Rejoice! It’s that special rose-coloured Sunday of Advent again. But that doesn’t mean we’re slacking off.
For this week’s small Advent discipline, I think you should try to read a book.
Yes, you know – one of those rectangular things with pages in it.
Can I be even more personal and ask you: When did you last read an actual book, all the way through?
Social media and scrolling are the enemies of real reading. They kill your ability to read a book stone-dead.
That’s because your brain quickly gets used to gobbling up tiny, brief, punchy snippets of information.
It likes them. They’re cheap, easy, tasty, and make no demands.
But it’s like eating fast-food popcorn chicken rather than home-made roast chicken with all the trimmings.
The cheapest form of popcorn chicken is made from processed chicken product (best not to think too closely about this).
It’s coated in synthetic goo and then fried in another form of synthetic goo.
By contrast, home-made roast chicken and vegetables require an effort to make – although it’s much less work than you think.
And there’s nothing like it this side of paradise when you sit down with your knife and fork.
One of these two meals is also better for your body as well as your soul. I’ll let you figure that one out yourselves.
Let’s go back to my awkward question: When did you last read an actual book all the way through?
Reflect on this, because the answer might disturb you. And that’s a good thing.
It disturbed me when I thought about it. It made me re-think my scrolling habits and my social media use.
I have two books on my nightstand right now. One is called Salt by Mark Kurlansky, and it’s (remarkably) a history of salt.
It is staggeringly more interesting than you might think, and quite an easy read.
The other is Jason Staples’ book Paul and the Resurrection of Israel. It’s a doozy.
Staples’ idea is this. Most of our biblical scholarship is backwards: we project our own understanding of words like “Jew” and “Israel” into St Paul’s letters.
One of the examples he uses is German theologian Karl Georg Kuhn – who became an actual Nazi, so you can imagine what his idea of those words was.
So Staples thinks that instead, we need to get inside the heads of the people who returned from Babylonian exile, lived in and around Jerusalem and the northern provinces, and rebuilt the Temple.
What did they mean by “Jew” and by “Israel”? When they talk about the “restoration of Israel”, what even is that?
After all, these people are a lot closer to the time of Jesus and St Paul and the Dead Sea Scrolls than we are.
It turns out that they meant something quite specific, and radically different from what you might think.
And the answers will make you re-think St Paul’s letters, especially Romans, and see them again with fresh eyes.
Staples wrote an entire book earlier on the Second Temple era’s understanding of these words.
But thankfully you don’t have to read that one first to get into the book that I’m reading right now.
So far he’s won me over, and I’m really enjoying it. But that’s because there is no room for soundbites, oversimplifications, and gotcha moments.
It’s a complex topic and he writes as if he’s talking to me, unpacking it slowly in stages so that I can keep up with him.
Along the way I am learning a lot about the Second Temple era, about biblical translation, and about how Hebrew works as a language.
It’s absolutely roast chicken with all the trimmings.
It’s like taking a long, slow Mediterranean cruise, close to shore, on one of those cruise ships that only allows a very small number of people on board.
It also feels like taking a refreshing shower under a waterfall in a beautiful valley and washing all the synthetic goo out of my brain.
So I would recommend as an Advent discipline this week that you try to find a book you think you can read all the way through.
Try to make it something at least a bit spiritual and helpful. I’ll leave the choice up to you.
Then at least start it and ideally try to finish it if you can before Christmas.
Bonus points: Track every time you put the book down and pick up your phone instead. It’s very revealing.
Bonus, bonus points: Read your book last thing before you go to sleep at night.