Latest / Pastor John Piper's answers / How John Piper Marks Up His Books

Transcript

How John Piper Marks Up His Books · Pastor John Piper's answers

• 0:00
  Hi, my name is Corey. I'm a pastor in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin.
• 0:04
  You are listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast with John Piper. Corey
• 0:12
  is a friend of ours and a precious ministry partner of nearly thirty years.
• 0:17
  Now I want you to meet him in a moment and here a story.
• 0:19
  It's amazing. But first, our question today for episode number two thousand and
• 0:23
  one, and it's a book question from me, Pastor John. We like
• 0:27
  to talk books on this podcast. In past episodes, we've looked at seven
• 0:31
  ways books have changed your life. That testimony was an APGA seven O seven.
• 0:37
  And then we looked at how one percent of book insights make reading the
• 0:41
  other ninety nine percent of the book worth it. That was an APJA nineteen
• 0:46
  ten, classic point that you've made over the years. And more recently,
• 0:50
  we looked at ten of your favorite authors who write to edify your soul,
• 0:53
  Pastor John, and that was an APJA nineteen seventy two. Now today,
• 1:00
  speaking of your library, I recently paged through your copy of Mortimer Adler's classic
• 1:06
  book How to Read a Book, and I did so while working on my
• 1:10
  APJ book about this podcast, which comes out in February. We'll talk about
• 1:15
  that more later. But as I was writing the introduction to that book,
• 1:19
  I found it instructive to see what sentences that you underlined in Adler's book,
• 1:23
  what sections you marked up, and how you jotted down little notes in the
• 1:27
  front and the back of the book. I noticed that you made something of
• 1:30
  your own index of your discoveries. Can you walk us through your book marking
• 1:36
  strategy? When did you start the practice, why do you do it?
• 1:41
  What types of marginalia are you adding to your books? And of course I
• 1:46
  think we all want to know are you using pencil or pen I'll get to
• 1:51
  that in a minute. The answer is pencil, and the reasons at automatic
• 1:57
  pencil so it never goes dull zero point five. Okay, we're going to
• 2:05
  get do that later. Mortimer Adler's How to Read a Book is one of
• 2:09
  the very few books that I've read twice. But you're mentioning it gives me
• 2:16
  a good opportunity to sound a warning to you to others who are going to
• 2:22
  ask this question of me or others that the way a person say like me
• 2:27
  underlined and wrote in a book margins indexes whatever twenty or forty years ago may
• 2:35
  be very different from what I do today. That certainly is the case,
• 2:39
  got it me. I am amazed when I look back on how many books
• 2:46
  I read, say forty or thirty years ago, that don't have any of
• 2:52
  my own indexing in the front flaps, because today that is the dominant way
• 3:00
  for me to keep track of insights and enjoyments that I'm getting from the book.
• 3:07
  So by indexing, and that's not a very accurate phrase, I wish
• 3:12
  I had a better one, but I thought one. I mean simply jotting
• 3:16
  with a pencil in tiny handwriting a very short, say three to eight word
• 3:24
  description or pointer in the front of the front flap of the book, and
• 3:30
  sometimes I have to weave it around what's hardy there, what I have read
• 3:37
  in the book, along with the page number. So there may be anywhere
• 3:40
  from thirty of these in a short book up to say one hundred and fifty
• 3:45
  or more of these little notes in the flap of the book at the front,
• 3:50
  or if I have to go to the back. I think maybe the
• 3:54
  reason I didn't do this in the early days, and my memory's not good,
• 3:59
  so I may be wrong, but I think the reason might be that
• 4:03
  I wasn't thinking primarily of reading for the sake of writing, or reading for
• 4:11
  the sake of preaching, or reading for the sake of systematic increase of understanding
• 4:15
  of particular truths, or reading for the discovery and preservation of some striking and
• 4:23
  compelling way of saying something, which is what I'm so keyed into now.
• 4:28
  So now, virtually every book I read, and I'm talking print read now,
• 4:34
  not electronic would I hardly ever do or audio, which I do all
• 4:40
  the time. But I'm talking to these books I have going all the time,
• 4:43
  sitting on my chairs, always reading something in print. That's what I
• 4:47
  do. I index them. Even fiction. People say, oh, you're
• 4:50
  kidding me. You read a novel with a pencil. Yes, I do.
• 4:56
  I can't read without a pencil in my head. I'm not going to
• 4:59
  spend time I'm reading, even fiction if there is no life giving insight or
• 5:05
  striking expression of reality worth preserving. Seriously, I don't just read for pleasure.
• 5:15
  I read for pleasure that spills over on other people, because that's the
• 5:17
  biggest pleasure to give, is more blessed to receive. So that there you
• 5:23
  go. I read too slowly. I read too slowly, and my life
• 5:29
  is too short to read without the hope that what I'm reading will help me
• 5:33
  think more clearly and feel more fully and express more compellingly the glories of God
• 5:39
  in the Word and in the world, and all of that worth preserving.
