Voice of Thunder
A passionate podcast discussing topics of faith, family, and church. We believe God's Word is powerful!"Is not my Word like as a fire? saith the Lord; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?" (Jeremiah 23:29)
Voice of Thunder
Episode 2 - Preaching & Self Improvement - Books 4 2024
This is the last podcast in a two part series on Books 4 2024 to change your life! I have read over 37 books last year and am discussing the best ones!
Are you tired of people gazing off into space when you preach? Do you want to learn from some of the best communicators and leaders in the Christian world? Do you want to grow in your personal and professional skills? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then this podcast episode is for you.
I'm your host, and in this episode, I will share with you some of the books that have helped me improve my preaching and personal growth in the past year. These books cover topics such as:
📖How to design and deliver life-changing messages. Communicating for Change by Andy Stanley
📖 How to use your voice, your story, and your passion to communicate God's truth. Don't Drop the Mic by T.D. Jakes
📖 How to develop and deliver expository sermons that are faithful to the text and relevant to the listeners. Biblical Preaching by Haddon Robinson
📖 How to preach Christ from all of Scripture, using a grace-based approach that unifies the message and the method. Christ-Centered Preaching by Bryan Chapell
📖 How to interpret and preach the stories of the Old Testament, with attention to their literary, historical, and theological dimensions. The Art of Preaching Old Testament Narratives by Steven Mathewson
I will also share with you some books that have helped me grow in my personal and professional skills, such as:
📖 How to improve your interpersonal skills, build rapport, and win people over. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
📖 How to achieve personal and professional success by adopting seven habits that are based on timeless principles. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey.
📖 How to handle high-stakes conversations with confidence, clarity, and respect. Crucial Conversations by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler.
Welcome back to Voice of Thunder. Give yourself under reading. The man who never reads will never be read. We are quite persuaded that the very best way, the very best way for you to be spending your leisure time, is by either reading or praying. You may get much instruction from books which afterwards you may use as a true weapon in your Lord and Master's service. Paul cries bring me books. Join in that cry. The man that I'm quoting here lived out his advice. He had a collection at his death of over 7,000 books, and he read six books per week, in addition to preaching numerous times at his large church of over several thousand people and running a Bible school. His name was Charles Spurgeon. That was his advice on how to become a better preacher, a better man, a better person was read books.
Speaker 1:Books are life changing, and I found them to be so helpful for me over the last year. I found it to be immensely helpful. I've read 37 books over the last year and I've just found it to really help grow me in so many ways, and so I wanted to share with you some of my favorite books. They were in cover. Two things were going to cover. First, books on preaching. I'm a preacher, I do a lot of preaching and so for me it was important to find books that would help grow me in that. And then, number two, we're in cover books on self-improvement, self-growth as a person. That had been greatly helpful to me as well. So we're going to start with the preaching books. The first book that really impacted me or really helped me was Communicating for Change by Andy Stanley. Now I will let you know on the upfront don't agree with everything Andy Stanley has said or is doing. So not saying I agree with all of it. But this book, as far as a public if you think of it just as a public speaking book, it's very helpful and to me I really enjoyed it. I want to read you the back cover of the book so you get an idea of what it's about. It says when you talk, are people changed? Whether you speak from the pulpit, podium or from the classroom, you don't need much more than blank stares and faraway looks to tell you you're not connecting. Take heart before your audience takes leave. You can convey your message in the powerful, life-changing way it deserves to be told. An insightful, entertaining parable that's an excellent guide for any preacher. Communicating for Change takes a simple approach to delivering effectively. Join Pastor Ray as he discovers that the secret to successful speaking are parallel to lessons. A trucker learns on the road. By knowing your destination before you leave, using your blinkers and implementing five other practical points. You'll drive your message home every time. So it was a really great book. I think it was very beneficial for me. So many good things kind of.
