If I were a betting man, I would be willing to bet a large sum that the best teachers at biblical integration are teachers who read important books. There really can be no substitute for a teacher who regularly interacts with ideas by reading books. Let's face it, we are in the business of ideas. In order to be effective in our business we need to know the basic commodities in which we deal.

A couple of thoughts on this:

• Obviously, we need to be readers of scripture. If we do not have some depth of knowledge in the foundation, we will not have a proper grid to evaluate other texts.

• Sola scriptura, however, was never meant to mean that scripture is the only book we should read. Even the Grace Brethren motto, The Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible, should not mean that. If they did, we could never have even a sermon, let alone a book. Rather, these words mean that scripture is the perfect (though not exhaustive)revelation of the God from which all goodness, rightness, and truth flow. Other texts may have truth, goodness, and rightness in them (and certainly many do, even many books written by unbelievers) but those traits always flow from God himself, even in a text written by a fallen person. Sola scriptura, then, says that scripture is the only original source of truth. Other texts containing truth pull from that original source.

• Read important books. When I walk into Christian bookstores I am usually saddened because it is flooded with books that the church could do without. And the church's legacy of rich, important books is forgotten because they are no longer marketable. Do yourself a favor and do not shop for your next read off the rack of the Christian bookstore. More than likely, the books we ought to be reading are not found there. A quick look at a list by Christianity Today of the top 100 religious books of the 20th c. ( http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2000/005/5.92.html) tells me I could find seven or eight of the titles, at most, available at the typical large Christian bookstore. And if you go back into earlier centuries, there is even less likelihood of finding one.

• Read old books. C.S. Lewis said that for every two contemporary books we read, we should read one old book. And by old, he did not mean last decade. He meant last century or even older. (He was a professor of medeival lit., after all.) Not because writers back then did not have problems or errors, but because they were not the SAME problems or errors that we have today. And the different perspective allows us to identify our own error and problems more easily. If you have not picked up a book by Augustine, or Luther, or Assisi, or Kempis, or Edwards.

• Don't search for books ABOUT biblical integration. Find books that DO biblical integration. Find Christian authors in your subject area and absorb their works. If you teach history, grab Mark Noll or George Marsden. Literature teachers (of course, you are probably the best readers among us) find Leland Ryken, or Gene Veith or Flannery O'Connor. Art teachers would benefit from Thomas Schirrmacher, Hans Rookmaaker or even Francis Shaeffer. Math teachers could check out James Nickel. Elementary teachers would gain from Ruth Beechick or Susan Macaulay.

• Don't ignore books from outside evangelicalism. Though we obviously have doctrinal differences with other streams of Christianity,we still can gain a lot from their work and they often point to easily missed blind spots within evangelicalism.

• Don't ignore works by non-Christians. If we truly want to engage with ideas and teach our students to do the same, we must be familiar with those ideas.