Christianity is not a religion of restrictions, but of right pleasures—pleasures that come from self-sacrifice and self-denial, but also pleasures that come from hobbies, beauties, games, and laughter. Sometimes we may feel guilty about these pleasures, thinking we shouldn’t enjoy life so much for fear of becoming worldly. But God uses all the good things of life to draw us to him. And one of the truest pleasures he gives us is books, especially stories. Books teach us patience. More than any other art form, books take time. They slow us down and improve our ability to learn and work through problems that require patient thought. This month I want to finish talking about why we should consider books an important part of our lives.

Books Matter

Books matter, especially fiction stories, because they teach us in ways that lists of facts or outlines of truths can’t. We remember stories more easily than facts or ideas. How many of us can define Paul’s key Christian ideas of justification and sanctification? How many can tell the story of David and Goliath? Books are also important because they familiarize us with allusions. Allusions are references to history or literature that occur in written and spoken communication that all of us are supposed to know but often miss. Any time we hear a reference to “my brother’s keeper,” “Achilles’ heel,” “bubble, bubble, toil and trouble,” “the patience of Job,” or any other allusion, our ability to understand depends on information we’ve learned, especially from stories in fiction and history books. I tell my Christian college students they’ll be much better off than their counterparts attending secular universities who will be clueless about all the biblical allusions that float around in movies, books, newscasts, and songs every day. People who know their Bible will pick up on all the extra meanings everyone else misses.

Books are important as a means of connecting to the past. We often look at the problems of the world as being unique to our own time and circumstances. Reading about similar problems others have faced all over the world and all throughout history helps ease our sense that some uncharted doom is just ahead. Stories put the present into perspective.

Books matter because they enlarge our experience. They take us on adventures to places we could never go. They help us experience achievements we could never accomplish. They let us see life the way others do—and not just people but animals, aliens, and elves as well. As such they also make us think differently. Books take us outside the box of our own perceptions and thinking. They help us think about life in ways that can only come through experiencing other people and places, even fictional ones.

Books force us to think more consciously. Movies and television shows don’t have to make us passive receivers (a fancy way of saying “couch potatoes”), but they often do. Books require that we get engaged in the act of reading. We can coast through films without thinking a conscious thought if we want to. But books often clarify truths in ways that film either does not or even purposely tries to avoid. With a book we can stop and re-read a passage and reflect on it. That’s something we don’t usually do with movies (and can’t at the theater).

Books and the Bible

Books are beneficial because they improve our Bible reading in two ways. First, the more we practice anything, the better at it we’ll be. Any reading we do will improve our ability to read. But more significant is the fact that books, including fiction books and poetry (not just books about the Bible or Christian living), can improve our understanding of the Bible. It was Dostoevsky’s The Brother’s Karamazov that first helped me understand what the book of Job was about. Moby Dick helped me make sense of Ecclesiastes and John Donne’s “Holy Sonnet 14” opened the door to my making sense of The Song of Solomon. It was once hard for me to understand how God could be all loving and vengeful, merciful and terrible. But then I read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and came across Aslan—a Christ figure of a lion who was not in any way “safe,” but was completely good.

Reading many books improves our ability to read the one book that matters most to us. All the more reason to spend our time reading more than just that one book. |L

Dr. Charlie Starr teaches English, Humanities, and Film at Kentucky Christian University in Grayson, Kentucky.

OTHER COLUMNS:
November 8, 2009 - Why I believe in God
October 25, 2009 - Commuting in days of evil
October 11, 2009 - Poets and don’t know it
September 27, 2009 - How Hollywood proves abortion is wrong
September 13, 2009 - Significance
August 30, 2009 - Dance alternatives
August 16, 2009 - Gluttons for gossip
August 2, 2009 - Truth from Twilight
July 19, 2009 - Visitor-friendly churches
July 5, 2009 - The Shack
June 21, 2009 - When forgiveness fails
June 7, 2009 - Re-imagining Education (Part Six)
May 24, 2009 - We are not alone
May 3, 2009 - Re-imagining education (part five)
April 26, 2009 - Conviction
April 12, 2009 - Re-imagining education (part four)
March 29, 2009 - An evangelistic proposal
March 15, 2009 - Re-imagining education (part three)
March 1, 2009 - He makes me sick
February 15, 2009 - Re-imagining education (Part Two)
February 1, 2009 - Spiritual insecurity
January 18, 2009 - Re-imagining education (part one)
January 4, 2009 - Church and politics
December 21, 2008 - Heaven’s music
December 7, 2008 - The church and marriage
November 23, 2008 - God and the president
November 9, 2008 - A time for courage
October 26, 2008 - Likes and dislikes: the Prince Caspian movie
October 12, 2008 - What’s that noise?
September 28, 2008 - Modesty matters (part two)
September 14, 2008 - All it takes is some TLC
August 31, 2008 - Modesty matters (part one)
August 17, 2008 - What would you fight for?
August 3, 2008 - Staying through the credits
July 20, 2008 - Honor to whom honor
July 6, 2008 - Tyler Perry and the movies you’re missing
June 22, 2008 - The peaceable kingdom
May 25, 2008 - Another generation grew up
May 25, 2008 - Technology and the Bible (part two)
May 11, 2008 - Technology and the Bible (part one)
April 27, 2008 - What is truth?
April 13, 2008 - And the geek shall inherit the earth
March 30, 2008 - A charactered God
March 16, 2008 - The college choice (part two)
March 2, 2008 - Good news can be hard to hear
February 17, 2008 - The college choice (part one)
February 5, 2008 - Ten suggestions for a godly standard of living
January 20, 2008 - Expelled: that “Bueller” guy’s pro-God movie
January 6, 2008 - Choosing a lifestyle
December 23, 2007 - Teachable TV?
December 9, 2007 - Owners or stewards?
November 25, 2007 - Christians teaching Christians to change TV and film
November 11, 2007 - My money is God’s business
October 28, 2007 - Navigating under the radar
October 14, 2007 - The things God values
September 30, 2007 - Movie moments
September 16, 2007 - God’s economics
September 2, 2007 - The best books to read
August 19, 2007 - There’s a rat in ‘separate’
August 5, 2007 - The art of reading
July 22, 2007 - Atheist chic
June 10, 2007 - Books: why they matter
June 3, 2007 - The non-impact of “The Lost Tomb of Jesus”
May 27, 2007 - The universal gospel
May 13, 2007 - Loving Muslims through culture
April 29, 2007 - Hope
April 15, 2007 - God in the dark
April 1, 2007 - The gospel goes to the movies
March 18, 2007 - What the Bible movies can teach us
March 4, 2007 - What will you hurt for?
February 18, 2007 - Why Heroes . . .
February 4, 2007 - Give peace a chance
January 21, 2007 - When fairy tales are true
January 7, 2007 - WYSIWYG lives
December 31, 2006 - What’s coming next?
December 17, 2006 - Mercy, mercy
December 3, 2006 - Proof of evolution!
November 19, 2006 - Hungering for God
November 5, 2006 - Violence and government, war and peace
October 22, 2006 - The mighty meek
October 8, 2006 - The Battlestar and the Bible
September 24, 2006 - Soap for the soul
September 10, 2006 - Right vs. cool
August 27, 2006 - The painful truth
August 13, 2006 - More Lies Hollywood Tells
July 30, 2006 - Christian counter culture
July 16, 2006 - The lies Hollywood tells