Reading

I have always loved books. I think it began with my Mom buying the complete set of Dr. Seuss books for me. From that beginning I have vivid memories of sitting down with our brand new set of The 1965 World Book Encyclopedia and thinking how great it would be to read all of them. No, I didn't do that but I think it says something about my personality that I would value such and undertaking.

Well, it has been a long time since then. Through Bible College and three different seminaries I have come to amass some 4000 volumes. More than once I have had church people ask me if I have read all of them and a few have questioned the sense of having so many. I always think of that question in terms of my older brother. He is now retired from a career at Ford Glass Plant where he had been promoted up to doing "tool and dye" work. Over the years he began to collect tools and now he has a workshop that is literally crammed with everything from a metal lathe to a belt sander, to two different sorts of table saws, and hundreds if not thousands of other tools. He enjoys making knives, all sorts of wood working, and compound bows. I have told him he ought to go into making golf clubs, but there just isn't the interest.

Now, here is my point. Some of the same folks who would question my book collecting would admire my brothers arsenal of tools. What they ought to understand is that my books are my tools. Preachers work in words and those books help me in the process. I have all of my books cataloged in one fashion or another and everyone of the volumes of sermons is indexed by text, author, and title. I bring the content of perhaps a dozen books to bear on the production of every sermon. I think that makes me a better preacher. Some might argue that I could get by with less and that is probably true. But, let me ask you, have you ever been doing something for which you knew there was an ideal tool and you didn't have one? You might be able to improvise but the finished product may not be as good as it could have been if you had that tool. There is also a strong possibility that your improvisation will take longer than the same task done with the right tool.

So, have a sold everyone who might ever read this blog on the value of reading? Probably not, but I do hope that I have made my "biblio-mania" seem a little more normal.