Read Old Books

"If you want new ideas, read old books." Norbert Elekes

"If you want new ideas, read old books." Norbert Elekes 

I'm not particularly eager to brag about reading a lot, but there's one aspect I love to brag about: the reading of old books. I have found more help in old books than in contemporary ones. 

There's an organization in Jos, Grace, and Light Ministries. They have this annual book funfair where you can pick old books after a certain purchase. My greatest delight is walking into this stuffy room full of books with covers like the Bible. Some names cannot be found on the cover, only inside. Some of the pages are torn, but what the ideas are still in there. 

My favorite Bible is an old Bible whose back cover has torn. I had to use a cardboard sheet to bind it. I've used it for nearly a decade now. That's nearly half of my life on earth. 

I love old books. One reason is that I love them for no reason. Yeah, I just love them. Secondly, I like that they contain transcendental ideas. Thirdly, they said the truth in more profound ways than today. Correctness is popular today but thinks about John Wesley preaching in 18th Century England. You can't imagine him having any political correctness, right? That's how they write. 

The most recent old books I read are; 

1. Why Bother With Church by Simon Jones 

2. Amusing Ourselves To Death by Neil Postman

3. The Lessons of History by Will Durant and Ariel Durant 

4. The True Believer by Eric Hoffer 

Why Bother With Church was written by Simon Jones to explain why church attendance was dropping in England. His analysis was piercing. He used personal examples, statistics, and deep insight from experience to draw some profound points. To me, the most important thing Simon Jones did in his book was to connect the purpose of the church today to what Jesus had supposed it should be. He went contrary to popular to make the point that the church should not be contemporary, the church should not be lively, the church should not modern, and the church should not be how the pastor wants it or the members. Rather, the church should be like Jesus wanted it to be, according to the Bible. Wow! That's an old idea, but who remembers it today? That's the thing with old books. They force you to remember long-forgotten conclusions. 

Amusing Ourselves To Death was written by Neil Postman as a response to the onslaught of television on people's minds and thinking. Postman’s analysis of television's impact on the public discussion was scathing and profound. It was written back in the 1980s. As I read this in 2022, I could see clearly that all of Postman's concerns had come to pass. Much worse, we didn't stop there: we invented the internet, which has led to more onslaught on our minds. Postman insisted the medium is the message. He was right. Smartphones, the internet, and social media have changed us. I was reading a report; the most trending things are now 1 minute long. If you can't say what you have to say in 1 minute, you will lose the audience. How can one say analysis Nigeria's election in one minute? How can one summarize the war in Ukraine in one minute? 

We live with abundant distractions. We are all overwhelmed with frivolous things. 

I struggle with this too. I was supposed to write this on Monday. No, in fact. Friday. I am writing it today, Thursday. Nearly a week later. But every day, I was on Facebook, Whatsapp, or Twitter chatting about less important things. Now that I'm done, the audience will have their struggle too. They don't have the time to read a long article like this one, or so they will feel. And so, this email will be in your inbox for days before you read it if at all you read it. (Hey, if you read up to this point, thank you. I appreciate that you did). 

Postman's analysis is important for today's world. His insights on the damage caused by television could be said to be the same for smartphones. Everything has a price; we need to keep the price in view constantly. That's an old idea too. 

The True Believer analyzes why people join protests and movements and how to keep them going. Eric Hoffer's analysis is so deep you would wonder why the book was so short. He had some profound insight into human nature. Overall, I found his book to be an essential guide for leadership. Although he has some disagreeable views on several things, his conception of human nature is worth paying attention to. 

The Lessons of History is the summary of thoughts by Will Durant and Ariel Durant after writing so many bestselling works of history. Their greatest work, The Story of Civilization, is one of the most respected works of history. Will and Ariel were a power couple that wrote about so many aspects of history. When they were done, they began to reflect on the big themes of history, such as racism, socialism, capitalism, slavery, geography, etc. You want to keep their insights at the top of your mind. Most remarkable is that this book was less than a hundred pages.

Reading old books help you pick perspectives that are deeper than your contemporary perspectives. Day in, day out news may make you less smart than you should be. The wise man Solomon said nothing is new. He is right. But so often we are caught in the affairs of our dispensation that we begin to believe the world is all about our age. In a certain sense, yes, we are the most important age in our age (that’s not deep), but in the grand scale of things, maybe not. Having historical perspectives changes you, makes you boast less, makes you see things that others miss, and generally helps you live better.

Read old books often.

Selah.