Speaker 1:The way the book is broke up is first, the beginning part is the first half is a story where a preacher is being given lessons by a trucker on how to preach, and Really good stuff. I mean you kind of read it first You're like, is this gonna be, you know, a little bit cliche or a little bit, you know, cringy? But it really was not. It was really actually very beneficial. And and for me, I you know getting so many blank stares when I preach. You know you get about 15 minutes into your sermon. You've shired hollard, you've lost your voice and you got to the point where just nobody's even looking at you anymore. They're just drifting off in space. And so this book was really helpful in helping me learn how to keep people's attention, helping me learn how to do well those transitions, making sure I'm careful and moving from thought to thought. So good, lots of good stuff in it, if you takeaways. One thing I felt was very beneficial was the me we got you we.
Speaker 1:That's the format that he uses for his sermon outlines. You start off with yourself how you have struggled with the problem or the question or the issue. Then you talk about how we all struggle with that problem or issue and then from there you move to scripture and show how God has answered that in his word. From there you talk about application and after that you talk about Basically how this would look. You know what. What would the results be if we all practice this? What would the results be in a world? How would our world be a better and different place if we all did this? So that's his format.
Speaker 1:I've I've taken some from that in my preaching. Definitely the first three me, we, god. You know I really have taken that with me, making sure myself. You know how have I struggled with this in the past and how has the word of God dealt with me, applied it to me, convicted me. So it felt not very beneficial and Really helpful, and just setting up tension at the beginning of the sermon, making sure you start off a sermon with a little bit of tension, a little bit of question. You're not so many times I would jump into a sermon and I'm more about the answer before people even know what the problem is right, and so learning to talk about the problem, learning to talk about the struggle, has been really helpful for me in my sermons. Overall it's a really great preaching book, showing you how to be relevant, how to not lose your audience.
Speaker 1:Making sure you're clear. I mean that is one of the major problems I struggled with I being around other preachers and pastors. There's a problem of clarity and many people don't know when you are or how you got here or how this is relevant to anything else in the sermon. And so clarity. I mean, if you're not clear, how can you teach the sheep the word, if you're not clear? If you're not, how can you preach to them the life say, life saving message of the gospel if you're not clear? So really good. It's one of the top. If you Google you know preaching books, it's like the top communication and preaching book out there. So I really recommend you looking up again. Don't support any Stanley everything he says at all, but the book. If you just think of the book as a public communication book, public speaking book, I think it'll be helpful.
Speaker 1:The second book we're gonna look at is don't drop the mic by TD jakes. Again, this is on preaching. Still, we'll get to the self-improvement here at the end. We're talking about preaching right now. Don't drop the mic by TD jakes. Again, don't support all to the jakes theology. He's got some oneness theology from what I've heard. And then just no offense more of a motivational speaker than a preacher sometimes. But in spite of that, again, if you think of him as a public speaker, you know helping you with your public speaking, communicating ability, speaking ability really good stuff. And what's even better is it's free. So that's even better. You can go online and you go on YouTube and you can find, if you just have it. Don't drop the mic by TD jakes. There's several interviews of him and a man by the name of Frank Thomas and they do interviews together and Really great, it's free. It's probably, I'd say, six hours of content, because each interviews about two hours and about three or four of them, so about six hours of Stuff on preaching and public speaking. So I really enjoyed that.
Speaker 1:A few takeaways that I enjoyed from those interviews was how to illustrate, using the point of view Jakes get into and talks about how that you want to. As you're preaching a story, you're telling the story, put yourself and the characters shoes and mindset. What's their point of view, how are they thinking, feeling, moving, what's there, you know? So really getting down to the character was really helpful to me. And then one thing he said was to make sure to shoot your best shot last, and I really I thought that was a useful piece of advice For me. It you get, you have such a passion for what you're gonna preach, that's easy to get up there and you give the best part in the first ten minutes of the sermon and then everything in the sermon is just downhill from there and the audience can sense that your energy goes down. You're just, you know everything goes out. It's just not the right way to structure your sermon. Every good homo let it book you pick up, preaching, book you pick up is gonna say the conclusion is meant to be the most dramatic, powerful part of the sermon. And he said that you know. You know one thing about a guy that shoots his best shot first he's scared and he's a rookie and it's true and I've done it and so I find that very beneficial.
