Wednesdays with Words (Lit!)

 

 

Cindy at Ordo Amoris has been hosting Wednesday with Words for the last few weeks and I've wanted to join, but time has got in the way. Today I'm sharing some quotes from Chapter 3 of Lit!: A Christian Guide to Reading Books by Tony Reinke.

 

 

My son gave me such a great narration from this chapter that I had to borrow the book from him and read through the chapter myself.

 

In this chapter titled, Reading is Believing: Savoring Books in an Eye-Candy Culture the author is addressing images and books and what we can lose in life if we focus on images or what we can gain in life if we focus on disciplined reading.

In part, the Old Testament is God's struggle to lead a language-centered people through the allurements of an image-dominated world.

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But the tension is not simply between the value of words and the value of images. Both languages and visual images are valuable. The concern is whether Christians (like us) will be patient enough to find meaning embedded in words, or if we will grow content with the superficial pleasures offered to us in the rapidly shifting images in our culture.

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...the difficult work required to benefit from books is at odds with the immediate appeal of images. As Christians living in an image saturated world, we must guard our conviction about the vital importance of words and language.

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In a world so easily satisfied with images, it's too easy to waste our lives watching mindless television and squandering our free time away with entertainment. We have a higher calling. God has called us to live our lives by faith and not by sight--and this can mean  nothing less than committing our lives to the pursuit of language, revelation, and great books.