Listening to the Giants

When I purchased my first good camera in college (35mm film and everything), I determined that if I could get one or two, or perhaps three excellent pictures from each roll of film that it would be money well spent.

I've taken a somewhat similar approach to books — if I can find two or three really excellent ideas, quotes, thought-provoking or life-changing exhortations, it is worth the hours I invested in reading the book.

So having concluded Warren Wiersbe's Listening to the Giants last night, I would call it a worthwhile book. The book contains brief biographical sketches of 15-18 pastors and Christian leaders from the past 3 centuries, along with a number of other pastoral encouragements. Probably the most compelling chapter was the last one, "Marks of Maturity in the Ministry" — a chapter that will make it to my filing cabinet.

Other compelling thoughts in the book:

• a helpful definition of worship: "to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God, to feed the mind with the truth of God, to purge the imagination by the beauty of God, to open up the heart to the love of God, to devote the will to the purpose of God." [William Temple]
• the advice of W. H. Griffith Thomas to preachers: "Think yourself empty, read yourself full, write yourself clear, pray yourself keen — then enter the pulpit and let yourself go!"
• and an oft-paraphrased and seldom-sourced quotation: "Henry Varley would have been a famous man had he never met Dwight L. Moody. But for some reason people remember Varley most for telling the evangelist: 'The world has yet to see what God can do with and for and through and in a man who is fully and wholly consecrated to Him.'"