Dr. Bernard's 2021 Reading Review by David K. Bernard Podcast recording (no venue stated in the delivered transcript) Kind: teaching Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/david-k-bernard--dr-bernards-2021-reading-review Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page. Free to copy and share with attribution. ------------------------------------------------------------ well so far i've read 112 i usually do a lot of reading in the holiday times thanksgiving and christmas so i don't know i may get close to 150. usually i read two to three books a week on average so that would be say a hundred to 150 per year well you have to uh you have time for what is priority and so i don't do a lot of screen time so i'm i understand that many people spend two four six eight hours a day on television videos computer i use computer for work of course and i do check the news on online but i probably don't have a lot of that entertainment screen time so i use it for books instead another thing i like to stay up late at night after it's too late to interact with other people so too late to make calls and so forth and so usually i have a couple hours two or three hours i may do some work some writing studying but that would be time and so if you have two or three hours a day it's easy to read two or three books a week and then finally i do a lot of traveling i'm traveling by air every week probably 48 out of 52 weeks per year and i usually dedicate that time in the air to reading so i do read a number of periodicals so i will probably read weekly and monthly magazines i think somewhere around 120 a year so that takes up a lot of time but i still have time for reading uh books well i like for news the week that gives me a digest of the weekly news and then i like readers digest national geographic of course i read the pentecostal life i read the minister's magazine forward i read numa the journal of society for pentecostal studies uh and a few other miscellaneous journals or periodicals uh christianity today all right i read that well this year i like to read of course i like to read fiction but i use reserve that for holiday times so i like agatha christie classic mystery john grisham i like suspense novels but as far most of my reading is non-fiction so i like to read in a variety of areas so this year particularly i always like to read some history with all the racial tension and all the accusations and comments and myths and unknown or underreported facts i decided i'm going to read a book a comprehensive book on slavery and i found an excellent one david davis in human bondage i found it very very helpful and i think you referenced that maybe in one of the episodes and then i usually read a little bit of economics so i found a very good overview james addison seven economic deadly sins uh sociology i found a great one by bob woodward or woodson excuse me who was really a civil rights pioneer you might say but he wrote a book called lessons from the least of these so he spent his life you might call it community activism or service trying to help poor people and poor apartment complexes or housing projects and he emphasizes that you've got to let people take ownership of their own lives and of their own neighborhoods so i found that very helpful it's kind of an intersection of sociology and economics on i usually read a little bit of philosophy i found robert curry reclaiming common sense and common sense nation two books it's going back to scottish common sense realism which is a philosophical view and it says the american political system was founded using this so you when you go back and study it uh it is a very interesting to me at least um of course philosophy is a little more challenging but he breaks it down and shows how much of american society and the political system is based on what's known as common sense realism uh psychology i found an interesting book bruce perry the boy who was raised as a dog and it's stories of children that psychologists have helped over the years and it emphasizes the importance of early childhood experiences and of course overcoming negative experience but the profound um influence of of early experiences now as far as of course i try to read every book the upci publishes every year and one of the perks of being general superintendent is you get a copy yes i do so i read it because i want to but i also read it as just to make sure that i know what's going on if i have any concerns i'm going to express them now i may not read all the children's books or the books for for women but i they're three books well there are many books that that i really enjoyed this year but i'll just mention uh tina royer uh restoring love so she's a pastor's wife and she talks about how she overcame abuse shame and unnatural affection very candid frank but a message of hope uh i always like david norris's books he's got a new one on acts called acts 2 38 stories that teach and that i'm really impressed with gary tracy's book on successful succession how to transition from one pastor to another but it's not strictly focused on succession there are a lot of good leadership principles i really think i'd like for every senior pastor to read it because i think it gives wise advice that would benefit everyone so that's a recap of just some of the books uh in various fields that i've read this year certainly i try to read the bible every year and probably for the last 10 years i've tried to use a different translation not only to give me fresh ideas but to evaluate what i think about those various translations so certainly the bible is a given i would say and i will go back to my early say as a teenager young adult in early ministry the books naturally these are going to be more older or classic books but i would recommend frank ewert was one of the foremost ones pentecostal pioneers his last name is spelled