Speaker 1:Another good book is biblical preaching by Hayden Robinson. So the last two books have been more public speaking how to be a good communicator. This book is more getting to the philosophy and theology of preaching and I want to read you the back cover of this book. It's called. This best-selling text by Hayden Robinson, considered by many to be the teacher of preachers, has sold over 300,000 copies and is a contemporary classic. It offers students, pastors and Bible teachers Expert guidance and the development and delivery of expository sermons. This new edition has been updated throughout and includes some helpful Exercises are really good as you can go get a new copy of this book. It's been around about 25 years, so it's got some some longevity. Very influential book. This is probably in the last 50 years. This is one of a few books that has had a tremendous impact on on preaching and the theology of preaching.
Speaker 1:A Few takeaways that I enjoyed from this is first, every sermon should have a theme and it must be the theme of the text. So every sermon should have one theme, one idea, one point, and that point is the same point that scripture. The scripture is saying so you can't go to that text and just Say whatever you want with it. The question is, what does the overall Section or unit of scripture, what's the point the author is making? What's the purpose of that? If you're in Romans 1 through 2, what is the main takeaway that he's trying to get? Well, probably it's going to have something to do with we are all condemned and under sin, and so that's the main point. So if you're over there and you're talking about something else marriage, for instance and you're talking about that and that's your main thing you're preaching about from that sermon or that text, you're not really preaching the expository sermon anymore because you have stopped preaching the Word of God and now you've started preaching yourself and your own ideas.
Speaker 1:And as a preacher I have more and more grown the conviction that we must absolutely preach the Word of God, and this is one of those books that really cemented that in my mind. If I am not preaching the point of this scripture, if I'm preaching something else, I'm pulling out of it and I'm not preaching the main thing, the main idea that I'm trying to get across, then I'm not really preaching the Word of God I've got, I'm stealing the Word of God and I'm using it to preach my own ideas. I'm not growing God's sheep in God's way. I'm growing them to like me and not like God. I'm growing. Instead of trying to make them Christ like, I'm trying to grow them into something else and just for me, that's a conviction of Lord. Put my heart as well as books that really convicted me and helped me in that.
Speaker 1:Another good book we're going to talk about is Christ Center preaching by Brian Chapel. So again, this book is more a theology and philosophy of preaching. What is your mindset and philosophy of preaching? And I would encourage you read Hayden Robinson first, read the biblical preaching first and then read Brian Chapel, because he builds on top of what he said, and this is one of those books that over the last 30, 50 years has had a tremendous impact on preaching, huge impact on preaching. This is one of the two books you know a few books that has had tremendous impact. I'm going to read you the back cover this best selling guide to expository preaching.
Speaker 1:Brian Chapel teaches the basics of preparation, organization and delivery and trademarks of great preaching. So if you take away from this book that I felt were really useful to me. First of all, he gets down in the nitty gritty. I mean, as I read earlier, he gets into the preparation, organization, delivery. I mean he is meant to be a textbook that you preach at your homo lex course. You know, I teach at your homo lex course at your Bible school, so it's very comprehensive. It says everything you could want to say about preaching. But in addition to that, he really gets into how do you preach Jesus from every text, how do you get to the gospel from every text. And the way he does that and why I really liked is the concept.
Speaker 1:For me that was the greatest takeaway was the concept of the. Well, he says the FCF, which is the fallen, fallen condition. Focus that in every passage of scripture, no matter where you are, you find somewhere where mankind is fallen. We've messed up, we're broken, and that scripture is going to show you how that is fixed, how that is corrected through the gospel, so that he believes. That's how you get to Christ. Through that passage you look at and ask the question how does Christ fix this here, this problem? This mess up so much good stuff.
