Why what I Get from a Book isn't Necessarily what You Get

In my review of Family Driven Faith, I think I mentioned wanting everyone in my church to read the book. They would be exposed to new ideas, and I wouldn’t have to do all the explaining and defending. My idealistic vision was of friends and leaders with changed understanding of church.

Today I’m reading No Little People, a collection of essays by Francis Schaeffer. The same thoughts are coming to mind. Earlier this week I read the essay “God’s Work God’s Way.” To me the points exactly contained evangelical Christianity. We want to do God’s work, but instead of looking for biblical directions, we take our corporation-based programs and modify them for church. Or we adopt the evolutionary view of education that is used in the public schools and implement it in our discipleship. We see what is effective for the entertainment industry and we make our “services” more attractive.

Last night I was listening to a sermon entitled, “My People Perish,” by R.C. Sproul, Jr. He argues against adopting the world’s goals. We don’t raise up children to be missionaries so the kingdom will increase. We raise up children to increase the kingdom. I think he’s saying first things first. Our goal is not to take back Harvard or Hollywood, but to serve Jesus Christ and bring Him glory.

A friend was telling me about how God is teaching her about money. She’s being sanctified a little bit at a time. At this point she’s trying to take God’s perspective that money is not the object. He embraced sacrifice, and calls us to, as well. The question is not, “Can I afford that?” or “Is it in my budget?” or even, “Have I set aside money for God first?” The question is does God’s Spirit call your members to hand over money for more clothes, for Pizza Hut pizza, for a coffee or a soda, for a cd, for that concert?

If our lives are going to be radically faith-led, shining brightly in a world of darkness, we have to be different. We can’t put a Christian icing to a worldly practice.

All this to say that this week conditioned me to pull the above applications from their respective situations. I felt the force of No Little People to be sanctification and faith (not sight) because of where I am and how I read. I’m willing to heed every word when I can. It may surprise you, but as a writer I know that most of the time the words we use are not just fillers in between bold-faced headings. We have something to say.

As evidence, I turned to the contents page of No Little People to find a note scribbled there over twenty years ago, I’d think, when my parents were in college. I think it was Mom who wrote “good – about waiting for God’s timing” next to the "God’s Work God’s Way" chapter. She had a very different perspective on the author’s intended application.

Even when interpretation is not subjective, for the force of a book to fall on someone, they have to be thoughtfully reading the words. In a way they must be interacting with the text.

This reminds me of a revelation I had this month. I watched a film production of Cyrano De Bergerac. I could imagine the actors delighting to speak the lines and play the parts. There were twice as many characters as listed in the play, because I was allowed by the staged medium to consider the fictional players in the story as well as the motivations and feelings of the actors portraying them, and how they all interacted. Later I was delighting in Wives and Daughters, Pride and Prejudice, and other films so well done that you are sure the actors are the literary heroes and heroines. But really they are not. In fact they are only able to give in their performance one interpretation of what the author was originally saying. But I can pause these movies and talk for five minutes a frame about what is being said in an expression or a gesture or a muttered comment. Do books have such depth? Imagine approaching a book so engaged that on every page you subconsciously ask the text and yourself: If I were Mr. Darcy (for example), what would I be thinking and feeling? Why did I come? Why do I speak? Why don’t I speak? What do I see?

Perhaps long ago when books were read aloud for entertainment and individuals prided themselves at their skill in doing so, the reader was forced to ask those questions, and so instantly come to a more vivid comprehension of the story.

Thus I have every intention to read a classic piece of literature in that way. I will keep you informed on how it is going.

To God be all glory.