Building Faith Book Reading

Screwtape Letters: Letter Number 6 & 7

Looking to read a good book? We got what you need right here. Classics, fiction, and all things that will help you to edify your spirit and renew

your mind.

Berean Home Fellowship has a book reading every week that you can join in on live. Just go to pastor David’s Facebook page (friend him if you haven’t already) on Sunday evenings at 6:00 p.m. where he reads a chapter out of a book that will help to build your faith.

This week we will continue in our new book, C.S. Lewis’s Screwtape Letters, considered a classic of Christian literature.

How does a devil think?

Wormwood, a demon apprentice, must secure the damnation of a young man who’s just become a Christian. He seeks the advice of an experienced devil, his uncle Screwtape. Their correspondence offers invaluable—and often humorous—insights on temptation, pride, and the ultimate victory of faith over evil forces.

The Importance of Reading

We realize that a huge part of the reason that the church is in such a bind is that it doesn’t read. This has had a detrimental effect on the church. Look at these facts about illiteracy:

  • • The average reading level of a United States citizen is 7th to 8th grade.
  • • About 32 million adults in the United States can’t read. That’s about 14% of the population.
  • • Nearly 85% of the juveniles who face trial in the juvenile court system are functionally illiterate, proving that there is a close relationship between illiteracy and crime. More than 60% of all inmates are functionally illiterate.
  • • Reports show that the rate of low literacy in the United States directly costs the healthcare industry over $70 million every year.

That’s just a little bit of the bad news.

Now, maybe you have been told by someone to read but the question you may have asked silently is, “Why?” Here are just a few benefits of reading:

  • • Reading can slow the progress of (or possibly even prevent) Alzheimer’s and Dementia since keeping your brain in an active state prevents it from losing its potency. The brain, like a muscle, needs to be stimulated regularly to be healthy. It literally keeps your brain young. According to a study from Rush University Medical Center, adults who spent their downtime doing creative or intellectual activities (like reading) had a 32 percent slower rate of cognitive decline later in life than those who did not. The moral of the story: don’t just work out the body, work out the mind.
  • • It’s a stress reliever, especially good fiction. But even good fiction can be beneficial to your life in teaching life lessons and instilling hope if the story is good and meaningful.
  • • Reading can make you smarter. It’s simply a natural byproduct of the act, especially if you’re reading material that contains facts and truth. This is a scientific fact.
  • • Reading improves your memory. When you read a book, you have to remember kinds of things: characters, backgrounds, facts, quotes, history, and other assorted details, as well as various arcs and sub-plots that weave their way through every story. When we work our brains, they tend to remember these things with relative ease. A detail that is simply awesome is that every new memory you create forges new synapses (brain pathways) and strengthens existing ones. This helps short-term memory recall as well as mood stabilization.
  • • Reading makes you a better writer. It’s a known fact that almost all writers to a fault are readers. They read regularly. They are sponges for information and they routinely like to fill themselves with stories and facts. So, if you want to be a better writer, read.
  • Reading expands your vocabulary. One reason that contributes to the use all kinds of profanity—besides the obvious and primary one of sin—is that people have a limited vocabulary to express themselves. Reading helps to expand that though it won’t necessarily stop you from using foul language. That’s a heart issue.

There are others but just from this list, you can see how reading will help you when it comes to the Word of God and all things related. This is how God has wired us and it’s also how He has decided to communicate with us. It would do us well on more than one level to read more.