Some Advice on Reading a Little More

I’m not a fast reader. But I’ve definitely improved over the years. Perhaps a few of the things I’ve learned will help…

Concentration in Reading

The most important thing is to concentrate and think when you read. If you’re thinking, then you’re learning. If you’re learning, then you’re growing. But if your thoughts are distracted and broken, your reading won’t profit you very much. Some ways to stay focussed:

1. Turn off your phone (obviously). I am embarrassingly prone to distraction and diversion. This self-knowledge is helpful when I want to read because I know that I can’t get anywhere if my notifications are on. Apparently, like pavlovian dogs, we get addicted to the ‘ping ping’ of trigger and reward as our phones seduce us to check what’s happening. You can sidestep that temptation by simply turning off your notifications, since you probably don’t need them anyway.

2. Set a deadline for when you’re going to stop. This is by far the most effective technique I’ve ever discovered for concentrating on the task in hand. That deadline might be a timer, or a set number of pages. Either way, if you know when you’re going to finish you’re far less likely to fritter your time away.

3. Make sure you enjoy what you’re reading. More on this below, but it is obviously the case that we will concentrate on things we find interesting and enjoyable. I have often made the dumb error of jumping into books that I found boring and then attempting to wade through, getting little benefit from them.

(By the way, subjects become more interesting the more general knowledge you have about them. For example, a book about Calvin’s theology is going to be a lot more interesting when you’ve already got a good idea of Reformation history. Start with the general and work to the particular, and always in that order. When you have your bearings with a subject, the details become a lot more interesting.)

4. If you have to read something you don’t enjoy, refer to (2) above. We don’t always get to read the stuff that scintillates, and sometimes you know you need to read something for a project or for personal growth that is not easy or particularly enjoyable. As with so many things in life, this is best accomplished by breaking it down into measurable units (e.g. a set number of pages per day) or working against the clock (e.g. I’ll read for 20 minutes and then I’m stopping).

Reading More

While I don’t think a vague sense of ‘more’ is a particularly great goal in reading, most of us look around at all the books we wish we had read, and we want to read more because there’s so much wealth in them. These things might help:

1. Keep track of what you’ve read. We tend to make progress in those things we measure. If you step on the bathroom scales every day you’ll begin eating less and losing weight (or so I’m told). Simply keeping a list of what you’ve read, and maybe counting up your total at the end of the year, will serve as a strong motivator to keep working at this.

2. Set a goal for what you want to read. Goals help. If you decide in advance how many books you want to read over the next year you’ll probably read more, even if you don’t achieve your goal. So, set something realistic. A book a month? A book a week? And, if you’re really keen to work through particular books then make sure they’re on a list that’s attached to this goal.

3. Don’t try to memorise your books. If you’re fretting about getting the most out of a book, and anxious that you will forget things, then you’ll read very slowly, and you’ll forget things. Somewhere in Wordsmithy, Doug Wilson talks about reading until your brain creaks. The aim isn’t to memorise what you’ve read, but rather to read so much that some of it sticks. Wilson uses the analogy of a forest floor covered in leaves; you want to lay those leaves on thick and allow it all to turn into mulch in your head. I heard recently that our memories are designed for recognition rather than recall. (That may have come out of some bogus book on evolutionary theory for all I know, but it’s true if you think about it.) Just try recalling the details of a friend’s face; it’s much easier to recognise a friend than to recall their features from memory. So it is with reading. The more you read, the more you will develop instincts and ways of thinking, and you’ll learn to recognise truth when you see it. Even if you can’t remember all the facts, the principles and ideas will stick.

4. Use all the available moments you can find. On the one hand, it’s very sensible to establish some kind of routine where you read regularly in the same place at the same time. Could you read before you sleep? Could you read on your commute? How about in your lunch break? Perhaps there’s a moment’s calm just after you’ve put the kids to bed? On the other hand, routines don’t always work so well (depending on your lifestyle), so you probably need to carry a book with you wherever you go and jump in when you can. Kindles are brilliant for this.

