Books That Have Helped Me: Part IOver the last several months, I either have read or am currently reading several books that have had a powerful impact upon my life. I want to share something about them with you over the next two weeks.
The Hiding Place
This is a powerful and moving story. Corrie ten Boom, a Dutch believer, lived through the Holocaust. She and her family were heavily involved in the Dutch underground during World War II, and helped to save the lives of hundreds of Jews. On February 28, 1944, the family was arrested. Corrie, along with her sister Betsie, spent 10 months in concentration camps, the final one being the infamous Ravensbruck. Betsie died there, but Corrie was released due to a clerical error (God’s providence!). I visited the house where it all took place in August 2008, before I read the book. Now, when I see pictures of concentration camps, I am often reminded of what Corrie’s sister Betsie said: “There is no pit so deep that He is not deeper still.” If Corrie ten Boom could go through such horrors, and yet still trust in God, how can I not trust Him in my relatively easy life?
The Knowledge of the Holy
No-one writes like A.W. Tozer. The Knowledge of the 
Holy is love for and knowledge of God, distilled into meaning-filled chapters. If you underline the books you read, as I hope you do, you will underline almost every paragraph! This book has more in it than I can grasp and absorb in one reading. It has impacted my spiritual life in a meaningful way. Consider these excerpts:
“The doctrine of the Trinity is truth for the heart. The spirit of man alone can enter through the veil and penetrate into that Holy of Holies. ‘Let me seek Thee in longing,’ pleaded Anselm, ‘let me long for Thee in seeking; let me find Thee in love, and love Thee in finding.’ Love and faith are at home in the mystery of the Godhead. Let reason kneel in reverence outside” (from Chapter 4).
“We can never know who or what we are till we know at least something of what God is. For this reason the self-existence of God is not a wisp of dry doctrine, academic and remote; it is in fact as near as our breath and as practical as the latest surgical technique” (from Chapter 5).
“Sin has many manifestations but its essence is one. A moral being, created to worship before the throne of God, sits on the throne of his own selfhood and from that elevated position declares, ‘I AM.’ That is sin in its concentrated essence; yet because it is natural it appears to be good” (from Chapter 5).
Read this book. It will challenge your misconceptions about God, and give you a hunger to truly know the One “with whom we have to do” (Heb. 4:13).
I have been reading a lot of books lately. As a teacher, books help to inspire and educate me as I seek to inspire and educate my students. Today, rather than a music quote, I'll leave you with a quote from Mortimer Adler’s How to Read a Book.
“There are two ways in which one can own a book. The first is the property right you establish by paying for it, just as you pay for clothes and furniture. But this act of purchase is only the prelude to possession. Full ownership comes only when you have made it a part of yourself, and the best way to make yourself a part of it is by writing in it. An illustration may make the point clear. You buy a beefsteak and transfer it from the butcher’s icebox to your own. But you do not own the beefsteak in the most important sense until you consume it and get it into your bloodstream. I am arguing that books, too, must be absorbed in your blood stream to do you any good.
Confusion about what it means to “own” a book leads people to a false reverence for paper, binding, and type — a respect for the physical thing — the craft of the printer rather than the genius of the author. They forget that it is possible for a man to acquire the idea, to possess the beauty, which a great book contains, without staking his claim by pasting his bookplate inside the cover. Having a fine library doesn’t prove that its owner has a mind enriched by books; it proves nothing more than that he, his father, or his wife, was rich enough to buy them.
There are three kinds of book owners. The first has all the standard sets and best sellers — unread, untouched. (This deluded individual owns woodpulp and ink, not books.) The second has a great many books — a few of them read through, most of them dipped into, but all of them as clean and shiny as the day they were bought. (This person would probably like to make books his own, but is restrained by a false respect for their physical appearance.) The third has a few books or many — every one of them dog-eared and dilapidated, shaken and loosened by continual use, marked and scribbled in from front to back. (This man owns books.) …
But the soul of a book “can” be separate from its body. A book is more like the score of a piece of music than it is like a painting. No great musician confuses a symphony with the printed sheets of music. Arturo Toscanini reveres Brahms, but Toscanini’s score of the G minor Symphony is so thoroughly marked up that no one but the maestro himself can read it. The reason why a great conductor makes notations on his musical scores — marks them up again and again each time he returns to study them—is the reason why you should mark your books. If your respect for magnificent binding or typography gets in the way, buy yourself a cheap edition and pay your respects to the author.”
HT: Tim Challies
