Learning to Read: The Importance of Critical Thinking

Learning to Read: The Importance of Critical Thinking

I frequently get emails from my readers who want to become better readers. How, they ask, do you read so much? Let me assure you, I am no genius! (Caught off-guard, I will not be capable of producing my wife’s birth date). I know more of carpentry, concrete, and drywall than of libraries. Being born into a blue-collar family, I have accepted the fact that reading skills will be the product of supernatural grace and hard work.

Reading for most of us, like writing, is hard work. Don’t let anyone give you the impression that great writers sit and let the words flow like a waterfall onto the page. E.B. White’s famous children’s book Charolette’s Web – certainly one of the best-written books ever – underwent six major rewrites! This is astonishing, given it is an easy book for children to read and that it was written by a literary genius.

By God’s grace, the defining period of my personal growth in reading and writing came during my undergraduate studies in the liberal arts program at Bellevue University (Bellevue, NE). There I was introduced to people of every background and thought and was expected to interpret all of the discussions, readings and lectures within the concepts and principles of the critical thinking circle (developed by www.criticalthinking.org).

The bottom line of what I learned in those two intense years: To read and write well we must be critical thinkers and being critical thinkers demands that we successfully ask the eight specific questions of the critical thinking circle.

Back to the topic of reading.

In their short little book, How to Read a Paragraph, authors Richard Paul and Linda Elder write:

“Skilled readers do not read blindly, but purposely. They have an agenda, goal, or objective. Their purpose, together with the nature of what they are reading, determines how they read. They read in different ways in different situations for different purposes. … When we read, we translate words into meanings. The author has previously translated ideas and experiences into words. We must take those same words and re-translate them into the author’s original meaning using our own ideas and experiences as aids.”

Before I learned critical thinking I thought the key to unlocking the meaning of a book was reading each and every word. No! Unlocking the meaning and purpose of a book is first related to asking the right questions and engaging the thoughts of others.

We must come to a book with the understanding that the author was driven by an idea and wants desperately to convince you of his thought. The publisher thought the idea was worthy to print. So what is the main thought? Is there substance behind the thought? What does the next chapter build from or what has the last chapter established up to this point? What information, concepts, and presumptions does the author bring to the table? Is it clear? Is it fair? Who or what is the author arguing against (sometimes not stated)?

These type of questions are critical in reading critically.

I could go on, but there are a number of excellent and free resources on their website to explain this better. I especially like Critical Thinking & The Art of Close Reading. You can read these and other articles for free here.

Although these resources are not Christian and certainly not without errors (stay away from the booklet on “Media Bias”), I do frequently reference and recommend the following critical thinking booklets:

1. The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking: Concepts & Tools (foundation of the rest)
2. The Thinker’s Guide on How to Read a Paragraph
3. The Thinker’s Guide on How to Write a Paragraph
4. The Miniature Guide to The Art of Asking Essential Questions

These resources may not immediately make you a faster reader, but they will make you a better and more confident reader. The speed will come with time as your confidence builds and you naturally ask the critical thinking questions of each book.

My own grace-given personal success within a liberal arts education was a great reminder that reading skills and the Spirit-illuminated, faithful exegesis of Scripture, are advanced – not hindered – by clear critical thinking!

Tolle, lege!

Book review: John Gill’s Exposition of the Old and New Testaments

Book review: John Gill’s Exposition of the Old and New Testaments (9 vols)

Everyone in history lives within a historical context. I love Meet the Puritans by Beeke and Peterson primarily because it offers biographies to introduce the context behind the best Puritan writers.

Now for some specific context. In 1517, Martin Luther nailed the 95 Theses to signal a shift away from Roman Catholic traditionalism towards a thoroughly biblical theology. This reformation burst on the scene and continued to develop with the Puritans that followed. This Reformation and Post-Reformation period stressed the fact that understanding divine realities demands faith, the illumination of the Spirit and divine revelation (God’s Word). In 1588, William Whitaker wrote,

“It is only the external light of nature that is required to learn thoroughly the arts of philosophy; but to understand theology aright, there is need of the internal light of the Holy Spirit, because the things of faith are not subject to the teaching of mere human reason” (Disputations on Holy Scripture, p. 364).

Unfortunately, this emphasis upon the preciousness of God’s Word and the primacy of its divine truth did not last unhindered.

