Cong Fang

約書亞記 Joshua 1:8
這律法書不可離開你的口，總要晝夜思想，好使你謹守遵行這書上所寫的一切話。如此，你的道路就可以亨通，凡事順利。
This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.

詩篇 Psalm 1:2
唯喜愛耶和華的律法，晝夜思想，這人便為有福！
but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.

歌羅西書 Colossians 3:16
當用各樣的智慧，把基督的道理豐豐富富地存在心裡，用詩章、頌詞、靈歌彼此教導，互相勸誡，心被恩感歌頌神。
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

— Mathis, David. How to Stay Christian in Seminary (pp. 49-50).

We were all huddled around a circle of tables. Thursday noon meant “Table Talk” for the guys at Bethlehem Seminary, and on this particular day we were talking church unity with our pastor and school chancellor, John Piper. He had raised that subject to kick things off, though the conversation had morphed into a discussion on various denominations and influences within American evangelicalism. We were simply carrying the conversation along by our questions. Then Benjamin spoke up.

“Pastor John,” he began, “as seminarians at Bethlehem, and since we have been deeply impacted by you, what do you want us to be like? What should characterize us?”

The room became instantly still. This was a really good question. We all leaned forward, waiting for Pastor John’s reply. He looked down at his Bible, deep in thought.

“I want you to be more like John Newton than John Knox,” he came back. “Knox was passionate and wild, even abrasive at times.” We knew these could be good qualities (minus the abrasive part). But then Pastor John continued.

“But John Newton,” he said, beaming with a smile, “Newton was glad he was saved!”

C. H. Spurgeon

“Master those books you have. Read them thoroughly. Bathe in them until they saturate you. Read and reread them, masticate and digest them. Let them go into your very self. Peruse a good book several times and make notes and analyses of it. A student will find that his mental constitution is more affected by one book thoroughly mastered than by twenty books he has merely skimmed. Little learning and much pride comes from hasty reading. Some men are disabled from thinking by their putting meditation away for the sake of much reading. In reading let your motto be ‘much not many.'”

精讀你手頭的書，全面、徹底地掌握裡面的內容。將自己沉浸其中，一遍又一遍不停地讀，咀嚼、消化、吸收，直到那些知識成為你自己的。好書值得反覆閱讀、做筆記、認真思考。如果你照做了，你會發現，精讀一本書對你的知識結構的影響，遠勝過瀏覽二十本書。馬馬虎虎的閱讀只能讓你更加無知，而且莫名驕傲。有些人為了多讀書而停止思考，這使他們失去了思考能力。讓這句話成為你讀書的座右銘：“少讀多想”。

from J. Oswald Sanders, “Spiritual Leadership”