Tolkien, Read Books Above You

I recently came across a great comment from one of J. R. R. Tolkien’s letters (written in April 1959). Tolkien is advocating reading books with more difficult books to children rather than confining the reading to easier books. Tolkien states: “A good vocabulary is not acquired by reading books written according to some notion of …

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Public Sin Should Cause Us to Beware

There has been a lot of conversation about the revelation that South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford had been having an affair. I think one of the most important thing those of us at a distance should do in these situations is to take them as warnings to ourselves. The most recent newsletter from Shepherd Press …

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Summer Reading, A T Robertson

In light of recent posts here on reading and particularly on reading history and fiction, I thought this comment from A. T. Robertson was pertinent. Robertson was a giant in the land as a scholar and a preacher. This quote comes from an interview with Frank Leavell in “The Baptist Student” in 1932. “For diversion …

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Crabb on the need for involvement in people’s lives

Since college I have appreciated the writings of Larry Crabb. Today I read a note from a friend in which he included an excerpt from Crabb’s book, Inside Out. I have pasted in below a smaller portion of the excerpt where Crabb makes the point that exposition alone is not enough for our pastoral work. …

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