Speaker 1:He has a lot of really good stuff on application as well and how to apply the word of God to people's life. So, on the one hand, you're not being legalistic but on the other hand, you are making sure that you apply it in a way that's powerful and practical. And so a lot of really good stuff there on that. One thing I took away from that was to make my applications into like a mini story where people are confronted where, okay, how would you live this out in your life? Everything you've been talking about for the past 20 minutes, how do you live this out in your life in a practical way? What would this, what would the challenge of this being your daily life? And so giving a mini illustration, a mini story, you know, just a minute long, of an example of how you would live this out in your life. Because that's the problem we talk about a bunch of stuff, but what would this practically look like in your daily living. So he had a lot of good practical advice on application. Really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1:One takeaway as well I really enjoyed from the book was that if what you are preaching, if what you're saying about the scripture, if you could preach that in a Muslim congregation, a Jewish congregation or a Unitarian congregation and there's so little gospel in that that you wouldn't get crucified for preaching it in one of those places, then you're not preaching the gospel, you're not preaching a Christ centered gospel. If you're preaching, just do better, be better. You know, don't commit adultery, don't, don't hate, don't steal. That's all you say. That's something that's accepted by everybody. But when you start off by saying we're all sinners, we're all broken, we have all stoned, we all have committed adultery, we have all done evil, and when you start by saying we're all sinners, we've all messed up, when you start off saying that and then saying the only hope is Christ, your good works will never satisfy. When you do that, that will get you crucified. Really enjoyed that. I thought that was a great takeaway.
Speaker 1:On the theology of preaching Another book again this is about the philosophy or theology of preaching is called the Art of Preaching Old Testament Narrative by Stephen Matheson. I'm going to read you the back cover. A Veteran Preacher with 30 Years of Experience Guides Readers Through a 10-Step Process to Preaching Old Testament Narratives, from Text Selection to Delivery. The first edition received a Christianity Today Award of Merit and a Preaching Magazine Book of the Year Award.
Speaker 1:So for me, one of the struggles I've had is how do you preach a story from the Bible? How do you preach the story of David and Goliath? And what I've seen other preachers do, which has always bothered me I always felt there was something wrong with it was they turn everything into a symbol or an analogy. So David and Goliath? David represents the problems of your life and your or Goliath represents the problems of your life. You're David. God's going to help you.
Speaker 1:Is that the point that scripture is trying to make? Am I actually preaching the point of the story itself and the story of David and Mashi? But is the point of that story don't commit adultery? Or is there another point? The author's what is the point? Why does it take away the message of that? And it's important that we know what that message is with that point is that we have a right interpretation of what is meant by the story, because if I'm making up some idea, if I'm preaching something else other than what the text is meant to do, I'm not really preaching scripture. Again, I'm just preaching myself. I'm preaching my own ideas, my own thoughts, and not what scripture says, and that's dangerous. We got to preach what the word says and, in the case of David and Mashi, for instance.
Speaker 1:A lot of scholars believe that the main point to that is not about adultery don't commit adultery but rather be content with what God has given you. Beginning of the story, it starts off with David being discontent by the end of the story. With his dead son and his arms, he can finally accept the fact that he's going to accept. The Lord giveth, the Lord takeeth away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. That's what they believe is the point of the story. Not necessarily. I mean, yes, adultery is bad, don't commit adultery, but that is not the point of the story.
Speaker 1:So I don't want to turn my sermons into a story. You know, I don't want to turn or give me into an analogy. I don't want to make it to an analogy. Everything's symbolic, everything is. I want my sermon to be the main point of the text. This book will help you do that.