What to Do When You Get Stuck

If you find you haven’t picked up a book for a while then check if one of these problems is at the root.

1. Are you reading something you don’t enjoy? Sometimes we have to read for work, but if you are just pushing your way through a book because you feel you ought to, and all along you’re not enjoying it, then this is likely to make you stop reading altogether. I remember David Field, one of my lecturers at college, saying that books are like conversations: they’re not all equally interesting or equally helpful, so feel free to drop in and out of them as you please.

2. Are you indulging in too much entertainment? The book has a hard time competing with the screen (TV, internet, smart phone) because it isn’t designed to give instant gratification. If you’re not reading there’s a strong likelihood you’re opting for the easy, mind-numbing options. So, set yourself some limits for TV. Delete the Facebook app off your phone. Put down the rubbish paper on your commute and bring a book instead (at least for one direction of the journey). Do whatever it takes not to waste your life on these things.

3. Are you scared of books? Books can be intimidating, especially if you’ve tried and failed many times. I’d say this: get some books that are short and sweet and start racking up the book count. It will help you get more confident with reading. Also, you could try reading something totally addictive like the Hunger Games trilogy, or some Jack Reacher novels. They won’t help you grow as a person, but they will give you a restored appetite for reading in general, and then you can start digging into some more nonfiction.

Iceberg pastors

When you’re a pastor, from time-to-time people will ask you, ‘What do you do during the week?’ It’s an excellent question (but not usually for the reasons people ask it).

There are no job descriptions for pastoral ministry in the New Testament. There are directives and pointers that feed into the picture of what pastoral work looks like. But generally speaking I’d say that how a pastor spends his time is usually more influenced by a whole range of other factors — personality, church culture, theological heritage, character, and context.

For me, it is a matter of constant adjustments and course corrections. I doubt I shall ever be satisfied that I can confidently tell you what a pastor should do during the week, and that’s partly because there simply cannot be a universal job description for this calling.

But there is one rule that I think ought to underpin every pastor’s understanding of his calling, which is that he needs to be an iceberg. What do I mean? Simply this: that whatever public ministry he engages in (that bit above the surface) needs to be built upon a lifetime of preparation, growth, character, learning, and reliance on God (the mass under the surface). Public prayers ought to be a taste of how he prays in private. Preaching ought to be the cream scraped off the top of his brain.

Sometimes I sick a little into my mouth when I think about the cult of celebrity and entertainment that has built up around so much of pastoral ministry and church life, and the concurrent consumerist approach of the average churchgoer. If Andrew Wilson is right, and we’re heading into winter, one benefit we can look forward to is the death of such things in the church. Winter will not tolerate palm trees and piña coladas. Winter will give birth to bigger icebergs.

What does this mean in practice? It means that in amongst the many and varied jobs that need to get done in church life, a pastor must carve out time to grow, and that is part of his job.

Weirdly enough, I think a lot of pastors actually feel guilty if they pray or read on the job. I’ve often heard people reason down these lines: if your church members have to pray and read the Bible outside of their working hours, you should too, otherwise you can’t keep encouraging them to do it. That’s fine in so far as you (the pastor) need to be working hard and not be the slackest member in your church. But it’s also stupid because giving yourself to the word and prayer is your job: it’s literally the one thing we ought to all agree that you’re paid to do. The rest is more or less up for grabs.

The tragedy is that often the models and priorities of church life today do not favour the pastor-iceberg. As a result, most pastors will be tempted to fill up their week with a lot of work that doesn’t allow them to grow deep in God. This is a constant war ground for the pastor’s heart. Here are two brief applications:

1. Church members, you must realise that your pastor is called to give himself to the word and prayer (see Acts 6). There are a lot of things you might like him to be that are not part of his calling.

