Take Up and Read

In his book Loving God, Charles Colson recalled how Augustine – brilliant, learned and handsome – held one of the most prestigious and enviable professorships in Italy. When he spoke, he was overwhelmingly persuasive. Few considered themselves his equal. Although he had a Christian mother and was personally intrigued by the Christian faith, Augustine lived a life distant from God. He was torn about how best to live; he was engaged to be married yet had a mistress and an illegitimate child. Many mistresses, in fact. Sex was necessary for him, he said, for he had no power to resist his natural desires. On the other hand, he was riddled with guilt from when he stole fruit from a neighbor’s pear tree with a gang of youthful rowdies. 

But change was afoot in Augustine’s heart. The great philosophers, such as Plato, had convinced Augustine that there was more to the world than what could be seen, tasted, touched, heard or smelled. Augustine was coming to believe that things could be real beyond his own sense of reality. Then came Ambrose, a Christian pastor in Milan whose preaching Augustine was eager to hear. In Ambrose, Augustine had found a speaker equal to his own skills. But it was more than verbal ability—Augustine was intrigued with what Ambrose was saying.   

Augustine had tried reading the Scriptures as a teenager but was not impressed. At the time he had been in love with beautiful language, and the language of Scripture had seemed dull and plain. But years had passed since then. Under Ambrose’s influence, the simplicity of Scripture had begun to sound like the simplicity of the profound.

One evening he sat in his garden, utterly silent in the stillness of the summer heat. But inside his heart, a storm raged. Confusion over his life built up until finally it seemed as if his chest would burst. He threw himself under a fig tree, sobbing, unable to stop.

Then... a voice.

A childish, piping voice so high-pitched that he could not tell whether it was male or female. The voice seemed to come from a nearby house. It chanted, over and over: “Take up and read. Take up and read. Take up and read.”

Were the words for him?   

“Read what?” Augustine shouted into the sky.

Then he glanced around him, and there, lying nearby, were the letters of the apostle Paul from the New Testament. Was he to take up the Scriptures and read?

He snatched up the book and began reading where it fell open—Romans 13. The words burned into his mind: “... not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. Rather clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.” Instantly, the shadows of his heart fled before the streams of light. A book he once dismissed as a mere fable, lacking in clarity and grace of expression, altered the entire trajectory of his life and gave him what he had sought for so long. He had encountered truth for his life.   

Augustine gave his life to Christ. And for the next 44 years, Augustine continued to “take up and read,” becoming one of the most influential Christian thinkers and writers of history. But it all started in the garden, where he learned that the Scriptures were not just words to be interpreted; they were words that interpreted the reader. 

Little wonder that J.I. Packer once wrote: “If I were the devil... I should broadcast doubts about the truths and relevance and good sense and straightforwardness of the Bible.... At all costs I should want to keep them from using their minds in a disciplined way to get the measure of its message.”

James Emery White

Sources

Adapted from James Emery White, A Mind for God (InterVarsity), order from Amazon HERE.

About the Author

James Emery White is the founding and senior pastor of Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, NC, and a former professor of theology and culture at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, where he also served as their fourth president. His forthcoming book, Hybrid Church: Rethinking the Church for a Post-Christian Digital Age, is now available for pre-order on Amazon. To enjoy a free subscription to the Church & Culture blog, visit churchandculture.org, where you can view past blogs in our archive, read the latest church and culture news from around the world, and listen to the Church & Culture Podcast. Follow Dr. White on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at @JamesEmeryWhite.

The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of CrosswalkHeadlines.

James Emery White is the founding and senior pastor of Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, NC, and a former professor of theology and culture at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, where he also served as their fourth president. His latest book, Hybrid Church: Rethinking the Church for a Post-Christian Digital Age, is now available on Amazon or from your favorite bookseller. To enjoy a free subscription to the Church & Culture blog, visit churchandculture.org where you can view past blogs in our archive, read the latest church and culture news from around the world, and listen to the Church & Culture Podcast. Follow Dr. White on X, Facebook and Instagram at @JamesEmeryWhite.