I am by bits and pieces re-reading John Stott’s excellent book on preaching Between Two Worlds . The emphasis in that sentence should be on the re-.
I read this book many years ago, and was blessed by it. Since preaching is a significant part of what I do, I like to read at least one book on the subject each year, if not more. This is the one I’ve been slowly working through in 2009.
When I turned to it last week, I found I had two pieces of paper in it – two markers vying for the title of The Truly Accurate Book Mark when of course, only one could be the one.
I picked the one closer to the beginning of the book. No question, what I was reading bore the aroma of familiarity. After all, I had read the book once before. But as I read it this week, picking up with where I had left off last week, the familiarity began to seem more fresh than two readings fifteen years apart would have allowed.
The truth is, somehow I had at some point shoved a piece of paper into the book randomly which I mistakenly took to be the Accurate one. Hence, it has taken me two weeks to realize that I was rereading something I had only read two weeks earlier.
I have often said that one of my biggest frustrations is my very weak ability to remember and call to mind what I read. Here we have this point well illustrated, and it is clearly this which will keep anyone from ever mistaking me as a scholar.