Craig T. Owens

It’s no secret that I like to read. I read a little for pleasure, but mostly I read because it makes me a better Christian, a better husband, a better dad, a better preacher. It expands my horizons. It gives me new ideas. It teaches me life lessons. It gives me insights to share with others.

My first priority is to read my Bible every day, and then all of my other reading is filtered through that prism of Scripture. I don’t read only “Christian” books, but I do only read good books.

It’s true: Leaders are readers. If you want to lead more and lead better, read more and read better.

“When a very young minister, I asked the famous holiness preacher, Joseph H. Smith, whether he would recommend that I read widely in the secular field. He replied, ‘Young man, a bee can find nectar in the weed as well as in the flower.’ I took his advice (or, to be frank, I sought confirmation of my own instincts rather than advice) and I am not sorry that I did. John Wesley told the young ministers of the Wesleyan Societies to read or get out of the ministry, and he himself read science and history with a book propped against his saddle pommel as he rode from one engagement to another.” —A.W. Tozer

“Keep yourself full with reading. Reading gives you a vocabulary. Don’t read to remember; read to realize.” —Oswald Chambers

“It is a dreadful deception that learning and mental growing are strictly associated with school. Good reading should be the vocation of a lifetime.” —John Piper

“Paul says to Timothy, so he says to everyone, ‘Give yourself to reading.’ He who will not use the thoughts of other men’s brains proves that he has no brains of his own. You need to read. Renounce as much as you will all light literature but study as much as possible sound theological works, especially the Puritans and expositions of the Bible. The best way for you to spend your leisure is to be either reading or praying.” —C.H. Spurgeon

“The reading of all good books is like conversation with the finest men of past centuries.” —Rene Descartes 

“After all that professors may do for us, the real University is a collection of good books.” —Thomas Carlyle

“Ignoring good books enfeebles vision and strengthens our most fatal tendency; the belief that the here and now is all there is.” —Allan Bloom