Read Old, Dead Theologians 15 Minutes a Day

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | - Jacob from Olive Branch, Mississippi writes in to ask this,

00:00:08.380 | Pastor John, I'm a 20 year old college student.

00:00:11.220 | I love to read theology,

00:00:12.700 | but sometimes I find it incredibly difficult to do.

00:00:15.540 | I especially enjoy reading Jonathan Edwards and John Owen.

00:00:18.580 | Reading theology, however, is hard.

00:00:21.420 | It's not like other genres

00:00:22.720 | where you can read large passages straight through.

00:00:25.740 | I often find myself splitting my reading

00:00:27.820 | into short segments.

00:00:29.520 | My question is how do you, Pastor John,

00:00:31.760 | read the works of men like Owen and Edwards?

00:00:35.400 | What tips do you have for people like myself who enjoy it,

00:00:38.880 | but also struggle with it?

00:00:40.920 | - If by struggle, Jacob,

00:00:43.440 | you mean when reading Owen and Edwards,

00:00:47.020 | you must slow down and take it in smaller sections

00:00:50.960 | so that you can ponder it and digest it,

00:00:54.040 | then this is the kind of struggle

00:00:57.640 | I think everybody should have, should have,

00:01:01.360 | not must have, but should have.

00:01:03.480 | That kind of reading is exactly the way

00:01:06.360 | I think Owen and Edwards should be read.

00:01:10.200 | I say almost everybody.

00:01:11.360 | You know, almost everybody should read it like that

00:01:13.960 | because there are a few geniuses in the world, all right?

00:01:18.260 | I know that.

00:01:19.680 | Some of them have asked me why I do certain things.

00:01:21.880 | I say, because I'm a cripple.

00:01:23.160 | I use a crutch because I'm a cripple.

00:01:25.200 | I'm not like you.

00:01:27.560 | A genius can read maybe 50 pages at a sitting,

00:01:32.040 | remember it all, understand it all,

00:01:34.440 | reproduce it all, use it all.

00:01:36.240 | I'm not like that.

00:01:37.760 | Neither are most human beings.

00:01:40.960 | So no one should measure himself by people like that.

00:01:45.240 | Nobody should build seminary curricula for people like that.

00:01:49.720 | Nobody should assign reading lists for people like that.

00:01:53.260 | Nobody should develop pedagogy for people like that.

00:01:55.600 | There are only one or two in the world,

00:01:57.920 | maybe 10 or 100 or 1,000, but they're not in our classes.

00:02:02.140 | They're not in our churches by and large.

00:02:04.080 | They can make their own way.

00:02:05.360 | They don't need anybody to plan anything for them.

00:02:08.020 | So you and me, Jacob, we're normal,

00:02:10.920 | and we need to talk about this.

00:02:12.960 | So thank you for asking the question.

00:02:15.640 | So back to the question.

00:02:16.880 | How do I read Owen and Edwards?

00:02:20.680 | And what tips do I have for you to read him

00:02:25.240 | if you're struggling with longer sections?

00:02:27.840 | And since I'm one of you, my answer to the first question,

00:02:31.200 | how do I read, really is the answer to the second question,

00:02:33.840 | what are my tips for you?

00:02:36.120 | So I'll simply give you some specific examples

00:02:39.520 | that I remember reading Owen and Edwards.

00:02:43.100 | Back in the late '70s, when I bought my first edition,

00:02:47.680 | two volumes of Edwards, they were published in 1974

00:02:51.360 | by Banner of Truth.

00:02:52.400 | I got them probably in '77.

00:02:54.240 | I can't remember exactly what year.

00:02:56.200 | And I decided, having flipped through the first volume,

00:02:59.440 | okay, I want to read the Doctrine of Original Sin.

00:03:03.680 | There it is, tiny print, two columns, many, many pages.

00:03:07.280 | How shall I do this?

00:03:08.440 | And I knew that I had little time

00:03:10.780 | for extracurricular reading on top of all my class

00:03:12.940 | preparations and everything,

00:03:14.320 | when I was teaching at Bethel College.

