My spiritual edification and growth were exceedingly slow when I immersed myself in classic post-Biblical Christian literature. They took-off like rockets when I dropped that approach and went deep into the Scriptures with classic techniques of intrinsic literary analysis ("let the Word speak for itself").
One of my favorite stories in this vein tells of the young black brother (rural preacher) down south whose powerful preaching caught the attention of his bishop "up north." On a visit, the bishop was appalled to find that our young brother had no study helps, so when he got back to HQ, he sent the young preacher a set of commentaries. On his next visit a year later, he asked the young preacher what he thought of the books that he'd sent down.
"Oh, them's good books," he said, "good books -- a little cloudy in places, but the Scripture throws a lot of light in there."
What I've wriitten in Who Shall Enter ... comes from long, intense study of the key terms (a) in context in the original texts, (b) as clarified in extensive lexicons by classical linguistics scholars -- not from what post-Biblical Christian stalwarts have written under the twin yokes of the English translations and centuries of biased church doctrine. What I've written about the key words is how they were already understood by Jesus's hearers when He used them in His special spiritual applications. (Yes, I've had to flush a lot of pious error out of my mind and slough a lot of sweet fluff off my understanding! This is a vital component of repentance.)