• 5:45
  In some way, It's been good to discover this about myself. I don't
• 5:53
  presume, by the way, to suggest that everyone should be like this,
• 5:59
  but I realized along the way that my built in, I think God given
• 6:06
  impulse, My dominant impulse is not to read, but to write and to
• 6:15
  speak, or to say it. More generally, my bent is not to
• 6:20
  take in what others have created, but to be a creator. That's just
• 6:27
  my bent. I want to make something new, usually with words, which
• 6:33
  means that all of my intake increasingly has become fuel for my own creation sermons,
• 6:44
  articles, books, poems, devotions. Now I know this can be
• 6:48
  dangerous. Big yellow flag here I warn my students at Best Team College and
• 6:55
  seminary, do not read the Bible in the morning just in order to produce
• 7:00
  a sermon on Sunday. Christ is glorious and precious and to be trusted in
• 7:09
  the very last hours of our lives when we can do nothing with his beauty
• 7:14
  but enjoy it on our way into heaven. Yes and amen. So don't
• 7:20
  just be a user. Be an enjoyer of what you read. Savor it,
• 7:28
  love it, exult in it. However, okay, however, I
• 7:32
  believe that one of the evidences of the spiritual gift of teaching is that a
• 7:41
  person can scarcely prevent his mind from taking everything he reads and instinctively without even
• 7:48
  trying, asking himself, how would I say this? How would I say
• 7:54
  this in my own words? How would I explain this to other people?
• 7:58
  How would I illustrate it and live it? How does it fit into the
• 8:01
  framework of my own thought? Or does it do? I need to change
• 8:05
  my framework. This is why I not only index my books, but I
• 8:11
  keep a little Field book, a full Field notebook. I buy these Impacts
• 8:18
  of five from Amazon, a little Field book, a little journal beside my
• 8:22
  chair on my desk, so that when I get a thought or an idea
• 8:28
  that stirs me up to think out my own train, I have place to
• 8:31
  put it. I have a place to write it down quickly. There's something
• 8:35
  about the mind of a teacher that can't just hear things or read things and
• 8:43
  leave it. He's got to do something with it. So you can see
• 8:50
  what a huge impact that's going to have on how I mark up my books.
• 8:56
  So what goes into those indexes. Here's a few thoughts. One fresh
• 9:03
  insights into my life, or into life in general. My index for a
• 9:09
  biography of C. S. Lewis that I just took down from the shelf,
• 9:13
  for example, has a notation at the front page XXII where he said,
• 9:22
  without self forgetfulness, there can be no delight. That got three asterisks
• 9:31
  in the margin. It got a notation in the front flap. And I've
• 9:35
  been thinking about it for twenty years, right, Yes, that's really I
• 9:41
  mean, if that's true, what an agenda for those of us who are
• 9:46
  pursuing delight in life? So fresh insights, we marked them, we note
• 9:54
  them, we meditate on them, we try to grow into them. Secondly,
• 9:58
  the will include raw facts. So if I'm reading a biography and if
• 10:05
  I know I've got to give a talk about it, or I want to
• 10:07
  use it in a devotion, I want to be able to spot birth conversion,
• 10:13
  marriage, employment controversies, death impact, so that when I can run
• 10:18
  my eyes down the front flap, I can get an outline of his life
• 10:22
  quick. I don't have to go researching all over the place to say,
• 10:24
  now, when did he die, when was he born, when's he converted?
• 10:26
  When did he get married? And so on. Third, great illustrations
• 10:33
  that might be useful to giving a striking impression of a viewpoint, even a
• 10:41
  viewpoint we disagree with. So for example, I'm reading a book right now,
• 10:46
  Biblical Critical Thinking. Uh, that's what it's called, Biblical critical Theory.
• 10:50
  Yes, that's it. So I'm about two hundred pages into it and
• 10:56
  on page one hundred and ninety six index at the front about Jean Paul Sart
• 11:03
  on atheism. So here's here's what I'm marked. He said, everything is
• 11:09
  indeed permitted if God does not exist, and man is in consequence forlorn,
• 11:18
  for he cannot find anything to depend upon, either within or without side himself.
• 11:26
  That's the quote. Now, I thought, that's a serious confession from
• 11:31
  an atheist, and it's out of his mouth, it's footnoted, and that's
• 11:35
  tragic. It's just tragic and will probably make its way into some sermon or
• 11:41
  article maybe your books someday. So I don't mean to give the impression though
• 11:46
  with this idea of indexing. That that's all I do. I do underline,
• 11:50
  and I still make comments in the margin like great or blowney. And
• 11:58
  yes, I use a pencil, not a pen Here's what happened about thirty
• 12:07
  years ago. Maybe it was longer. I think I was still teaching at
• 12:09
  Bethel. I took a box of used books to Loom's bookstore in Stillwater,
• 12:18
  Minnesota, to sell a box of used books. They would not even look
• 12:24
  at the books that had marginalia in ink. It was a principle, it
• 12:30
  was a law. And I don't know all the reasons for that, but
• 12:35
  that's one reason. My main reason is that I am fallible. I make
• 12:39
  mistakes. I want to go back and erase the word bologney because two pages
• 12:45
  later he explained himself, and I was strong, it's not blooney. I
• 12:50
  don't want to immemorialize my mistake with a pencil. I mean with a pen.
