Last Fall was brutal for reading. The books I’m supposed to read or review are piling up (hello, Tim!), never mind some of the more substantial reading I want to get done. I’m talking volumes with a thousand pages.
A pastor-friend recently told me he aims to read 30 minutes a day. He doesn’t worry how much he covers. He just tries to put aside those 30 minutes every day, and disciplines himself to ignore the task list and read.
I’m going to try that this year with these books. I’ve figured that if I read 21 pages a day, 4 days a week, with time off for vacation, I can get through these books:
- Lectures to My Students – 635 pages
- Institutes of the Christian Religion – 1001 pages
- The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God – 402 pages
- The Doctrine of God – 806 pages
- The Doctrine of the Christian Life – 999 pages
Jonathan Edwards (1660 pages) will have to wait. He has been up until now anyway. He’s pretty patient at this point.
This will still leave me time at night for lighter reading – fiction, popular-level books, and stuff under 200 pages. We’ll see how it goes.
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I’m not even gonna comment. No. Forget it. I won’t say a thing.
Great idea. Very encouraging to know that I am not the only one struggling to get my reading done.
Nice! Those are awesome books. John’s read the Edwards volumes multiple times.
I’m doing the daily readings from the Institutes as part of the Princeton program.
See you tonight!
Darryl,
Thanks for the wisdom. I think I am going to follow your plan as well. I have the following on my shelf collecting dust and will tackle these as well:
Institutes of the Christian Religion – 1800 pgs
Christ Crucified: 72 Seromons on Isiash 53 – James Durham 704 pgs.
Systematic Theology – Berkhof – 784
Steve