Marinate Wisely, Widely, with Friends

You are mowing your lawn, staring up at the sky, biking down the road, or lying on a lawn chair, or trying to go to sleep–just you and your thoughts. What surfaces in your mind when the noise pauses?

You are what you think.

Your brain feeds on ideas and shapes who you are, how you process, and how you respond. As inevitable as thinking is, what you think about is your choice. You cannot honestly claim surprise at your response in a crisis; you make those choices in advance each moment of the day as you choose the marinade of your mind. Choose well (2 Peter 3:3-4).

Reading allows you to have conversations with articulate people from all periods of life and all over the world. There is no easier way to immerse yourself in rich truths. And there has never been an easier time to access those, cheaply and universally. Libraries are a mind-blowing resource available to many. (Instead of complaining about what your library does not hold, ask if they take suggestions; many do.) For those without library access–I remember, and I see you–more classics and outstanding Christian books are available for free, digitally or audio, than you will ever read. But try.

How can you know what to read? How do you know what to skip? Only the Bible does not require discernment in reading–the Classic of classics, the irreducible minimum every believer should read. But to not read other books because you don’t want to encounter bad ideas is like never trying new food because you don’t want to be poisoned. Consider all the goodness you are missing! Weigh the cost of overlooking easily accessible, excellent books. Find a booklist from a respected believer. Better, ask a reader you trust for ten books they would recommend. Pray and ask God to grow you in your understanding and wisdom. You will find the richness of your thoughts, the depth of your conversations, and the breadth of connections with other people will multiply as you discipline yourself–some discipline when it is such a feast!–to regularly read from people wiser than you.

You better understand what you must articulate.

Nothing exposes how much you do or don’t understand like trying to tell others about it. I understand this is not a persuasive argument to try it with a group–try it alone first, instead, with what you have read here. If your goal is to appear intelligent, I do not recommend this method; if, however, you want to grow in understanding and wisdom, this is peerless in simplicity. Embrace the challenge that sharpens your own thinking and stabilizes your views. Brittle thoughts make flimsy people.

Learn to interact charitably and respectfully even–especially!–when you disagree. Book club fosters rich conversation. Listen more than you talk (Col 3:12; Pr 11:2). Learn to articulate differences clearly and calmly, but only sometimes. Become comfortable with polite disagreements. If you only interact with people who think exactly as you do, you are not doing life properly. We were called to go into the world, not to isolate (Mt 28:19-20). Believers who cannot interact respectfully and comfortably with others who share the most critical truths are simply not prepared to interact with the world.

You need accountability, and that means friends.

Anything worth doing takes work. Relying on others doubles the benefit.
Why not start a book club? Keep it basic.

1. Ask a few friends who you think would enjoy a rich conversation. They may or not consider themselves to be readers, but that is changeable. The person who reads enough excellent books will often become a committed reader.
2. Pick a book to read and when to meet to discuss. (I recommend after a month. Take too long and people will get bored or forget.)
3. Read. I recommend highlighting or taking notes: What resonates with you? What concerns you? What challenges you? I also copy out my favorite quotations in a notebook, a treasure of some of my favorite lines. The slowness is the point. (Also, as much as I prefer paper books, my quantity of reading would be far less if I were not willing to also listen to books. That is too high a cost for me. Don’t underestimate the audiobook.)
4. Meet. Talk. Take notes or just listen. Enjoy!

And if it is anything other than failure, repeat. You will read books you do not like. You will not finish some books due to pressures. Some conversations will fall flat. Sometimes you will leave exasperated at how incapably you communicated.

Other times you will find surprising gems. You will leave richer due to others who mined and found gold where you found coal. You will grow in your capacity to persevere, to understand, to appreciate. You will be pushed to examine ideas that needed critiquing. You will forge strong friendships of the truest sort.

Choose your friends. Choose your brain marinade. Begin.

Booklists to check

Tim Challies
The Association of Certified Biblical Counsellors

For your kids’ reading choices:

What shaped my purchases and reads
What is now freely available

Free public domain ebooks
Free public domain audiobooks

My own ten choices for today:

Knowing God by J.I. Packer
Delighting in the Trinity by Michael Reeves
The Peacemaker by Ken Sande
A Gospel Primer by Milton Vincent
The Reason for God, Keller
Profiting from the Word, Pink
The Pilgrim’s Progress, Bunyan
The Chronicles of Narnia, C. S. Lewis (cramming a series into one recommendation)
The Everlasting Righteousness, Horatius Bonar
Systematic Theology, Frame