• 12:56
  Yeah. So one of the main functions of underlining and marking in the
• 13:01
  margin is simply to help me pay attention. I mean, that's the big
• 13:07
  reason for underlining for me anyway, and putting notes in the margin, pay
• 13:11
  attention, be engazed, be an active reader, even if you will never
• 13:16
  look at these pages again, which is true for most of the pages that
• 13:20
  I read. So I think the main takeaway from this APJ Tony is know
• 13:28
  why you read, know what you are reading right now is what it is,
• 13:35
  and then adapt your markings to fit your purpose. That's a good word,
• 13:39
  Pastor John, thank you. I'm a pen guy, will always be
• 13:43
  a pen guy and energy blue O seven that's what I use. And I'd
• 13:48
  keep the Blooney reference in the book and then explain into pages what happened to
• 13:52
  persuade you in the margin. See, I think that's way more interesting capturing
• 13:56
  that piece. I get it of persuasion. But yeah, pens turn a
• 14:03
  thirty five dollars hardcover into a one dollar brick. It used. It's a
• 14:09
  bad financial trade. But alas I'm a pin guy. Here I stand,
• 14:13
  I can do no other. Thank you, Pastor John Well Shifting gears Now,
• 14:16
  I'm honored to talk with our friend Corey from Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin.
• 14:20
  Corey is a friend of ours and a precious ministry partner of nearly thirty years.
• 14:26
  Now. It's an honor to connect with you brother over the phone,
• 14:28
  and an honor because you have a long track record of supporting Desiring God,
• 14:33
  going way back before there even was a Desiring God ministries, back to the
• 14:39
  old John Piper sermon cassette tape days incredible. So tell us right now today,
• 14:45
  what is it that makes you so eager to be a ministry partner with
• 14:48
  Desiring God now thirty years later. It's easy to be a ministry partner.
• 14:54
  I financially support the ministry because Desiring God gives their resources away and the resource
• 15:00
  as they give away are worth having. But financial support has to come from
• 15:05
  somewhere, and both the church I serve and my wife and I are happy
• 15:09
  to support Desiring God financially and for me, the Ask Pastor John podcast has
• 15:15
  been helpful both personally and pastorally. Many people in our church listen to the
• 15:20
  podcast, and many watch and learn from the Look at the Book episodes,
• 15:24
  and many more read every Day's Solid Joy's devotion wonderful. I love that the
• 15:31
  podcast answers are grounded in the Bible, and Pastor John also brings enormously helpful
• 15:37
  application for living and Look At the Book has been illuminating, and that's an
• 15:43
  understatement. And Solid Joys is a solid way to begin a day. All
• 15:48
  of dji's resources have helped people understand God is most glorified in us when we
• 15:54
  are most satisfied in Him. And that might be a motto also the main
• 16:00
  thing, and DG aims to keep the main thing the main thing. Amen.
• 16:06
  Yeah, a motto that helps us stay on track. Outstandy digge,
• 16:08
  Corey, what would you say to someone listening right now who has enjoyed the
• 16:15
  books, the articles. Maybe they'll look at the book videos, ask Pastor
• 16:18
  John episodes, even share them within their church, But they've never thought about
• 16:23
  the financial side of the ministry. They've never considered supporting the work themselves.
• 16:29
  What would you tell them? I am glad they're thinking about it. I
• 16:33
  don't know of any ministry that gets more bang for the buck than Desiring God.
• 16:38
  And they find new and better ways to get their messages to as many
• 16:44
  people in as many places as they can. It's fabulous. I love that.
• 16:51
  Corey. You're a pastor and you not only give personally you and your
• 16:55
  wife, but your church also supports Desiring God. What would you say to
• 17:00
  the listener who maybe wants to bring up this conversation with their church leaders about
• 17:04
  what that would look like? For a whole church to support the work well.
• 17:10
  I encourage everyone to think about sensitively suggesting to your church leaders that Desiring
• 17:15
  God is a ministry partner worthy of regular support in your church budget. It
• 17:22
  helps foster a sense of partnership. We get more interested in the good things,
• 17:29
  the great stories that we hear from DG. And they're doing great things,
• 17:33
  and there are great stories, and people in our church are tuned in
• 17:37
  to what is happening in the world, and God is working and working through
• 17:42
  Desiring God and we love it. We will always include Desiring God in our
• 17:48
  regular budget, and we do some over and above things with some regularity as
• 17:52
  well. Well. We exist to serve pastors and local churches. So that
• 17:56
  blesses us to hear that. Corey, thank you for partnering with us and
• 18:00
  for spending a few moments with us today. Oh it's my pleasure. And
• 18:03
  if you want to join Corey as a pastor, on behalf of a church,
• 18:07
  or as an individual partner with us to experience that ownership with what's happening
• 18:11
  in the ministry, you can take that next step and partner with us right
• 18:18
  now. Go to Desiring Good dot org forward slash donate that's desiring good dot
• 18:22
  org forward slash donate. We appreciate it. I'm Tony RANKI and we will
• 18:29
  see you on Thursday.