Speaker 1:For me, the few takeaways of this book is, of course, the concept. I enjoy the concept of the main point of that text being the main point of the sermon. Also, the method of discovery, discovering the main point of the stories that you're reading from Scripture is to me exciting. If that discovery process is exciting, to discover the main point of Scripture and it really opened me up to being willing to preach on narratives. I haven't, in my last part of 10 years of preaching I don't think I've preached a sermon on the narratives of the Bible, the stories of the Bible, maybe one or two stories. You know sermons for the Bible and those stories, and probably the last 10 years I've stuck with what they would say the didactic places of Scripture, such as, you know, the epistles or the speaking portions in the Gospels where they preach on something or teach on something, and so I haven't really had a narrative. So it opened me up to narrative, being willing to preach narratives again, and I've really enjoyed it. I mean in the Bible things like over 50% I want to say 80% narratives in the Bible and so there's a lot of the Bible's big on story because we remember stories, we stick with us. God made us that way so that we would remember the most important story, which is the story of Christ. So those are a few books that were helpful to me. Over this last year we read a bunch of other preaching books, public speaking books, but those were the main ones that I felt were helpful and I would encourage a preacher to go listen to or read. So we've talked about preaching books.
Speaker 1:Now we're going to talk about self-improvement books, self-growth. I want to be a better person, I want to be a better father, I want to be a better friend, I want to be better in my life, and so I really set out to discover, okay, what are some good self-improvement books? I want to be able to make friends. I want to be able to organize my life well, I want to get stuff done, and so these are some of the best books. I've read numerous, but these are some of the best books for me on self-improvement.
Speaker 1:The first book is how to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. This is a classic classic. It's been over, it's well over 50 years old, and I'll read you the back cover of it. Dale Carnegie's Rocks Holiday Time Tested Advice has carried countless people up the ladder of success in their business and personal lives. One of the most groundbreaking and timeless best sellers of its time. It has sold over 15 million copies. All right, that's crazy. Here's a great quote from the book you can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you. Great quote. Lots of good stuff in this book.
Speaker 1:A few takeaways for me in this book is it taught me the necessity of listening closely, really paying attention to not only what they say but the underlying things they say, the message behind the words. When I hear someone talk about yeah, I got to see my kids. It's been a while, oh really it's been a while how I often need to see them where they live, sort of listening intently to other people. And when you do that, people just glow up. I mean, they just immediately stand at attention. They just become supremely interested in the conversation when they know they have someone who is interested in hearing about their life. So I thought that was very beneficial Learning to be interested in others and to praise people, learning to give genuine, sincere compliments to people.
Speaker 1:You know, when someone helps you out and they go above and beyond at the store, they didn't have to do that, they didn't have to do this, but they did it. Praise them for it. They deserve it. They have a right to receive the praise they get. And so many times where you get busy, we're on the run, our minds are 100 different things. We don't take the time to praise people like we should, and that prevents our ability to influence and grow relationships with people. There are a lot of good men who can preach, who are godly men, but we all know some good godly men and women who just need better people skills. They don't know how to keep a conversation going, they don't know how to love on people, they don't know how to make people feel valued, and this book will help you do that, and that's so important. If we're gonna have a loving Christian community, then this should be part of it Learning how to communicate our love and care for other people. So that was a great book.
Speaker 1:Another great book is Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. This book is really impactful on me. I'm gonna read you the back cover of it and the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Author Stephen Covey presents a holistic, integrated, principle-centered approach for solving personal and professional problems. With penetrating insights and pointed anecdotes, covey reveals a step-by-step pathway for living with fairness, integrity, service and human dignity. It was a really great book.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna read you a few quotes from the book to kind of give you a taste of it. First of all, he says be proactive in your life. Begin with the end of mine. How do I wanna end my life when I'm in that casket? What do I want people to say about me? What's the goal of this life? And then put the first things first. Based on that, another quote from him so a thought, reap an action. So an action. Reap a habit. So a habit. Reap a character, so a character. Reap a destiny. Right, great. And as the last quote I wanna give you, a serious problem with reactive language is that it becomes self-fulfilling prophecy. People become reinforced in the paradigm that they are determined and they produce evidence to support that belief. They feel increasingly victimized, out of control, not in charge of their lives or their destiny. They blame outside forces, other people, circumstances, even the stars, for their own situation. And he has a lot of really good stuff to say.