2. Pastors, if you are feeling stretched thin, weak in faith, over-worked, under-inspired, neglectful of the things that feed your spirit, and altogether too lightweight, then take some time to rethink your priorities and your planning. If wise productivity is all about putting in the big blocks first, then let your growth in God be the first thing you plan for.

This post first appeared over at Think Theology.

Keller’s Powerful Spiritual Diagnostic

I’ve recently finished reading Tim Keller’s new book on prayer, and it is truly outstanding. But there was one section that stood out as one of the most helpful things I’ve read on prayer and the spiritual life for a very long time. It’s towards the end of the book and Keller is seeking to leave us with some parting thoughts and motivations to actually commit to prayer (as one friend of mine recently commented, it’s far easier to read a book on prayer than to pray). Keller gives us this spiritual diagnostic to help you understand your experiences of prayer, and give you hope to keep going:

I often ask Christians to evaluate their situation with regard to prayer by using a metaphor. Imagine that your soul is a boat, a boat with both oars and a sail. In this case here are four questions:

Are you “sailing”? Sailing means you are living the Christian life with the wind at your back. God is real to your heart. You often feel his love. You see prayers being answered. When studying the Bible, you regularly see remarkable things and you sense him speaking to you. You sense people around you being influenced by the Spirit through you.

Are you “rowing”? Rowing means you are finding prayer and Bible reading to be more a duty than a delight. God often (though not always) seems distant, and the sense of his presence is fairly rare. You don’t see many of your prayers being answered. You may be struggling with doubts about God and yourself. Yet despite all this, you refuse self-pity or the self-righteous pride that assumes you know better than God how your life should go. You continue to read the Bible and pray regularly, you attend worship and reach out and serve people despite the inner spiritual dryness.

Are you “drifting”? Drifting means that you are experiencing all the conditions of rowing—spiritual dryness and difficulties in life. But in response, instead of rowing, you are letting yourself drift. You don’t feel like approaching and obeying God, so you don’t pray or read. You give in to the self-centeredness that naturally comes when you feel sorry for yourself, and you drift into self-indulgent behaviors to comfort yourself, whether it be escape eating and sleeping, sexual practices, or whatever else.

Are you “sinking”? Eventually your boat, your soul, will drift away from the shipping lanes, as it were—and truly lose any forward motion in the Christian life. The numbness of heart can become hardness because you give in to thoughts of self-pity and resentment. If some major difficulty or trouble were to come into your life, it would be possible to abandon your faith and identity as a Christian altogether.

In this metaphor we see that there are some things we are responsible for, such as using the means of grace—the Bible, prayer, and church participation—in a disciplined way. There are many other things we do not have much control over—such as how well the circumstances in our lives are going as well as our emotions. If you pray, worship, and obey despite negative circumstances and feelings, you won’t be drifting, and when the winds come up again, you will move ahead swiftly. On the other hand, if you do not apply the means of grace, you will at best be drifting, and if storms come into your life, you might be in danger of sinking.

In any case—pray no matter what. Praying is rowing, and sometimes it is like rowing in the dark—you won’t feel that you are making any progress at all. Yet you are, and when the winds rise again, and they surely will, you will sail again before them.

Prayer, Timothy Keller, p.259-260

This post first appeared over at the Grace London blog.

Is It A Good Thing To Want To Be An Overseer?

For a while now I’ve assumed that every Christian man ought to aspire to church eldership. Look at 1 Timothy 3.1:

“The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task.”

On first reading it sounds like Paul is saying something to the effect that the men ought to desire eldership, that this is a good and noble desire. But I think my reading has for a long time been coloured by the way I’ve heard this passage preached, where the ambition to leadership is held up (like a rabbit before a pack of greyhounds) as something to help motivate men to grow up and mature. In fact, I’ve preached it this way myself.

But on a second reading I’m not at all sure that is what Paul’s saying. For one thing, he’s not addressing all the men in the room, but only a selection — notice the “if”. And furthermore, by saying “he desires a noble task” he is not necessarily saying “his desire itself is noble”. I think the meaning is not so much an affirmation of ambition, but an affirmation of the dignity of the role. It’s like saying: “If anyone wants to climb Everest, he has set his sights very high.”

