A bibliophile--that's what we call a lover of books. Some of us gladly confess that we are booklovers with a book-reading addiction.

Being a bibliophile is not a good thing, though, if that's all you love. Augustine (354-430), the early church theologian, tells us in his Confessions that he was a booklover. Yet he admits that it did not profit him in the least.

"What good did it do me that I, at a time when I was the vile slave of evil desires, read and understood for myself every book that I could lay my hands on . . . ? I enjoyed these books and did not know the source of whatever in them was true and certain. For I had my back to the light and my face to the things on which the light shone; so the eyes in my face saw things in the light but on my face itself no light fell." Not until Augustine opened his mind to the message of God's Book, the Bible, did the light of saving truth flood his soul.

Books flow from our presses in a flood of print. They can be entertaining, informative, and oh, so valuable. But if we read them with our "backs to the light" of God's Book, we will remain ignorant of the truth.

Don't be just a booklover--love God's Book! Prayerfully spend time in it each day.  — Vernon C. Grounds