Office Hours Podcast

Memorizing portions or large chunks of scripture has the benefit of forcing you to become very familiar with a section. Because you spend time looking at it, reciting, and chewing on it to move it into your long-term memory, you start to notice things you might not have before.

* Pick a Bible translation and stay with it.

* Start with a couple of verses and move on to bigger sections.

Christian parents have a responsibility to train their children to know and love the Lord. The only source for that knowledge is in the Bible, although the particular methods of teaching and training need to be thoughtfully applied based on your knowledge of your own particular children. In this episode we discuss when to start reading the Bible to and with them, how to help it stick in their minds, and how to approach things like storybook Bibles.

In this episode, we continue our season dedicated to Bible reading, looking at some of the different types of reading plans and how to use them. Remember, the most important thing is about making Bible reading a daily habit.

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We’re entering Season 2 of the Office Hours Podcast, and we triangulate our reading focus to look at reading the Bible specifically. To begin with, can you be a Christian without reading your Bible? Is it sinful to not read your Bible every day?

We show what we love by what we do, so without adding to the Bible’s commands, we ought to recognize that as Christians, we’re expected to be regularly reading and meditating on the Word of God. This is true for all of us, but especially as Christian parents, we’re told to teach these things to our children; they are to be so much a part of our life that we talk of them when we sit down and when we walk, when we lie down and when we rise up (Deuteronomy 6:6-8).

In this episode we discuss the importance and blessing of daily Bible reading.

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How do you prefer to get your books? In this episode we discuss the strengths and weaknesses of print books versus e-readers, their different applications, overcoming technology learning curves, and some of the different e-reader manufacturers.

In this final episode of Season 1, we discuss the horror genre, what it is, what it isn’t, and whether a Christian can lawfully and profitably read it. We also deal with the question of men’s and women’s tastes when it comes to fiction, and look ahead to our next season on reading the Bible.

With special thanks to Davie for sending in some thoughtful questions, we discourse on some potential dilemmas that readers face, including what to make of abridged versions, how to choose a translation, and observing that a work is not necessarily a classic just because an author has written other classic works.

On this episode we’re talking about our favourite literary characters. This is primarily an excuse to talk about and quote our favourite books. 

One of the signs of a good book is a well-developed character, a character you can really “see” and can anticipate how they’re going to act. One of the worst things is when an author betrays you by letting a character do something that is inconsistent with who they’ve built.

You can tell when an author has done their work well and built the back story for their characters and answered motivation and history questions themselves, even if the answers to those questions don’t show up explicitly in the story. 

Reading can help improve your life in many material and immaterial ways. In this episode we talk about a few of the advantages that accrue to those who cultivate a habit of reading.

Improve your spelling – this is not a trivial benefit. People who can handle and discern words with excellence will quickly make themselves valuable in the workplace.

Learn about the way they do things in other parts of the world – Expanding vocabulary and understanding will give you new words and phrases to apply to the world. These are usually contextual rather than stated outright. You might learn, for instance, that in England they call trucks lorries. This is powerful information.

Deeper understanding of things – good authors take some part of reality, human experience, history, and present it in ways that make you understand it better, consider it from a new perspective, or just give you a new word to describe something familiar.

Regular reading gives you words for something you have been thinking of already. It is an application of paideia - imprinting good patterns of thought on our minds.

Better communication – the original meaning of vulgar was common, public, or plain; it was not necessarily an insult. Over time it came to mean unlettered, and later took on its present use to refer to people who constantly cuss; a cuss word might be the word in season, but ‘vulgar’ has come to be used this way because unlettered people, instead of using an appropriate phrase to describe something, will use a cuss word as a sort of universal stand-in. We are now living in an age where foul language has become so versatile as to be meaningless.

Like any good thing, we can overvalue or prioritize reading at the expense of more important things like family, Bible reading, or just having a quiet moment. These are some of the pitfalls we’ve had to guard against. Can you relate? Can you think of others?

* Neglecting Bible reading

* Setting unrealistic goals

* spending money you don’t have on books

* Excusing bad content because it’s well written

* Aalways listening or reading and never just being quiet; strong temptation to always put something on

* Not giving times where your kids can talk to you about stuff

* Reading as an excuse to be antisocial

* Never finishing a book

* Never quitting a book

* Quantity over quality/reading to show off

* Reading all the ‘right’ books but not letting them have any influence on your life