Leaders Must Be Readers - 01

Every writer is a mud puddle

If you are a young man who aspires to someday become an elder in the church community you must read, and read, and read some more. You must read God’s Word. But you also must read other books, books commenting on Scripture, books arguing a point, books from your own theological persuasion, but also from other denominational viewpoints.

Finally, you must remember that no matter what you read, apart from Scripture, it comes polluted. So, as you read, you are required to filter out the clean from the unclean.

Think of it this way. They make water filter kits for people who want to survive out in the wilderness. The filters are pretty high tech. With one you can suck water out of a river, a pond or even a mud puddle and drink it fresh and clean.

Well, in the same way, you should consider every man a mud puddle by how he thinks and what he teaches. No man can offer completely clean water. This means that you, as a student and reader, have to do your best to suck from each mud puddle, as it were, using Scripture as your filter. It stands to reason that some mud puddles are cleaner than others. It will be less work to get water from those.