The well-read life was the aspiration of bygone saints. For them, heaven on earth was a scriptorium, where illuminated manuscripts and scrolls containing the collected knowledge, wisdom, and misinformation of the ages were available to the literate for their use, enjoyment, and befuddlement.
There are three stages in the history of God’s people that can be used to show three ways Christians can benefit from reading. Tradition itself is no infallible standard that can be imposed on the consciences of Christians; but if past practice can be shown to be reasonable, we may miss something worthwhile if we ignore it.
The first stage in the history of God’s people with books came with the writing of the Scriptures. Unlike an oral tradition, written Scriptures required literacy in order to be understood, so the people became literate. Some argue that what we know as historic Christianity is a late development. Primitive Christianity, they say, was an undogmatic, private experience—until basilica-building bishops, seeing that laypeople with direct access to God couldn’t be controlled, foisted upon the church a collection of politically useful documents. The church has been chained to the Scriptures ever since.
Contrary to these revisionists, Christianity has always derived its very life from the written text. In the Bible itself, the words of Scripture are so identified with the words of God that the words God and Scripture are used interchangeably. The apostle Paul even uses the expression “Scripture says to Pharaoh” (Rom. 9:17) about an occasion when Moses speaks God’s words to Pharaoh (Exod. 9:13–19). A high view of Scripture is no late invention of second-century clergy; it is the view of St. Paul himself.
Biblical religion’s focus on the written word of God has always naturally led to literacy among God’s people. It is common when arguing the authority of the Bible with an unbeliever to be asked the question, “But wasn’t this believed by primitive people who didn’t even know how to read or write?” The answer is that a written revelation led to a literate society. The synagogue was an educational institution that required literacy, as it was in the synagogue that the Scriptures were read. According to Scripture, Jesus read (Luke 4:16) and wrote (John 8:6). His accusing questions to the Pharisees begin with the words, “Have you not read…?” (Matt. 12:3, 5; 19:4; 21:16, 42; 22:31; Mark 2:25; 12:10, 26), suggesting that his hearers were readers who should have read with more diligence. People of the book were always a literate people.
CRITICS OF CULTURE BECOME CULTURED
The second stage came with the confrontation of Christian teaching with pagan learning. When learned pagans argued that Christianity was unreasonable, Christian teachers had to know how to refute, reinterpret, or assimilate the teachings of their opponents. Critics of paganism became literary critics.
A commitment to reading and knowing Scripture was not enough to prepare the early church to evangelize the world for Christ. Early on, Christianity was besieged by well-educated unbelievers and heretics. In many cases, top-notch argumentation was not needed to keep Titus and Claudia from abandoning the faith. For a while, any argument might do. Besides, pastors had enough to do persuading their hearers to avoid the arena. Over time, however, arguments had to be met, and this meant that someone had to do the hard work of coming to grips with pagan thought.
One example of this, documented in George Grant’s Heresy and Criticism, is the way the early church responded to the ancient practice of literary criticism. Pagan literary critics threatened to undermine the validity of the Christian writings by attacking their internal consistency on the one hand (displaying alleged contradictions), and their origin on the other (claiming they were written by someone different from traditional claims, or claiming they had been altered). Christian apologists responded by learning literary criticism and either critiquing their opponents’ methods or using the critics’ techniques to prove Scripture’s logical consistency and apostolic authorship. Christians were drawn into the pursuit of pagan learning to combat paganism and became more cultured in the process.
It happened again during the Middle Ages when the universities encountered Aristotle through his Islamic commentators. The result was a breathtaking synthesis of Christian and secular learning that commanded the respect of the learned and still finds adherents in our time.
This can happen today as well. In many cases, it is the Christian apologists who are our best guides for broadening our mental horizons. Many will pick up a book by C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton, or John Warwick Montgomery to learn how to defend their faith against unbelief, only to have those authors interest them in any number of other subjects. These were men of broad learning. C. S. Lewis was a poet, a medievalist, and a philosopher. G. K. Chesterton was a journalist. J. W. Montgomery is a lawyer and a theologian. These men are capable of illustrating the correspondence of Christianity to the known world using knowledge from many fields because they studied all subjects asking the question, “How does this relate to what Christianity teaches?”
PAST LIVES BECOME PRESENT OPTIONS
Although the beginning of the third stage cannot be located with any precision, this stage begins for any Christian reader when the ability of a book to set forth possibilities is exploited to a Christian end, allowing the Christian reader to explore the feasibility of other forms of Christian life. For this purpose, I suggest old Christian books. Even when we have weeded out those deviants who espoused damnable heresies or held to grossly deficient views of grace, the remainder is a surprising lot. Aside from a rereading of the New Testament, a reading of old Christian authors is probably the best way of challenging our own complacency with our understanding of the good Christian life. In fact, sometimes it is better.
Jesus was able to point out the specific holes in his contemporaries’ ethics. The inspired writings of the prophets were certainly sufficient to prove the points Jesus made if anyone would make the application. The problem is that we seldom do. And like those who failed to see how the prophets’ words applied to new first-century conditions, we seldom make the application of Jesus’ words to our own situation with any ease. Many applications are strained, the most tenuous becoming the favorites of retreat speakers and youth leaders. We believe we are teaching Scripture when we present stale recipes for victorious Christian living, but this has not led to a better understanding of the Christian life. The problem is not with the clarity of Scripture, but with our own perspective on our lives. We take the environment in which we have grown up for granted. It is difficult to criticize precisely because we cannot see it for what it is. Does the fish criticize the ocean for being salty? Another of the benefits of reading is its ability to combat what C. S. Lewis’s friend Owen Barfield referred to as “chronological snobbery,” which is the assumption that the present age is to be held superior to the past merely because it came later—that history is a record of uninterrupted progress.
A PRESCRIPTION
There is so much to be gained from reading, but my call is not merely for Christians to read, but to read more, to read more broadly, to read more broadly together. Reading more makes reading easier. The more material you have been exposed to, the more you will be capable of reading. We need a grid on which to hang facts and perceptions. Reading gives us categories, and the more categories we have and (what is more important) the more solidly these categories are fixed in our minds, the more we will be able to glean from what we read and experience.
Reading more broadly keeps us from getting into ruts. Narrow reading makes the world itself seem narrow. Broad reading reminds us that the world is enormous. It also allows us to see the same thing from different points of view. Reading broadly together will keep us from always being on a new crusade to the bewilderment of our Christian friends.
The Christian purpose of all of this reading is to glorify God. Reading alone may do this, but when we become passionate about an issue, it is nice to have company. When we see things rightly, others can support us; when we miss the mark, they can correct us. It is gratifying, however, when the new viewpoint that seems so exciting to us is adopted by the others. When we make a new discovery, it will often seem implausible for the simple fact that no one around us sees what we now see. If friends travel the same road, all is different.
I wish you a well-read life, and I hope that as time goes on we will have more fellow-travelers to bump into. It makes the journey more enjoyable.
Rick Ritchie is a long-time contributor to Modern Reformation. He blogs at www.1517legacy. com.
This article originally appeared in the July/August 1994 issue of Modern Reformation. It has been adapted from the original for brevity and clarity.
