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7 Benefits of Reading Non-Christian Books

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Tony Reinke, in his excellent book Lit!: A Christian Guide to Reading Books:

What types of books should Christians read? Scripture is the most important book, and the highest priority for our reading. Christian books can teach us valuable lessons about God, the world, our sin, and our Savior.

But in this chapter I want to focus on the value of non-Christian books. By that term, I mean any book not authored by a converted Christian or written from an explicitly Christian motive. What should we do with all these books? Should we burn them? Should we treasure them? Should we read them in secret under the bedsheets with a flashlight?

My conviction is that non-Christian literature — at least the best of it — is a gift from God to be read by Christians. These books are, in the words of Spurgeon, gold leaf compared to the gold bars of Scripture, but they are gold, and they do have value.

He then discusses seven benefits to reading non-Christian books. I’d love to reproduce the whole discussion, as it is an excellent outline on how to think about the relationship between common grace and saving grace, but to see that you’ll have to get the book! But here are the seven benefits he goes in to:

  1. Non-Christian literature can describe the world, how it functions, and how to subdue it
  2. Non-Christian books highlight common life experiences
  3. Non-Christian books can expose the human heart
  4. Non-Christian books can teach us wisdom and valuable moral lessons
  5. Non-Christian books can capture beauty
  6. Non-Christian literature raises questions that can only be resolved in Christ
  7. Non-Christian books can echo spiritual truth and edify the soul

Cape Town Anniversary

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The Lausanne Movement blog has a series of post from two weeks ago in recognition of the one-year anniversary of the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization last October.

What Was the Most Important Thing About Cape Town 2010?

Here’s a key reflection from one of the posts on the most important outcome from the Congress last fall:

In an interview at the close of the Congress, Doug Birdsall, Executive Chair of The Lausanne Movement, said he believes the personal connections made by leaders were among the most important accomplishments of the gathering.  Additionally he said leaders were able to sense the magnitude of what God is doing around the world and that together the Church regained its footing and regained its nerve for world evangelization.

I agree 100%. Making connections and seeing what God is doing are the central purposes of any conference — most of all a convention such as Cape Town 2010 that brought together delegates from almost every nation in the world. And from the results of the past year, it looks like these outcomes have born much fruit — and will continue to bear fruit for a long time to come.

Here’s a closing video that looks back on the congress: Cape Town 2010: Looking back at the Congress

The New Rules of the Internet

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The “new rules” have been around for a while now, but this is still a great summary by Jeff Jarvis in What Would Google Do?:

  1. Customers are now in charge.
  2. People can find each other anywhere and coalesce around you or against you.
  3. The mass market is [sort of] dead, replaced by the mass of niches.
  4. Since markets are conversations, the key skill in any organization is no longer marketing but conversing.
  5. We have shifted from an economy based on scarcity to one based on abundance.
  6. Enabling customers to collaborate with you (creating, distributing, marketing, supporting products) is what creates a premium in today’s market.
  7. The most successful enterprises today are networks and the platforms on which those networks are built.
  8. The key to success is not owning pipelines, people, products, or even intellectual property, but openness.

Should You Upgrade to the iPhone 4s?

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I had the same initial reservations as Michael Hyatt: It seems like you get most of the advancements through the iOS5 software, and the iPhone 4 is already really great. Is it worth it to upgrade to the iPhone 4s?

After his daughter convinced him to give it a try, he upgraded — and is very glad he did. He gives a great summary of the three biggest benefits in upgrading, and has me convinced.

I should add that, with something like an iPhone, it is generally my policy to get every upgrade, because the increase in speed alone is usually worth it. It also helps keep you up to date on the advancements in technology, by experience rather than simply hearing second-hand. I think that is important for keeping our thinking up to date so that we can fully maximize technology for good.

But I was reluctant here, giving slightly higher priority to saving money than I usually do. As is typical, though, I’ve found that the intent to save money often ends up shooting you in the foot when the issue at stake is, as here, an investment in tools that exist to equip you in doing good. So, with this lesson reinforced once again, I will be getting the iPhone 4s.

Respect and Generosity are Governing Principles for Any Effective Leader

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It is so easy, especially in turbulent economic times such as those we are in now, to get focused on efficiency and cost cutting. And those things do have their place.

But they are not the main thing. They are not what’s most important. And leadership should be diligent to never succumb to the temptation to let them usurp what is most important.

After a God-centered passion, two of the most important principles for any leader are respect and generosity.

Generosity — not efficiency. And respect — not efficiency.

Efficiency can, and often does, undermine both. That’s why you have to make it second, not first.

There are few (if any) promises in the Bible to prosper the “efficient” man or woman. But there is an abundance of promises to the generous person.

We know this from the Bible. But often we think that “business thinking” is different. That somehow the realm of running non-profits and businesses and other organizations plays by different rules.

But it doesn’t.

To be sure, people often think it does, and act like it does. That’s why we need to be careful about saying “non-profits need to be run more like businesses” and so forth — not because the principles for running an effective business are always different (though sometimes they are), but because there are many wrong business principles being used to run businesses, and we don’t want to let those infect the non-profit sector as well.

But the things that are ultimately required for running a business and non-profit well are ultimately the same things necessary for living a good life. And generosity and respect are two of those overarching principles.

And we aren’t left simply looking at the Bible to see this (though that should be enough). The best business and leadership thinkers have always acknowledged this.

Take Peter Drucker. At the end of his book The Effective Executive, he points out that his emphasis on making strengths productive “is fundamentally respect for the person — one’s own as well as others. It is a value system of action.” Drucker isn’t detaching executive effectiveness from the realm of morality and decency and sheer humanity. Rather, he sees them as utterly intertwined. A focus on strengths is ultimately a respect for the individual.

Likewise, he points out that the practice of “putting first things first” is not simply an issue of effectiveness, but character. “What is being developed here is not information, but chracter: foresight, self-reliance, courage. What is being developed here, in other words, is leadership — not the leadership of brilliance and genius, to be sure, but hte much more modest yet more enduring leadership of dedication, determination, and serious purpose.”

Drucker does not abstract effectiveness, even in large organizations, from character. They are utterly intertwined such that the core practices of effectiveness are actually manifestations of (and means of developing) character and respect for others.

Likewise, when I was at the Global Leadership Summit the year before this one, Jack Welch made a very significant comment. He said “Top people have a generosity of spirit. They get a kick out of giving bonuses, for example. They don’t have envy. They love helping people grow.” There’s character once again, and generosity. Top people are generous. Generosity is not just something for our personal lives and personal finances; we are to have a generosity of spirit in the way we go about our work. That is biblical, but what we see is that it is also borne out by the experience of the most effective business leaders and thinkers of our time.

So, how do you lead? Do you care first about generosity, or efficiency? About respect — and thus it’s corollary of positioning people according to their strengths — or efficiency?

I’m not playing these things off against efficiency, rightly understood. For ultimately, the best way to be efficient is to value generosity and respect before efficiency.