If you are like me, you fall into the trap of reading a book merely for the accomplishment of it. Like collecting. Some people enjoy accumulating tools for their workshop, others clothes for the closet. Me, I enjoy collecting books and placing them on my bookshelf.

The vain part of me (a bigger part than I would wish to admit) looks at a bookshelf like the tangible resume of my mind. “This shelf represents my knowledge.” I think to myself. “Notice how large the theology collection is. Admire the many history books that I’ve obtained.” When I visit others, I examine their bookshelves as well–not out of curiosity of the books themselves, but in inspection of their own intellectual resumes. And likewise, when others come by, I happily show off my own bookshelf to them, so that they may recognize my deep and extensive knowledge.

What a foolish attitude!

Of course, I tried my best to be tongue-in-cheek with my description. But still, there is truth to it. I too often love reading for the swagger and pride (and delusion) of accomplishing a subject, not for the joy and pleasure of learning and growing. I falsely call myself “well-read” because I believe I have read a wide-range of pertinent subjects. Yet, that is hardly the case. The Greeks had a word for people like me, that is, fools who thought they were wise because they learned just barely enough of some things to think they knew everything about all things. The term they used was, sophomore. The wise-fool.

So, I am hoping to bring about a shift in my personal theory of reading. Instead of reading a book once, patting myself on the shoulder, and putting the book on the shelf like a trophy of my intellect, I will instead seek to take the advice of Mortimer J. Adler in his work, How to Read a Book. I will not only read a book, but I will also meditate on it.

How funny that this is the very advice that God gave His people after giving them His own book! Of course the great Author of the Universe would recognize that, in order for a book to have its full effect, it must not only be read, but meditated upon as well.

As I look back on my own, albeit inexperienced, life, I realize that there are two main practices of meditation that I have encountered–each from one of my grandfathers. What they have taught me, in addition to Adler’s, How to Read a Book, I would like to pass on to you.

https://betweentheeternities.wordpress.com/2016/08/11/thoughts-on-reading/