Reading for Free and Reading for Freedom

Everyone should read. Reading is thought-provoking, mind-building, imagination-freeing, and boredom-curing. If you can read and you're not reading regularly, then you are wasting your mind and time and life on other, far less important things. You also are failing to work your brain-muscle like the rest of your muscles and failing to use the faculties God has so graciously given you.

Wonderfully sharp blogger Tim Challies posted the other day about this very subject, and I found his post and the one he links to (Bob Kauflin's) very encouraging. They note the edifying nature not only of the content of reading, but also of the very act itself. The point out helpful tips and treasures from their own reading experiences, and give exhortations and encouragements to read all the more.

But not only is reading a freeing exercise, reading is also free. More free books, even good books, are available online than ever before, and the number is only growing as copyrights continue to expire. I want to highlight two of these sites for you:

• CCEL.org - a vast, well-indexed, searchable site full of Christian writers (not just theologians and pastors), includes writers like Athanasius, Chesterton, Luther, Calvin, and Spurgeon
• GraceGems.org - a simple "treasury of ageless sovereign grace devotional writings," mostly by the Puritans
  

Without writing and books and reading, we would know very little about the world around us or the God who created us. Sadly, though, we would often rather watch mind-numbing television or play brain-slushing video games than sit down and read a good book. This simply must change - our minds are dying and our language simplifying, and we can't figure out how to understand or explain the the God of the Gospel or His world in which we live. Let's get back to reading. May the God who speaks help us.