00:03:16.800 | And so I decided I would read

00:03:20.240 | the Doctrine of Original Sin by Jonathan Edwards,

00:03:23.320 | 15 minutes a day.

00:03:25.680 | I think it was just before supper that I set it apart,

00:03:28.920 | a little alarm on my clock, ding, 5.15,

00:03:31.360 | gonna go up and eat at 5.30, start reading Edwards now.

00:03:34.980 | Stop 15 minutes later.

00:03:37.600 | And I got it out and I looked,

00:03:39.580 | and it's just marked all up.

00:03:42.000 | It's underlined, it's got notes in the margins,

00:03:44.040 | it's got exclamation points, it's got comments,

00:03:46.040 | it's got lines drawn.

00:03:48.100 | You can't do that at 50 pages a shot.

00:03:51.200 | You can't read like that.

00:03:53.600 | I did the same thing in 1972, this is earlier now,

00:03:57.640 | '73 with an old musty copy of Religious Affections,

00:04:00.680 | 'cause the two volumes hadn't been published yet,

00:04:03.780 | in Germany during graduate school.

00:04:06.160 | It was my Sunday evening church service by myself

00:04:11.000 | in a rocking chair in the corner of my room

00:04:13.300 | in Munich, Germany, reading once a week.

00:04:16.760 | And it took me a long time to get through that book.

00:04:19.740 | It was glorious.

00:04:21.100 | It was life-changing to meet Edwards slowly

00:04:24.920 | in little chunks in Religious Affections.

00:04:28.880 | Here's one more example.

00:04:30.280 | When I came to Bethlehem to be the pastor in 1980,

00:04:34.760 | I wanted to get more clarity

00:04:37.920 | on the doctrine of particular redemption.

00:04:42.480 | So I put John Owen's "Death of Death"

00:04:46.880 | from his collected works on my bedside table

00:04:49.920 | and resolved I will read what I can,

00:04:53.180 | little bit, 10, 15 minutes before I go to bed every night.

00:04:56.920 | Strange time to read one of the heaviest books,

00:04:59.480 | but I did it.

00:05:00.920 | I've got it marked up.

00:05:02.520 | It was solidifying and very helpful.

00:05:06.620 | And that's the way I have read many things.

00:05:11.180 | So here's a massive hope giver, I hope,

00:05:15.200 | to everybody who's like me, who not only reads slowly,

00:05:20.200 | but has a hard time putting pieces together as they read

00:05:24.240 | and has a hard time remembering what they read.

00:05:28.000 | I wrote for people like that on page 129 in my book,

00:05:33.000 | "When I Don't Desire God, These Words."

00:05:37.000 | Suppose you read slowly like I do,

00:05:39.160 | maybe about 200 words a minute,

00:05:42.800 | which is about the speed at which I'm talking.

00:05:45.080 | Now, probably, if you read 15 minutes a day for one year,

00:05:50.080 | say just before supper or just before bed,

00:05:56.520 | you will read 5,475 minutes in the year.

00:06:01.480 | Multiply that by 200 words a minute

00:06:04.400 | and you get 1,095,000 words

00:06:08.560 | that you would have read in a year.

00:06:11.320 | Now, an average serious book

00:06:15.240 | might have about 360 words per page.

00:06:19.400 | I counted some and made an average.

00:06:21.700 | So you would read 3,041 pages in one year

00:06:26.700 | during that 15-minute slot.

00:06:29.520 | That's 10 very substantial books,

00:06:33.680 | all in 15 minutes a day.

00:06:37.000 | Or let's be more specific.

00:06:38.160 | John Calvin's Institutes, in the two volume that I have,

00:06:41.520 | is 1,521 pages in two volumes

00:06:45.360 | with an average of 400 words per page,

00:06:48.660 | which is 608,000 words.

00:06:52.720 | That means that even if you took a day off,

00:06:55.840 | let's just do six days a week,

00:06:57.160 | took a day off every week,

00:06:59.920 | you could read this great biblical vision

00:07:03.320 | of God and man, the Institutes,

00:07:05.880 | in about 33 weeks at 15 minutes a day,

00:07:10.640 | and you would be doing other reading besides.

00:07:13.760 | So, Jacob, take heart.

