Sep 28, 2026 · 38 min · 9 segments
Maybe for you, becoming a better reader looks like reading more books, and with greater joy and understanding. For others it might mean becoming a more humble, Christlike reader—one who wears his or…
Amen.
It'd be a bit controversial to some of you, but it's been a help to me.
That is read with a pen or a pencil.
Write in your books.
Go ahead and write in them.
You own them.
They're sitting on your shelf.
And yeah, go ahead and write in them.
Just as a lot of people say they get more out of a lecture at school or out of a message in the church when they take notes, so it may be when you read a book.
Now, in one sense, the notes are already there, the author's notes.
But you may have some additional thoughts.
What you've just read may bring something to your mind and you jot it down in the side.
Or maybe you just want to...
Underline some things and star some things.
Of course, this is what people do with their Bibles, right? They have some notes there, some thoughts that they've enjoyed, maybe a little explanatory note.
Maybe they underline certain words.
Well, we're just encouraging you to do the same thing with other books that you own.
It can help you to remember things.
what you've read in this book, what you've gleaned from it.
For me, a big thing in doing it is I then go back when I'm done the book and read what I've highlighted and starred and wrote in the margins.
It's going to help me me summarize that and help me remember what I've really taken away from this book and maybe to apply in some other context as well.
By the way, Mike, I actually put an X by some things that I read too that I think are wrong.
Maybe that's partly because someone else may read this book after me.
And I just want to highlight a bad theology here.
Amen.
It'd be a bit controversial to some of you, but it's been a help to me.
That is read with a pen or a pencil.
Write in your books.
Go ahead and write in them.
You own them.
They're sitting on your shelf.
And yeah, go ahead and write in them.
Just as a lot of people say they get more out of a lecture at school or out of a message in the church when they take notes, so it may be when you read a book.
Now, in one sense, the notes are already there, the author's notes.
But you may have some additional thoughts.
What you've just read may bring something to your mind and you jot it down in the side.
Or maybe you just want to...
Underline some things and star some things.
Of course, this is what people do with their Bibles, right? They have some notes there, some thoughts that they've enjoyed, maybe a little explanatory note.
Maybe they underline certain words.
Well, we're just encouraging you to do the same thing with other books that you own.
It can help you to remember things.
what you've read in this book, what you've gleaned from it.
For me, a big thing in doing it is I then go back when I'm done the book and read what I've highlighted and starred and wrote in the margins.
It's going to help me me summarize that and help me remember what I've really taken away from this book and maybe to apply in some other context as well.
By the way, Mike, I actually put an X by some things that I read too that I think are wrong.
Maybe that's partly because someone else may read this book after me.
And I just want to highlight a bad theology here.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