The Enlightenment – with the rise of mathematics, science and philosophy – introduced a new “rational” interpretation upon divinity. Beginning around 1725, the rise in “rationalism” attempted to reduce faith to what can be proven with philosophy and reason. Truth no longer rested upon faith, the Spirit and revelation, but upon “demonstrable evidence and rational necessity.” Clearly, this was a serious break from the former traditions.

Needless to say, the rise in “rationalism” brought significant biblical compromise into the church by de-emphasizing the Word and faith-filled, Spirit-illuminated interpretation. In their place was erected a philosophical understanding of divinity. But philosophical interpretations of divine truth, Paul tells us, simply miss the point of the biblical gospel (1 Cor. 1:18-2:16).

John Gill

It was in the midst of this rise in rationalism that some writers stood faithful to a Spirit-led, literal interpretation of Scripture as the sole object of faith. One of the most prominent of these men was Baptist John Gill (1697-1771).

Gill was a prolific author and well-known Old Testament scholar. An excellent overview of John Gill’s life and works comes to us in a sermon Spurgeon preached on August 16th, 1859 at the laying of the first stone of the new Tabernacle building. You can read the entire sermon at CCEL. Here is an excerpt,

“A man of profound learning and deep piety, he was notable as a divine for the exactness of his systematic theology in which he maintained the doctrines of grace against the innovations of Arminian teachers. His Body of Divinity has long been held in the highest repute. As the fervent exposition of an entire and harmonious creed, it has no rival. His famous treatise entitled The Cause of God And Truth, obtained for him the championship of the Calvinistic School of Divinity.”

The eulogy delivered upon Gill’s death by Augustus Toplady reminds us that Gill was both forceful and intellectually skillful.

“That his labors were indefatigable, his life exemplary … if any one can be supposed to have trod the whole circle of human learning, it was this great and eminent person. His attainments, both in abstruse and polite literature, were equally extensive and profound, and so far as the distinguishing doctrines of grace are concerned, he never besieged an error which he did not force from its stronghold, nor ever encountered an adversary whom he did not baffle and subdue.”

The Commentary

John Gill’s commentary is nine volumes long, including six volumes on the Old Testament and three on the New Testament. At first glance this specific printing is superb! The facsimile printing comes in a larger book format and in higher quality cloth binding than expected.

Gill follows the traditional commentary style of a short summary of the book, summary of each chapter, and then commentary on each individual verse following up to the next chapter.

John Gill was a forefather of the Metropolitan Tabernacle we now most associate with Charles Spurgeon. Spurgeon, who spent much time reading and critiquing commentaries, is quick to say that he was unaware of a better commentator of the Old Testament. Gill’s greatest asset was his expertise as a Hebrew scholar.

Spurgeon had his criticisms as well. He wrote publicly that Gill used too many straw-man arguments and held loose interpretations of the Parables. Spurgeon wrote,

“Very seldom does he allow himself to be run away with by imagination, except now and then when he tries to open up a parable, and finds a meaning in every circumstance and minute detail; or when he falls upon a text which is not congenial with his creed, and hacks and hews terribly to bring the word of God into a more systematic shape. Gill is the Coryphaeus of hyper-Calvinism, but if his followers never went beyond their master, they would not go very far astray.”

But the bottom-line, Spurgeon writes, is that “the world and the church take leave to question his dogmatism, but they both bow before his erudition [learning] … For good, sound, massive, sober sense in commenting, who can excel Gill?”

At another place, Spurgeon considered this commentary “remarkable for the copiousness of its glossary, the brilliance of its argument, his apprehension of prophecy, and the richness of his Hebrew scholarship. His preparations for the pulpit having, as is well known, furnished the materials for the press, we can but reflect on the priceless value of his ministry.”

In other words, the obvious power of his public preaching endures through the press. This was not a man addicted to scholarship, but a man driven by the conviction to preach through the whole counsel of God. His commentaries exemplify what was certainly a “priceless ministry.”

Extras

It is encouraging to see publishers incorporating electronic books with printed books. This is a trend we see have recently seen Crossway pull off with great success.

This commentary set from The Baptist Standard Bearer comes bundled with a CD-ROM of The Collected Writings of John Gill, which includes the full text of his commentary, nearly 100 of his sermons and his many books (including the massive, 2,000 page Complete Body of Doctrinal and Practical Divinity and the 1,000 page The Cause of God and Truth). It makes a very helpful and handy complement to the printed commentary because it makes searching and copy-and-pasting of Gill’s material very easy to incorporate in sermon prep.

