What Should We Read?
A New Commentary on John 21:25
Picture yourself walking into a favorite used bookstore. The musty smell and the books scattered across every nook and cranny remind you of a disheveled old man who is so focused on knowledge that he has forgotten the delicacies of personal hygiene. Undeterred, you walk with expectation through shelf after shelf and row after row of books. Some titles jump out at you; John Steinbeck’s “East of Eden,” Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” and Dorothy Sayer’s “Gaudy Night.” A spontaneous prayer rises within you. You give thanks for the people who taught you the joy of reading. Thanks for the joy that makes wonderful, smelly old bookstores like this one such an adventure.
Reading brings us more than joy. Studies have revealed that it improves brain function, reduces stress, sharpens our minds, and improves our overall health. It transports us to lands across space and time and strengthens our imagination and creativity. Former UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova said, “The future starts with the alphabet.”
Your attention returns to the books around you. This bookstore is much bigger than it seemed at first. You look up and down the aisles. You find books in thousands of languages; from Swahili to Swedish, from German to Gaelic, and from Arabic to Amharic. There are so many volumes in so many languages about so many different aspects of life that you are unsure where to begin.
A sign directs you to the basement with the promise of “special collections.” You follow its lead downstairs into a dark room. After finding the light switch you walk into the rarified atmosphere. The “special collections” room is filled with stone and clay tablets, scrolls and papyri, parchment, and paper; each ready to bear witness to the experiences, thoughts, and reflections of its ancient author.
As you turn off the basement light and walk back up the stairs you wonder if there is any connection between all of the books in this store. You continue past the first floor to the as-yet-unexplored second floor and peruse its collections. You can’t put your finger on it, but something seems to unite all the volumes. There is a common theme. Then it hits you. This entire collection has been influenced by the Bible.
Though the collection is huge, it can’t be exhaustive. If there were a bookstore containing all of the literature influenced by the Old and New Testaments, it would be massive. The complete Bible has been translated into 704 languages. The entire New Testament can be read in an additional 1,551 languages. Bible portions have been translated into yet another 1,160 languages. A store would need shelf space for more than 3,400 books to have just one copy of every translation of the Bible. If we add published commentaries on the Bible written over thousands of years the necessary space would grow exponentially. If we also gathered all of the fiction and non-fiction; poetry, novels, TV shows, film scripts, podcasts, and social media posts influenced by the Bible, we would come very close to John’s delightful conclusion to his story of Jesus’ life:
“Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.”1
Our bookstore is a testament to the fact that the stories of the Scriptures have inspired countless people. Whatever their situation and whenever they lived their life was illuminated by a creative interaction with the Bible.
You have another appointment. Your adventure in the bookstore is coming to an end. Which of these books should you purchase and take home with you? There are hundreds of books that could help us; so many options but only so many hours in a day. How do we choose?
We could set up a “top ten list” based on the particular challenges we are experiencing. But we would be better served by a list of one. One volume that equips us for everything we can experience in life. A single book that speaks deeply to us through stories of adventure, drama, and even steamy love poetry. One edition that is filled with riddles and proverbs and wisdom; with song lyrics, humor, and prophecy. One book that, if we make it our lifelong companion, will create good in our lives, our relationships, and our community.
What book could do all of this? The book that has inspired every single volume around you. This entire bookstore is a testimony to the book you should read and master. That book, of course, is the Bible.
John 21:25
What an engaging journey - filled with images, facts, truth and summed up by the reality of which Book is a companion for life. Thank you!
It took me some time, but I finally read the entire Bible in 2021 (on my Bible app, no less!) and was amazed by what I read. Although I was raised going to chuch and reading many verses, there was something so very different about reading it in its entirety to me. So many verses that were profoundly meaningful to me but had been, at least up until that time, undiscovered to me, were incredibly impactful. Not least the one you quoted from John ~
“Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.”¹
Talk about being blown away! Not only did I realize what I had missed by not reading the Bible completely, but also the fact that there were so many other things that Jesus did in his short lifetime that John couldn't have even possibly recorded, they were so vast and many.
This is what I love the most about reading the Bible with abandon ~ there is so much undiscovered country there, just waiting to be discovered and applied to our lives NOW! Thank you for this post, Randy! I found it very meaningful, especially as a lifelong book lover. :)