctance also stemmed from the awareness that people aren’t much interested in poetry these days. I don’t want to over-generalize here, but I doubt the previous sentence is much of a reach. Poetry can be the most demanding kind of reading. We’d rather tag it with our overused ‘Not Worth the Effort’ label and spend our ever-dwindling stash of Time on worthier things like television and video games. Again, don’t think I write out of arrogance, as if I am not a great ‘labeler’ myself. Strong and sincere criticism is best when the critic knows his place at the forefront of the criticized.

As you read this poem think of the story God is weaving throughout all time, the ‘already, not yet’ aspect of the Christian life, our minute-by-minute need of grace, David’s cries for deliverance in the Psalms, and the great hope of the prophets amid their God-given decrees of judgment.

THOU, who dost dwell alone—
        Thou, who dost know thine own—
        Thou, to whom all are known
        From the cradle to the grave—
                Save, oh, save.
        From the world’s temptations,
            From tribulations;
        From that fierce anguish
        Wherein we languish;
        From that torpor deep
        Wherein we lie asleep,
Heavy as death, cold as the grave;
                Save, oh, save.

        When the Soul, growing clearer,
            Sees God no nearer:
        When the Soul, mounting higher,
            To God comes no nigher:
        But the arch-fiend Pride
        Mounts at her side,
        Foiling her high emprize,
        Sealing her eagle eyes,
        And, when she fain would soar,
        Makes idols to adore;
        Changing the pure emotion
        Of her high devotion,
        To a skin-deep sense
        Of her own eloquence:
Strong to deceive, strong to enslave—
                Save, oh, save.

        From the ingrain’d fashion
        Of this earthly nature
        That mars thy creature.
        From grief, that is but passion
        From mirth, that is but feigning;
        From tears, that bring no healing;
        From wild and weak complaining;
            Thine old strength revealing,
                Save, oh, save.
        From doubt, where all is double:
        Where wise men are not strong:
        Where comfort turns to trouble:
        Where just men suffer wrong:
        Where sorrow treads on joy:
        Where sweet things soonest cloy:
        Where faiths are built on dust:
        Where Love is half mistrust.
Hungry, and barren, and sharp as the sea;
                Oh, set us free.
        O let the false dream fly
        Where our sick souls do lie
            Tossing continually.
        O where thy voice doth come
            Let all doubts be dumb:
            Let all words be mild:
                    All strifes be reconcil’d:
            All pains beguil’d.
        Light bring no blindness;
        Love no unkindness;
        Knowledge no ruin;
        Fear no undoing.
        From the cradle to the grave,
                Save, oh, save.