Postby davo_ray » Wed Nov 01, 2017 1:56 am
I need to get back into the habit of reading the Bible devotionally more often.
The Bible was the main thing I was passionate about reading, during 2011-2014. I read and studied it intensely, several times, almost every day—sometimes all day. And it was during those years I memorized a lot of passages & chapters.
During that time I was also edified by a lot of Tozer's books, and Puritan writings. Also, for amusement, I read all the apocrypha I could stomach (the book of Enoch I find upsetting on many levels; I couldn't finish that one).
One of my mentors highly recommends Hannah Whitall Smith's "Christian's Secret to a Happy Life." He says that's one of the top 3 greatest books he's ever read (and read several times), alongside C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity & Tozer's "The Pursuit of God." I have read those latter two, so that makes the former sound interesting.
Then I got really deep into reading the works of Josephus. I read his autobiography and about half of his "History of the Jews." I still want to finish reading that, and also his history of the "Jewish War" that took place around 70 AD.
I've got a long reading list of things I'd eventually like to get to. Near the top of my list is John Foxe's original work called "The Acts and Monuments," which is essentially a 2000 page tome, divided into several volumes. If you've ever seen a "Foxe's Book of Martyrs (and there are actually countless versions)," it was actually an abridged selection of stories from The Acts and Monuments.
And then there's the writings of the early church fathers. I'll probably spend the rest of my life occasionally reading through all of that, along with other more modern histories (missionary biographies, etc.).
And then there's just world history. I've been getting pretty hardcore into that, lately. One of the next audiobooks of that genre I'm planning to listen to is an 11-hour reading of "The Gulag Archipelago."
And I enjoyed a lot of the material in Henry David Thoreau's Walden. He and I have a lot in common.