The qualifications that follow in verses 2–7 are then not so much to be treated as goals to attain, though they are worthy goals for any Christian, but rather as a checklist before daring to step into such a role as eldership. So, the overall meaning is like this: “If you want to climb Everest (which is very high) you had better be fit, well-funded, well-trained, and well-bearded.” There is not, to my mind, any comment on whether someone ought to make this a goal in the first place.

What of the ambition to lead? The reality is that many men in churches do want to be elders, and that this desire can spur them on. Is this ambition good, or is it bad?

Calvin thinks that Paul is gently permitting the desire to eldership (the very fact that Paul is addressing such men shows a tacit acceptance of the desire; he doesn’t say the desire is wrong, after all). But Calvin adds some helpful words of caution and advice:

“If ambition is condemned in other matters, much more severely ought it to be condemned in ‘the office of a bishop.’ But Paul speaks of a godly desire, by which holy men wish to employ that knowledge of doctrine which they possess for the edification of the Church. For, if it were altogether unlawful to desire the office of a teacher, why should they who spend all their youth in reading the Holy Scriptures prepare themselves by learning? What are the theological schools but nurseries of pastors?”

So there are men whose passions and interests have led them to pursue vigorous study, and if that is coupled with desire, it may be a good thing for them to find outlet for their gifts for the benefit of the church. He goes on:

“Accordingly, they who have been thus instructed not only may lawfully devote themselves and their labours to God by a voluntary offering, but even ought to do so, and that too, before they have been admitted unto the office; provided that, nevertheless, they do not thrust themselves forward, and do not, even by their own wish, make themselves bishops, but are only ready to discharge the office, if their labours shall be required.”

That is, if a man has been trained he should start finding any and every opportunity to use what he’s got long before he gets ordained. But don’t push for ordination, wait for a summons.

“And if it turn out that, according to the lawful order; they are not called, let them know that such was the will of God, and let them not take it in that others have been preferred to them. But they who, without any selfish motive, shall have no other wish than to serve God and the Church, will be affected in this manner; and, at the same time, will have such modesty that they will not be at all envious, if others be preferred to them as being more worthy.”

This is undoubtedly the test of whether ambition for leadership is well-motivated or not: how a guy reacts when he’s refused the place on the leadership team. Will he have this modesty and complete absence of envy? Will he take it as God’s will?

This post first appeared over at ThinkTheology.

Holiness and your personality type

Because we are all wired up differently our unique proclivities and preferences in life are bound up with the vulnerabilities we face towards temptation. In other words, Satan will target your weak spots. And a good part of your counter-attack is figuring out where you are vulnerable and strapping on extra armour in the right places.

While the descriptions of personality types have multiplied over recent decades and psychologists can’t agree on how best to group us, I came across some super helpful insights from JI Packer. He acknowledges the modern psychological terms, but then says that the Ancient Greek categories are probably the most useful. He describes them like this:

(1) the sanguine (warm, jolly, outgoing, relaxed, optimistic);
(2) the phlegmatic (cool, low-key, detached, unemotional, apathetic);
(3) the choleric (quick, active, bustling, impatient, with a relatively short fuse); and
(4) the melancholic (somber, pessimistic, inward-looking, inclined to cynicism and depression).

