When I started talking about my retirement earlier this year, my wife had one concern. “What are you going to do with all those books?”
Most wives want to know what the husband plans on doing when they don’t have a full time position demanding all their time. Not Jeannie. Other wives want to make sure their husbands stay active and engaged with some purpose or passion. Not Jeannie. She had only one question. What are you going to do with those books?
Now, she phrased it in different ways, but it was the same question. Sometimes she would say, “You know, you should give your books to young pastors who are just getting started.” Other times she would say, “You need to give some of your books to the church library.” Other times she would simply announce, “Don’t think about bringing those books home.”
I got the message. I would have to do something with my books.
Now, in my defense, I’ve been building my library for over 40 years. I have several rooms of books. And yes, I have read most of them from cover to cover. To be certain, there were some books I skimmed, but let’s be honest, not every book is worth the reader’s full attention. Over the years, however, I’ve developed a close and personal relationship with most of my books. We did life together. We traveled the country together. We worked on sermons, books and articles together.
My books and I were close and the thought of dumping them in the dumpster behind the church just seemed cruel. If I was going to do something like that, I thought I would need some kind of grand ceremony – a majestic funeral with a huge choir and reading from the King James Bible.
For Jeannie, the problem was simple. Books take up space. Books take up a lot of space and we just don’t have the space.
For me, it was harder. These books were part of my life. Letting them go felt like I was abandoning a friend.
But the task had to be done.
The first part of the job was easy. Which books do I no longer want or need? I gave away a bunch of them and I threw out a lot of them. A lot of my books weren’t timeless classics. They responded to a moment in time, a crisis in the church and then, that crisis faded away. One thing I learned from going through all of these books is there aren’t as many life changing moments as you think. Most of these were only issues because social media made them an issue. Once their 15 minutes of attention were up, it was over.
And I have a lot of books on COVID. If I never see that word again, I’ll be fine. That took care of about one third of my books. That still left a lot…I mean a lot.
So, I started with Bibles. A Baptist preacher collects a lot of Bibles over the years. I had more than 50 Bibles. I had Bibles in different languages. I had pocket Bibles, notebook Bibles and every translation that had ever been printed. In short, I had too many Bibles.
Obviously, all I need is one, but how do I get it down to one Bible? I didn’t. I have several Bibles that are important to me. I have my father’s Bible. I have Bill Wilson’s Bible. He was the founding pastor of Brentwood Baptist Church. I have the Bible I was given by my home church when I was twelve. No way I’m getting rid of those.
And I kept one Bible for me. I kept a very nice New American Standard Bible. I kept the NASB because it’s the closest translation we have to the actual Hebrew and Greek languages. Yes, it reads a little rough in places, but that’s to be expected. If you want to read the Bible and know you’re getting as close as English can get to the original languages.
So, on my desk is one Bible next to my journal and it’s a NASB.
I also kept everything by C.S. Lewis. His “Mere Christianity” and “Surprised by Joy” are standards. Yes, the language is a little dated, but honestly, no one has done it better. Our time desperately needs a C.S. Lewis who can write with conviction, intellectual rigor and a sense of humor. It was, and still is, a rare combination.
Now, I’ve kept more books than those and I’ll let you know in future blogs about the rest. That’s where I started. We’ll talk about Dallas Willard and Finley Edge in coming blogs. I’m just getting the conversation started.
So, what about you? What books would you hold onto? Which would you toss?
