Metropolitan Saba Isper

Read the full teaching "Guidance on Reader" here: open.substack.com/pub/sabaisper/…

As St. Paul wrote to Timothy: “Devote yourself to reading…” (1 Tim. 4:13) Reading, when approached with truth and humility, becomes an inexhaustible mine of knowledge and a path toward continual maturity.

Many people read, but not everyone truly understands what they read. Reading has its own discipline. Without patience, attentiveness, and honesty, a reader can lose his way—and burden a text with meanings it never intended...

Reading is not merely gathering information. It is an act of purification. It teaches us to listen, to encounter the thoughts of others, and to step outside the fortress of our own assumptions.

One of the greatest dangers in reading is approaching a text from a preconceived position...

If you read only to attack, argue, or confirm your own assumptions, you are no longer listening to the text—you are listening only to yourself...