It’s not hard to identify yourself in one these descriptions (or a combination of a couple). And what do you do when you have? Packer writes, “The assertion that I now make, and must myself face, is that I am not to become (or remain) a victim of my temperament.” So, while your personality might make you prone to particular sins, it’s your job to fight twice as hard to overcome those tendencies. Packer then goes on with this brilliant summary of what holiness will look like for each of the four main types:

“Holiness for a person of sanguine temperament, then, will involve learning to look before one leaps, to think things through responsibly, and to speak wisely rather than wildly. (These were among the lessons Peter learned with the Spirit’s help after Pentecost.) Holiness for a person of phlegmatic temperament will involve a willingness to be open with people, to feel with them and for them, to be forthcoming in relationships, and to become vulnerable, in the sense of risking being hurt. Holiness for a choleric person will involve practicing patience and self-control. It will mean redirecting one’s anger and hostility toward Satan and sin, rather than toward fellow human beings who are obstructing what one regards as the way forward. (These were among the lessons Paul learned from the Lord after his conversion.) Finally, holiness for a melancholic person will involve learning to rejoice in God, to give up self-pity and proud pessimism, and to believe, with the medieval mystic Julian of Norwich, that through sovereign divine grace, ‘All shall be well and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.’ ”

(JI Packer, Rediscovering Holiness, location 289 in Kindle)

Commit Fewer Abominations

I’ll readily admit that, from time-to-time, Dr Lloyd-Jones was a little too trigger-happy with his use of the word ‘abomination’. (Few would agree that collecting illustrations on index cards for use in sermons is truly abominable.) But his resolute determination to live and preach and pastor as though God is real is often the underlying motive behind his strong language. He had no time for methods in ministry that were more reliant on human ingenuity than any dependence on God to act.

This is a Biblical concern. Just before Ezra makes the vast and dangerous journey back to Israel from Exile with his companions and resources to start the rebuilding we read this:

Then I proclaimed a fast there, at the river Ahava, that we might humble ourselves before our God, to seek from him a safe journey for ourselves, our children, and all our goods. For I was ashamed to ask the king for a band of soldiers and horsemen to protect us against the enemy on our way, since we had told the king, “The hand of our God is for good on all who seek him, and the power of his wrath is against all who forsake him.” So we fasted and implored our God for this, and he listened to our entreaty.

Ezra 8.21–23

Ezra tells Artaxerxes he doesn’t need his protection, and he does so as a statement of faith and confidence in God.

This impulse is seen in many stories in the Bible — the resolute desire not to rely on men but to prove God by taking a decision in which, if he doesn’t act, failure is certain.

If I had to articulate one hope for Grace London it would be something down these lines. A passionate desire to demonstrate that God is true to his word, that his gospel works, and that it’s enough. There are few things that dismay me more than churches where the fruit is so explainable to a watching world. I’m not sure God is glorified when churches grow through our clever marketing, entertainment, and watered-down gospel-lite. Perhaps this really is an abomination to God.

Anyway, I attempted to explain a little more of this last Sunday and the summary of the message is here.

Nine forms of fasting

Fasting – the most resented of all spiritual disciplines, but the one most likely to be embraced by Californians in search of their beach bodies – is more important in the Bible than we often acknowledge. If you haven’t heard you pastor preach on fasting, it’s probably because he doesn’t want to be a hypocrite. We ought to talk about, and think, and engage far more with fasting as a means of spiritual renewal and of seeking God’s face. Donald Whitney (in Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life) lists no less than nine forms of fasting that he’s helpfully categorised for your condemnation conviction:

1. Normal fasts – abstaining from food, but not from water, for a set period of time. Think Jesus in the wilderness.

2. Partial fasts – limiting your diet to certain simple food groups. Think Daniel and his three friends.

3. Absolute fasts – not eating or drinking at all for a very limited time (e.g. 24 hours). Think Ezra, Esther, or Paul.

4. Supernatural fasts – not eating or drinking for a time, beyond what is naturally possible. Think Moses on Mount Sinai.

5. Private fasts – fasting while smiling and smelling good so that nobody notices. Think the teaching of Jesus.

6. Congregational fasts – fasting as God’s people together for a purpose. Think the call of Joel and the elders in Antioch.

7. National fasts – when a nation gets desperate for God’s help. Think Judah under Jehoshaphat.

8. Regular fasts – prescribed under the Old Testament law. Think Yom Kippur.

9. Occasional fasts – special needs call for special measures. Think the guests without the Bridegroom.