Why Read "Old" Books?

Reading old books is often hard work. Mark Twain once quipped that a classic book is one "everyone wishes they have read but never takes the time to read." So, here is some encouragement from CS Lewis for us to prioritize reading "classics."

CS Lewis writes,

None of us can fully escape this [cultural] blindness [of our age], but we shall certainly increase it, and weaken our guard against it, if we read only modern books. Where they are true they will give us truths which we half knew already. Where they are false they will aggravate the error with which we are already dangerously ill. The only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books. Not, of course, that there is any magic about the past. People were no cleverer then than they are now; they made as many mistakes as we. But not the same mistakes. They will not flatter us in the errors we are already committing; and their own errors, being now open and palpable, will not endanger us. . . . To be sure, the books of the future would be just as good a corrective as the books of the past, but unfortunately we cannot get at them. 

("On the Reading Old Books," in God in the Dock, pg. 202. I found this quote in The Devoted Life: An Invitation to the Purtian Classics, ed. by Kapic and Gleason, pg. 34.).

"Is Something Evil Only if It Harms Others?"

This is a pressing question for our day and time. More and more it is the cultural way of defining evil. However, if we think for a few moments, we realize that determining what harms others is itself complex. Does a divorce hurt others if both the man and woman say they want the divorce? Could it be that such a divorce hurts society in untraceable ways? In other words, how direct and obvious must the harm be before the action is considered evil? So, even without using the Bible, I would argue that this definition of evil is built on quicksand.

More than that, however, the issue is that Christians must define evil the way God does. A world that rejects God defines evil in shallow ways. The Christian worldview offers a deeper understanding of the nature of evil. A definition of evil must reckon with the existence of God as the owner, lawgiver, and judge of all creation. It must take into account God's glory and holiness.

The Ask Pastor John podcast has an excerpt from a John Piper sermon that will help you see through the culture's shallow definition of evil, and begin to think biblically. Here is how he summarizes evil:

The essence of evil, all evil — what makes evil really evil — is that it always involves finding more pleasure in something other than God. 

The whole eight minutes of the podcast is worth listening to. Obviously, it is not a full treatment of the topic, but I think it addresses the crux of the issue.