Let me add one word more. Read a few big books rather than many little ones. To work steadily through an important book of theology will do you infinitely more good than to run through a number of little popular books at half a crown. Quite apart from the actual information gained, the study of a big book helps to the formation of habits of concentration and industry, things so necessary in the lives of men who, like the clergy, are busy with a succession of distracting trifles…
Different men will, of course, follow different lines. Some will be qualified to tackle questions of textual criticism. Others will find church history a fruitful field. Others – again, a minority, I fear – with know the fascination of dogmatic theology. Lucky is the man who brings to theology any taste for, and some training in, philosophy. For him, there are many volumes of Gifford Lectures, many admirable works on Christian ethics and – a subject to be handled with care – much modern psychology. There is no excuse for a clergyman giving up his reading. The ideal of the Church of England has always included the ideal of a learned clergy and, though it is not possible for all of us to attain to profound learning, we ought all to aim at being well-read.
From: The Man of God: Being the Pastoral Theology Lectures Delivered at Durham University in 1935 by Peter Green (London: Hodder and Stoughton, Limited, 1935), pp. 77, 78-79.
Peter Green (1871-1961), an Anglican priest, was Canon Residentiary of Manchester (1911-1951) and a noted author.
