Sounds the call for Christians to reclaim the priority, privilege, and practice of reading. Reinke reminds us that God is the author of all knowledge, and it is his light we seek in all our reading.
Third, rank those categories in order of per-sonal importance.
These priorities will help you choose books wisely by providing a baseline for what you expect your books to accomplish. Without these priorities, without clear expectations for what you want books to do in your life, it’s almost impossible to determine whether books are personally useful or not.
The Lit! A Christian Guide to Reading Books book by Tony Reinke is available
Libraries and bookstores offer us millions of books that we can read. This means for every one book that we do choose to read, we will be forced to ignore over ten thousand other books simply be-cause we don’t have the time (or money!).
So how do we decide what one book to read? Or maybe more importantly, how do we de-termine which ten thousand books to reject? I try to answer this question in the only way I know how: by establishing personal reading priorities. I have six of them.
1. READING SCRIPTURE
No book is more important than the Bible. It is the divine and inspired Word of God, true and reliable in everything it affirms. If we neglect Scripture in order to read only other books, we not only cut ourselves from the divine umbilical cord that feeds our souls, but we also cut ourselves from the truth that makes it possible for us to benefit from the truth, goodness, and beauty in the other books we read.
2. READING TO KNOW AND DELIGHT IN CHRIST
The largest topical section in my personal library features books on the person and work of Christ.
Christ is the centerpiece of Scripture, the focus of heaven, and the stage that displays God’s glory. I bathe my mind in the Christ-centered works of a few dead theologians—Jonathan Edwards, John Owen, John Flavel, Thomas Goodwin, and Herman Bavinck. And I immerse my soul in the works of contem-porary authors like J. I. Packer, D. A. Carson, John Stott, and John Piper.
3. READING TO KINDLE SPIRITUAL REFLECTION
Christian fiction is a form of literature that perpetually fuels spiritual reflection in my life. I keep on hand a storehouse of able Christian novelists like C. S. Lewis and Francine Rivers. Good Christian novelists make spiritual contemplation unavoidable.
Christian biographies and autobiographies are another great source of spiritual reflec-tion, such as Spurgeon: A New Biography by Arnold Dallimore. Poetry like John Donne’s
Holy Sonnets is rich, powerful, and spiritually provoking too.
4. READING TO INITIATE PERSONAL CHANGE
These books help me confront and defeat personal sin and unbelief. They help me to honor God in my role as a husband and as a parent.
As a parent I find much help in Shepherd-ing a Child’s Heart by Tedd Tripp. And I can always use a reread of the book Running Scared: Fear, Worry, and the God of Rest by Ed Welch. I will also read just about anything by biblical counselors David Powlison or Paul David Tripp. Well-chosen books will help me fight sin.
5. READING TO PURSUE VOCATIONAL EXCELLENCE
Christians are to work as though their boss is the Lord himself (Col. 3:23), meaning we are called to pursue vocational excellence. And working with skill requires laboring wisely and thoughtfully. Carefully selected business books, such as Business for the Glory of God by Wayne Grudem, have helped me to do this.