00:07:16.520 | You call it a struggle.

00:07:17.960 | You can drop that word.

00:07:19.880 | This is a blessing.

00:07:21.040 | It is a gift that you enjoy, great theologians,

00:07:25.080 | and it's a gift that you can't

00:07:27.280 | breeze through them quickly.

00:07:29.960 | The world has enough people in it

00:07:33.360 | who read to say they have read.

00:07:36.680 | It needs more people who care very little for pace

00:07:41.680 | and care very deeply about going deep.

00:07:46.020 | So be that kind of reader.

00:07:48.320 | - Wonderful, yes, thank you, Pastor John.

00:07:50.760 | Okay, quickly, for someone new to Jonathan Edwards,

00:07:53.420 | where should they start?

00:07:54.260 | Should they start with charity and its fruits?

00:07:57.060 | - No, I wouldn't start with charity.

00:07:59.520 | My wife and I read charity in Germany on the couch

00:08:04.520 | a little bit every night, and frankly, found it wordy.

00:08:09.360 | I don't think it's written as well as Edwards' other books.

00:08:13.000 | I'm not sure why that is.

00:08:14.440 | I think it doesn't, I mean, everybody says

00:08:17.200 | Edwards is hard to read.

00:08:19.040 | I think charity, at least in parts of it,

00:08:22.560 | not the last chapter, Heaven is a World of Love

00:08:25.640 | is in a class by itself.

00:08:27.080 | I mean, that's a classic.

00:08:28.560 | Everybody should read that,

00:08:29.600 | even if they don't read the rest of the chapters.

00:08:31.680 | I would generally say start with some sermons,

00:08:36.520 | collection of sermons, but if you're gonna take a big book,

00:08:39.880 | I would start with Religious Affections.

00:08:42.800 | Religious Affections proved to me

00:08:44.880 | the most devotionally satisfying

00:08:47.600 | of all the works of Edwards.

00:08:49.080 | Reading it on a Sunday night in Germany for weeks on end

00:08:53.800 | while my heart was being dismantled

00:08:56.320 | by the laying back of the onion of sin

00:09:00.520 | and the description of the beauties of holiness,

00:09:03.520 | I would just, I would send them there

00:09:05.760 | if they are a very academic type

00:09:08.480 | and they really wanna tackle something hard,

00:09:12.000 | I think Edwards' greatest book is The Freedom of the Will.

00:09:15.560 | But that's no place for a beginner to start.

00:09:20.600 | Devotionally, I think sermons like

00:09:23.880 | the Excellency of Christ or a divine and spiritual light

00:09:28.240 | immediately imparted to the soul

00:09:30.760 | or on the fatherhood of God or Christ's agony,

00:09:35.760 | I mean, those are just sermons that stand out in my memory

00:09:38.480 | as precious or the Religious Affections.

00:09:42.960 | - Very good, excellent, thank you, Pastor John.

00:09:44.960 | And this episode reminds me of episode number 99

00:09:48.160 | back when I asked the cliche question I know,

00:09:51.520 | "Stranded on a desert island, what books do you bring?"

00:09:55.320 | You can find Pastor John's answer

00:09:56.920 | in episode number 99 of this podcast

00:09:59.680 | and you can find it at desiringgod.org.

00:10:02.960 | At the top of the page, click on the tab that says More

00:10:05.480 | and then click on Ask Pastor John.

00:10:07.560 | There you can search hundreds of past episodes,

00:10:10.200 | you can get the free apps

00:10:11.920 | and you can ask John Piper a bewildering question.

00:10:15.680 | All that and all made possible

00:10:17.560 | because of our generous financial donors

00:10:19.240 | who are behind the mission of Desiring God

00:10:21.960 | who make this podcast possible

00:10:24.160 | and who I know are listening right now, thank you.

00:10:26.800 | Well, when you look at Christ, what do you see in him?

00:10:32.520 | The answer to that question determines everything

00:10:35.880 | and Pastor John will explain why tomorrow.

00:10:38.500 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.

00:10:39.520 | Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast.

00:10:42.120 | (upbeat music)

00:10:44.700 | (upbeat music)

00:10:47.280 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

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