The set also includes the Life and Writings of the Rev. John Gill, D.D., a short biography written by John Rippon.

Conclusion

Richard Muller writes of Gill that he “stands as perhaps the most erudite [or learned] of the eighteenth-century Dissenting theologies in the tradition of the older orthodoxy” (Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, 3:150). “Erudite” being the same word used by Spurgeon.

There seems to be a consensus that Gill’s writings are firmly founded upon solid biblical scholarship. He shows a deep level of understanding with Scripture, allowing the bible to interpret itself. His wealth of insight into the Hebrew language, tradition and culture soaks both the Old and New Testaments. John Gill’s commentary is an excellent work, worthy of the beautiful edition now available.

Now 240 years later this work stands as an ebenezer of one man’s faithfulness to preach through the entire bible in light of a culture encouraging men and women to judge divine reality through empty philosophical “rationalism.” He was and remains through his works “a star of the first magnitude amidst surrounding darkness” (Spurgeon).

———————————————-

Title: John Gill’s Exposition of the Old and New Testaments
Author: John Gill [1697-1771]
Boards: cloth (maroon, guilded)
Pages: 7,370
Volumes: 9
Dust jacket: no
Binding: Smyth sewn
Paper: normal
Topical index: no
Scriptural index: no (unnecessary in commentary)
Text: facsimile of 1809 ed. (London: Mathews and Leigh)
Extras: Comes with CD-ROM of Gill’s extensive writings in digital format and Life and Writings of the Rev. John Gill, D.D. by John Rippon, clothbound, published by Gano Books.
Publisher: Printed in 2006 by The Baptist Standard Bearer, Inc.
Price USD: $300.00/$250.00 from Vision Forum
ISBNs: none

Disputations on Holy Scripture by William Whitaker, 1573580902

Disputations on Holy Scripture by William Whitaker [1588]

After rebuking the false Roman Catholic notion that Scripture cannot be understood by the common man and reinforcing the Reformers insistence that every truth sinners must know to be saved can be gleaned by the simple from reading Scripture, William Whitaker next continued to explain that there are difficult passages in God’s Word. Why? This is his answer …

First, God would have us to be constant in prayer, and hath scattered many obscurities up and down through the scriptures, in order that we should seek his help in interpreting them and discovering their true meaning.

Secondly, he wished thereby to excite our diligence in reading, meditating upon, searching and comparing the scriptures; for, if every thing had been plain, we should have been entirely slothful and negligent.

Thirdly, he designed to prevent our losing interest in them; for we are ready to grow weary of easy things: God, therefore, would have our interest kept up by difficulties.

Fourthly, God willed to have that truth, so sublime, so heavenly, sought and found with so much labor, the more esteemed by us on that account. For we generally despise and contemn [scorn] whatever is easily acquired, near at hand, and costs small or no labor. But these things which we find with great toil and much exertion, those, when once we have found them out, we esteem highly and consider their value proportionally greater.

Fifthly, God wished by this means to subdue our pride and arrogance, and to expose to us our ignorance. We are apt to think too honorably of ourselves, and to rate our genius and acuteness more highly than is fitting, and to promise ourselves too much from our science and knowledge.

Sixthly, God willed that the sacred mysteries of his word should be opened freely to pure and holy minds, not exposed to dogs and swine. Hence those things which are easy to holy persons, appear so many parables to the profane. For the mysteries of scripture are like gems, which only he that knows them values; while the rest, like the cock in Æsop, despise them, and prefer the most worthless objects to what is most beautiful and excellent.

Seventhly, God designed to call off our minds from the pursuit of external things and our daily occupations, and transfer them to the study of the scriptures. Hence it is now necessary to give time to their perusal and study; which we certainly should not bestow upon them, if we found every thing plain and open.

Eighthly, God desired thus to accustom us to a certain internal purity and sanctity of thought and feeling. For they who bring with them profane minds to the reading of scripture, lose their trouble and oil: those only read with advantage, who bring with them pure and holy minds.

Ninthly, God willed that in his church some should be teachers, and some disciples; some more learned, to give instruction; others less skillful, to receive it; so as that the honor of the sacred scriptures and the divinely instituted ministry might, in this manner, be maintained.”

-Disputations on Holy Scripture [1588/1849], by William Whitaker [1547-1595], pp. 365-366. Reprinted by Soli Deo Gloria, 2005.