Faith Today - May/June 2015

our knowledge of Him to deepen our worship.

That’s why in Proverbs 2: 3, 5 Solomon
writes, “And if you call out for insight and
cry aloud for understanding . . . then you
will understand the fear of the Lord and
find the knowledge of God.”
Those who give the classics a try dis-
cover, as Reed says, that “they are a little
chewier and you’ve got to work a little
harder to digest them. But they’re more
nutritious.” /FT

GETTING STARTED
ADVICE FROM REED
AND RESCH

A modern edition of a Christian classic with updated language and an introduction to the work’s historical context can help us get more out of our reading, says Rick Reed.

A good place to start for those new to the classics might be The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan (1678) or Bernard of Clairvaux’s On Loving God (early 1100s). More advanced readers can try Saint Augustine’s The City of God (426) or John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion (mid-1500s).

Given that the ideas and perspectives in Christian classics can be unfamiliar to us, Dustin Resch advises, “The most important thing in reading any piece of writing is neighbour love. What I mean by that is I hope that I can read the writing of a fellow Christian (or anyone for that matter) in a spirit of generosity and patience and commitment to understanding what they are saying.” One way to cultivate this patience is to form a reading group and get together to talk about worthwhile texts with friends and others from your church.

But Reed provides perhaps the most important principle for reading Christian classics when he says, “Whether the book is old or young, whether it’s a classic or a lesser-known work, we have the same obligation, and that is to evaluate everything we read in light of the Scriptures.” –BEN WHITE