e-w-a-r-t so you can get these books from pentecostalpublishing.com as well but frank you are the phenomenon of pentecost this is a first-person account of the origins of the modern oneness pentecostal movement in the early 20th century usa he's also he also wrote another book the name of the book he died in 1947 as a upc minister so that's significant other theological books or uh bible-based books c.s lewis mere christianity now i like all the books by c.s lewis fiction and theology but mere christianity then dietrich bonhoeffer he was a german theologian who was executed by the nazis but his book the cost of discipleship i found although he doesn't come from a pentecostal or even a maybe what we would think of as a conservative biblical perspective he has some profound comments that i found apply very well to our concepts of salvation and discipleship holiness the cost of discipleship then on a secular level george orwell 1984 an animal farm great satires or surveys of totalitarian government also alexander solzhenitsyn who was a russian dissident under communism he wrote a small book one day in the life of ivan denisovich and then he's wrote he wrote a massive volume the gulag archipelago it's multi-volumes but those really help those books i would say shape my thinking my life now in fiction i've read all the works of shakespeare and find that just profound it's aside from the bible shakespeare's writings have influenced the english language more than anyone else i've read all the books of mark twain so that would be my favorite american author i've read many of dickens charles dickens and i read all of jane austen's books these are classic and they're written in an older style which will expand your vocabulary and often um maybe um what shall i say convoluted sentences or but so it's not not the way we like to read or write but it does stretch your thinking and what i like about them the fiction is they're really profound studies of human nature and uh psychology and how people interact and and so you learn something while you're enjoying it it's causing you to think about yourself and other people and you start making connections in your own life uh so i i i find them interesting um now a few other classic books or in various fields or at least influential books for me warren weirsby on being a servant of god that really helped shape my idea of ministry then i love books by lincoln about lincoln so there are so many but i would say alan guelzo abraham lincoln redeemer president and then ronald white lincoln's greatest speech which is the second inaugural address although very short it's profound and then on churchill i have many biographies i've writ i've read his six volume work on the second world war uh then i've also read the official eight volume work which is massive on his life but if you want a one volume that really gets you into it uh paul johnson churchill if you want something more extensive william manchester the last lion i particularly read the one he's got several volumes with the one on the war years and then uh another little book that i thought was very interesting stephen hayward it's called greatness but the subtitle is reagan churchill and the making of extraordinary leaders and i think he also may have discussed lincoln some in there as well so i found that taking history and apply it practically now as far as the united pentecostal church some of my favorite authors over the years i've already mentioned david norris daniel c graves j mark jordan on leadership any of the books by these authors will be thoughtful thought provoking biblical inspiring of course classic books i've already mentioned are pioneers gt haywood but i would also say it's i mean i mentioned frank ewart but i think it's worthwhile to mention gt haywood andrew urschen and i would say more recently on a scholarly level uh the handbook on the bible series or eight volumes of handbooks covering genesis to revelation by various scholars particularly in many cases professors at earth's graduate school of theology those are excellent and of course the apostolic study bible so those are some from when i was a young person and a young minister all the way up to recent times that i've found influential and profound in my life well if you can read well then you can master any subject so i really encourage children and youth to read because it will help them in every subject it will help them excel in every endeavor of study and i read of course i read for enjoyment but i also read for study um and we talk about reading the bible that's important but reading books about the bible are books that make you think about the bible and then as i've mentioned for a preacher and a pastor it's good to have some knowledge of the culture a little bit of economics philosophy psychology sociology because it helps you understand the people in the pews and the people you're trying to teach bible studies to where are they coming from what shapes their thinking and especially today you have many educated people many people in various careers and professions having a little bit of background i didn't mention but i also like to read science as well uh so a little to summarize i think reading improves your skills so if you're a preacher especially it helps you speak helps you think and study and write communicate but for everyone it stretches your thought it helps you get beyond your own experience and your own circle of friends and get other voices into your life so it helps you think creatively expands your thoughts and even if it's a novel that is not just um a surface novel but a novel that deals with issues even though it may not be directly related to your ministry it stimulates thoughts so i find it it's like you're having conversations with people across the centuries and across the world and so i i think there are many reasons why it's beneficial to to read