“Give attention to reading! For most of us, including people who have spent a lifetime in academic and church work, reading is the one thing we only allow ourselves to do as a kind of luxury when the urgent things are done. Part of the problem is that in modern Western culture reading feels like a form of relaxation rather than a form of work. Even if the book is demanding and you need to make notes as you go along, you may find it easiest to sit in an armchair, perhaps with a cup of coffee, maybe with music in the background. Reading is a form of renunciation, almost a living embodiment of the call to faith over against works: you must renounce your strenuous efforts to justify your existence by the busy-busy lifestyle that pastors regularly fall into.”

Bishop Tom Wright