Quotes about Reading

Reading is more important to me than eating.

It cannot be that the people should grow in grace unless they give themselves to reading. A reading people will always be a knowing people.

And I am the rather induced to do what little I can in this way, because I can do nothing else: being prevented, by my present weakness, from either travelling or preaching. But, blessed be God, I can still read, and write, and think. O that it may be to his glory!

Oh, that the young would reflect upon the influence which exciting stories have upon the mind! Can you, after such reading, open the word of God and read the words of life with

God did not give the Bible so we could master him or it; God gave the Bible so we could live it, so we could be mastered by it. The moment we think we've mastered it, we have failed to be readers of the Bible.

What we are looking for in reading the Bible is the ability to turn the two-dimensional words on paper into a three-dimensional encounter with God, so that the text takes on life and meaning and depth and perspective and gives us direction for what to do today.

The church becomes a community called atonement every time it reads the story of Jesus and every time it identifies itself with that story and every time it invites others to listen in to hear that story. Reading Scripture and listening to Scripture and letting Scripture incorporate us into its story is atoning.

They have failed to understand the timelessness of Babylon, that Babylon is always with us. One careful reading of the major chapters about Babylon is all one needs to form a Babylonian hermeneutic that provides discernment of Babylon in America and in its churches. Yet repeated failed readings of Revelation have today led to a failure to discern Babylon.

God did not give the Bible in order that we could master him or it; God gave the Bible so we could live it, so we could be mastered by it. The moment we think we've mastered it, we have failed to be readers of the Bible. Of course, I think we should read the Bible and know it—but it is the specific element of reading for mastery versus reading to be mastered that grows out of this shortcut.

Until we learn to read the Bible as Story, we will not know how to get anything out of the Bible for daily living.

Some people read the Bible as if its passages were Rorschach inkblots. They see what is in their head. In more sophisticated language, they project onto the Bible what they want to see.

But Augustine knew the Bible's main mission: so that we can become people who love God and love others. If our reading of the Bible leads to this, the mission is accomplished. If it isn't …