How To Read Good!

I am using this title in a totally unauthorized way with absolutely no citation.  I read a similar blog title that was written: 'How to Write Good'.  Now perhaps I'm venting -- no, I AM  venting (need a little honesty here!), but one of the little irritants I face (Oh, I forgot: I'm being honest.) -- one of my huge irritants that I face -- almost daily, involves the simple failure of poor reading.

Now by poor reading I don't mean mispronunciation.  I don't mean improper diction.  I mean "ever reading but never knowing what you read."  I mean, is this a judicial blindness from Almighty God, or what?  Now before I fall off my high horse and have the pedestal I'm on crush my noggin, I need to confess that I'm not perfect here.   (I hope you read that.)  Having said that we really, really need to realize the urgency of this issue.

I wonder if our 'read-ability-index' is directly proportionate to the 7-second commercials we get bombarded with or even the 140 character tweets we get tweeted with?   What about all the Christians who rely on a weekly diet of edited television and radio preaching and teaching; who rest on 'quick-kiss-on-the-cheek' devotionals; and when they really, really, really want to go deep in the Word, they contract the latest and famous preacher through modern DVD lesson material?

All of these RATs[1] help us to do one thing: not read good!  I had a friend in High School that often used the phrase: "the blinding flash of the obvious."   So here it is: God gave us His authoritative revelation in a Book.  It is not an audio book.  It does not come with Coles Notes (Showing my age, right?).  It's a Book with sentences, nouns, verbs, etc., all dressed up in tenses.  It is a Book with cohesive and connecting thoughts.  It's a Book that God intended us to read -- ourselves.

OK, you don't like to read.  At this point I quote my sister: "Hezekiah 3:9 says, 'Life's hard, wear a helmet.'"  OK, you find reading difficult (same verse)!  Oh, you can't read.  Now you got me.  Not! Did you ever hear of Ann Preston, 1810-1906.  My father often told of her story.  Who is she?

Ann was born in Ireland and moved to Canada.  When she died at the age of 96, ministers from 6 denominations paid tribute to her life, at her funeral.  As a child she was told she was unfit for reading.  She couldn't memorize.  She prayed two hours every day and quoted, veraciously the Scriptures.  Who taught her to read?  The Holy Spirit.

So here it is folks, in spite of your RDD (another made up psychological condition), WE HAVE TO READ.  Martin Luther wrote: "For some years now, I have read through the Bible twice every year. If you picture the Bible to be a mighty tree and every word a little branch, I have shaken every one of these branches because I wanted to know what it was and what it meant." 

• Romans 15:4 (ESV), ⁴ For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.
• Colossians 3:16 (ESV), ¹⁶ Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
• 2 Timothy 2:15 (ESV), ¹⁵ Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

Why not go shake some branches.


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1. RAT = Reading Avoidance Techniques (I made this up!)