One of my biggest regrets in life is that I didn’t start reading sooner. Charles Spurgeon is said to have read the Puritans at just 9 or 10 years old. Imagine what you were doing at 9 or 10! Proverbs 11:14 states, “Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety.” Reading is like consulting “an abundance of counselors.” When you want to learn how to do something, you look at the instruction manual. When you are new to a craft, you learn from an expert. When you do not want to make a mistake, you ask for advice (or, at least, you should). Authors and publishers work hard to produce books for readers to glean from.
While not every book contains advice on Christian living or biblical wisdom, it is helpful to consider reading as an act of wisdom for the Christian life. Through books, we learn from disciples of Jesus Christ who have gone before us—their successes and their failures.
Here are three reasons why you should consider reading more.
1. Books Are Written from Deep Reflection.
Authors are passionate enough about a topic to spend hundreds of hours thinking and writing their thoughts out. They have pondered the topic, learned from personal life experiences, and offer thoughtful conclusions to their readers. Take Jason Allen’s three-volume series Letters to My Students, for example.[1] In the spirit of Spurgeon’s Lectures to My Students, Allen saw it fit to give his advice to pastors-in-training. Reflecting on his decades of ministry experience and current experience in higher education leadership, Allen’s books are a gold mine for pastors-in-training who desire to learn from a ministry leader who has gone before them and learned lessons about the Christian life and ministry.
2. Books Connect Us with Christians Who Came Before Us.
The Lord told the prophet Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations” (Jer. 1:5). The Lord sovereignly ordained Jeremiah’s life and calling within a specific moment in history to serve the people of God. Similarly, you and I did not choose when we were born. What is clear, however, is that people have lived before us. When we pick up books such as Letters to My Students by Charles Spurgeon or The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, we are learning from disciples of Christ who lived before us in history with different contextual struggles. In other words, we should ask ourselves, “What did they learn about the Christian life that I can learn for my benefit today?” We can save ourselves time and avoid unnecessary mistakes by learning from those who lived before us.
3. Books Can Help Strengthen Your Faith.
I want to be clear: Scripture is sufficient for the Christian life (2 Tim. 3:16–17). By strengthening your faith, I mean that reading can help you glean wisdom from multiple authors about how to live the Christian life more faithfully. You may not agree with everything an author writes, but reading their books sharpens your thinking and helps you better understand why you believe what you believe. Read and study Scripture, then supplement your Bible study by consulting other disciples’ reflections on the Christian life.
In his popular book Teaching to Change Lives, Howard Hendricks writes, “The two factors that will influence you the most in the years ahead are the books you read and the people you’re around.”[2] Choose your books wisely. The authors are your counselors. In the end, books are a matter of wisdom. Scripture is sufficient, and God has provided everything you and I need for life and godliness (2 Pet. 1:3). We should not walk the Christian life alone, though (Prov. 27:17), and that includes not ignoring our counselors in written form. Save yourself some time by learning from others: Pick up a book, glean wisdom from the author, and strengthen your faith—all under the authority and sufficiency of Scripture. Reading is wisdom for the Christian life.
[1] Jason K. Allen, Letters to My Students, 3 vols. (Nashville, TN: B&H Books), 2025.
[2] Howard Hendricks, Teaching to Change Lives: Seven Proven Ways to Make Your Teaching Come Alive (New York, NY: Multnomah, 1987), 27.