Speaker 1:A few takeaways that I found useful is the book was very useful in finding your direction in life. What's your mission, what's your core values of your life and what's your mission statement for your life? If I wanna live well, it's gonna require me having a direction. Christ said no man goes to work on a tower without knowing what's it gonna cost. No man goes to war without knowing the cost of going to war. Begin with the end of mind In Christ. There he's talking about salvation, knowing the cost of salvation. He said look, know the end, know what's gonna require to make it to heaven, and begin with that end in mind. Look at your goal, desire that goal and run after that. It's a really great book on finding direction, questioning your goal in life and why you're doing what you're doing.
Speaker 1:They also have a link. The one I read, the copy I read, has a link to a online place you can go that will allow you to create your own mission statement and core values for your life. I did that and man, that was I'm gonna be a little weird. Okay, I love that. It was so fun to create my mission in life, to discover it and, yeah, I had an idea of what it was before, but it provided a greater clarity and understanding of what's important and here's a list of things you wanna do, what's important and why. So it's really helpful for me. It's a book everyone should read. Every person should read this. You should buy 10 copies and give it to your kids. They have it for teenagers, they have it for kids. Really great book.
Speaker 1:Last thing, last takeaway of this book I really enjoyed was he encourages doing a weekly review where you look at your past week and say what could I have done differently, was it good and bad? And looking ahead the next week, what do I have on my calendar? What do I? What are the top things I need to do? I'm you know. He encourages you to write down your roles. You know I'm a husband, I'm a. I'm a father. I'm you know I'm a son, I'm a. You know I'm a preacher, I'm a podcaster. Write down all those roles and then write down the things you need to do for them for the next week and I'll tell you that has been immensely. I can't even describe how immensely helpful has been and how much it has reduced my anxiety. I'm not chasing fires all the time anymore. I'm living proactively. I'm able to look ahead. I know when birthdays are. I know when stuff's up ahead because I have a detail calendar I keep so useful. So I really encourage anybody and everybody pick up this book. You will be greatly benefited.
Speaker 1:The last book in the self-improvement Category we're gonna talk about is crucial conversations. Crucial conversations. How do you have a conversation where you're starting to get tense. They're getting tense, and how do you make that conversation turn out? Well, I'll read you the back cover. Crucial conversations provides powerful skills to ensure every conversation, especially the difficult ones, leads to results. Written in an engaging and witty style, the book teaches readers how to be persuasive rather than rather than abrasive. How to get back to produce it to productive dialogue when others blow up or clam up. It offers powerful skills for mastering high stakes conversations, regardless of the topic or the person.
Speaker 1:I'll read you a couple quotes, just two of them. The reason why conversations become crucial is because they are conversations that are unsafe. People feel that your opinion is not being heard. Therefore, it is important to make sure that everyone feels safe. So when pushing their opinions on or holding their opinions back is obvious, they do not feel safe. Here's another quote. The second thing to do whenever a conversation has turned critical and safety is threatened is a contrast. You restate your purpose in a do-don't statement such as I'm sorry, I did not mean to insinuate that I do not want to try and make I want. I do want to try to make a little better life for us. Step out of the conversation and talk about your motives and what your goal is. So there's a couple quotes there for you.
Speaker 1:Here's some takeaways that I took away from the book. It really taught me how to communicate well with others when you're in that tense moment I really enjoy. They have a technique they call mirroring, which is where, when the person is talking about their frustrations to you, that you mirror back to them their frustrations in your own words. I found it to be so useful. I've used several of these techniques that they recommend in the book In conversations with my family, with my wife, with friends, and it works so well and helping those conversations to go much better, much smoother. I've tested it. It absolutely works. This book have sold has sold millions of copies. I believe it's a great book. I would encourage you to go pick it up. It will help you become a better communicator and in those hard conversations. So I hope those books you'll check them out. They'll definitely help you this coming year, as you're stepping into 2024, to live a better life and, I think, to get more out of life.
