Reading in three dimensions

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MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. It's time now for our July edition of Quest: conversations with thoughtful leaders about three books that have shaped their thinking. Not necessarily their favorite books, but the ones that have most influenced their lives and their calling.

BROWN: We’ve invited our resident logophile here at The World and Everything in It to lead the discussion. Here’s George Grant.

GEORGE GRANT: Today, I'm speaking with the author, theologian, publisher, and president of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Jonathan Master.

Jonathan, I know that you live in a world of books and ideas. When did you first realize that reading could shape your life and would shape your life?

JONATHAN MASTER: I think growing up in the family I grew up in, that was always just a given. First of all, my parents were very godly, and so we were always in church, worshiping the Lord, reading our Bibles together. So there was a sense in which I knew that the scriptures were meant to influence my life. But more than that, they were just readers and they still are readers. This was part of my experience from an early age. I mean, there were, of course, moments along the way where certain books changed me and and and I sort of felt what I had already what I had already known to be true, which is books can make a huge difference.

GRANT: So probably it's gonna be really hard for you to pick just three books.

MASTER: George, this was an almost impossible task. I think if you asked me three days from now to record this same interview, I might come up with a completely different list of books. So there were books that had a massive influence on me in my teenage years that now, they don't resonate with me in the same way, but they did. And similarly there are books that I read now that are really shaping my thinking that I wouldn't have been interested in then. So some of it is just whatever moment, we’re taking the snapshot, you're gonna have a slightly different answer.

GRANT: Let's jump in to see the list that you’ve come up with. What's the first book and what was going on in your life when you encountered it?

MASTER: First book that I want to highlight is entitled Albion's Seed. And it's a history book, and it's a sort of magisterial history book, very well known by a historian David Hackett Fisher, I was introduced to it by one of my brothers. First of all, what it did for me is it helped me understand better the nation in which I lived. I mean, it is in many respects a history of the early migration patterns from England to what became America. And so I started to understand regional differences in a way that I never had. I started to understand early historical discussions about ideas like liberty in a way that I never had before. But I would even say, perhaps more than that, there's a methodology that David Hackett Fisher uses that has really helped me, a way of analyzing particular groups of people. And so I think both because of his methodology and because of his conclusions, the content of it, it really shaped and I have not outgrown that. It really shaped the way I understood myself and understood the nation in which I lived.

GRANT: I love that book and I wish we could talk about it all day, but we have two more books to discuss. So what is your second book, and how did it deepen you or widen you or shape you?

MASTER: Second book I would select is George Marsden's biography of Jonathan Edwards called Jonathan Edwards: A Life. I had just graduated from seminary. I was starting out as a pastor, and it hit me in a number of different ways. Marsden is a clear writer. Also, it's just so well researched. It gave me a kind of a window into a different time period and a different place, but the window into the life of a man who is doing pastoral ministry. So for me, that was profoundly significant. The other thing was I think it gave me a clear vision of what a great historical biography could be. I probably read more biographical material than anything else than any other single genre. But this is just such a well-researched, well-written biography. And there are criticisms that could be leveled of the book and that have been leveled of the book, but for me it stands as a pivotal book for that stage of my life.

GRANT: Yeah, one of my favorites too. Okay. Now to your third book. How does this one add to the picture?

MASTER: Well, I labored over this one too, but I would say The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R. R. Tolkien, or you could say the whole Lord of the Rings. I wasn't sure if I was allowed to do that, but if I had to pick one, I decided I would pick the Fellowship of the Ring. I've read this book I don't know how many times. And that's one of the striking features of it. Each time I read it, at each different phase of my life, it hits me differently. I see some of the same, same things I've seen before, but I see some different things too. And I think when I look at the effect that it had on me, even from the very first reading, it opens up a three-dimensional world that is that that that shapes your thinking. And as I said, having read it since, it hits me with even greater depth.

GRANT: Okay, now tie all of these three books together. What thread connects them?

MASTER: Each of these books came to me at a moment in time when I was ready for them and and they shaped everything I read after that. So there's a sense in which these were all building block books for me. I think if I were to take a step back from my own biography and say what holds them all together, I suppose they all give insight into human experience, into the the world in which we live that that helped me understand myself better, but I think help me understand other people and the Lord's work in in ways that perhaps I I wouldn't have understood as richly.

GRANT: Jonathan Master is a reader. He's a writer. He's a publisher. He is the president of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. You can find out more about that institution at gps.edu. And if you want to see some of the books that Greenville is publishing, go to Logcollege Press.com. Jonathan, thank you.

MASTER: George, it's been a pleasure. Thank you.

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