Imagine the following situation. John is six years of age. For his birthday, his father buys him a beautiful bicycle. The father however, is a bureaucratic literalist, and with the bicycle comes a thick book, complete with diagrams, entitled, “You too, can master the techniques of cycling.” The father insists that the boy read the book, study it in great detail, memorize passages from it and pass a written exam on its contents before he is allowed or indeed, “qualified,” to ride the bicycle.
Seems ridiculous, doesn’t it? Yet we might well see people reading and studying books on prayer, for example, or about repentance, conversion, honesty etc.
- I learn to pray by praying, not by reading a book about it!
- One of the ways in which I’ll never get around to doing anything is to read and discuss it long enough.