Speaker 1:I want to end with, first of all, why? Books? I want to encourage you and give you some reasons to go read, and then I also want to encourage you with some tips on On how to read and be a better reader this year. So why books? First of all, the reason why is the proof of time. Look, these books have been out, some of them for over 30 years, and they've been tested and tried. Dale Carnegie's books, stephen Covey's book, you know many of these books have been out for well over 30 years, some of them over 50 years, and they've been tested by millions of people, double digits, millions of people, a lot of people, more people than there are in the United States, maybe. So, when you think about that, you can go watch a YouTube video. It might have 300,000 views. You might be able to go look at a podcast and it might have a million views. But here's what you gotta think about. That's only been tested over the last you know what? Five years of that. These books have been tested 50 years. In some cases they're 50 times or 10 times.
Speaker 1:However much that video or podcast you listen to, there's a proof of time that this absolutely works. I would encourage you to just go read any book in every book, but I would encourage you to go read books that are going to have longevity. Also, books are a long format. Not only is it a test of time, but they're a longer format. They are going to go in depth into that subject. A podcast, maybe two hours, right. A YouTube video 10 minutes, right. But a book, man, when you talk about a book, you're talking about pages upon pages 300 pages In the audiobook format. That works out a lot of times about eight hours. Most audiobooks I've listened to are about eight hours long. That's eight hours, right. That's maybe three or four times as much information in depth as the podcast you're listening to or the YouTube video that you're watching. So much more information. It can go much more in depth. And I know, like, well, man, that's eight hours. Lance, I know, but I think I talked about this last time Turn up the rate of speech.
Speaker 1:A lot of these books are super slow. Turn up to 1.5 speed or 1.8 speed. Turn up that rate of speech. Also, these books are quotable. They're extremely quotable. You're going to you know you will have a greater reliability when you're speaking to people. If you can quote from a book, then if you quote from a podcast or you quote a YouTube video podcast, people are just going to look at you. You quote from a book, especially a famous book, and there's a credibility that goes along with it.
Speaker 1:I want to end this podcast by just giving you a few tips on how to read books in the coming year. First of all, if you're not enjoying the book, either stop reading or skip ahead and see if it gets better. If it doesn't get any better, just stop reading it. And I know that you know, lance, I don't want to be a quitter and I get that. But if you're going to hate this book, if you're not enjoying it, you might stop reading altogether and you could be spending time on this book over here. That could greatly benefit your life, right, that could greatly help you. But you're stuck over here in this book. That is not going to help you or benefit you at all.
Speaker 1:There have been many times that I will skip irrelevant or redundant chapters because they're just not useful, right? You know they talked about this and there's a lot of books that do this because they have a certain number of page limits and so I'll skip those over. I will also look at the table of contents and I'll see, okay, what chapters are in this book and I'll look at them and say, all right, that chapter. I know, I know stuff about that. Know that, know that. Know that. All right, oh wait, here's a chapter that's interesting. I'll turn to that chapter and I'll read that chapter. You know, I don't know this for every book, but for many books where you know if it's a preaching book, for instance, once you've read about 10 preaching books they say a lot of the same things. But looking at it and finding out, like here's a table of contents all right, that's an interesting chapter. I've not heard that before. That's new. Let's go read that. So that's the thing I'll do.
Speaker 1:I also try to take notes on my phone to help me pay attention to what I'm reading, to be an active listener. Taking notes, even if it's just a word or two or a sentence or two, is immensely helpful in keeping me to be an active listener. I hope this podcast has been helpful. I hope it encourages you to go out, read some books. 2024. The Bible talks about that the wise man. Speak some of the Proverbs about a wise man, a man who applies himself to learning, who's hungry for knowledge. A wise man will hear and receive instruction right. That's what separates a wise man from a foolish man. A wise man is hungry to know more and be better, and they don't care what that requires. But a foolish man thinks he already knows all the answers. By reading books you prove you're a wise person. Step out, be a wise person and go read the best book this year the Bible. Hope this has been encouraging to you. God bless.