I am thinking of unfortunate scholars in foreign universities who cannot 'hold down their jobs' unless they repeatedly publish articles each of which must say, or seem to say, something new about some literary work; or of overworked reviewers, getting through novel after novel as quickly as they can, like a schoolboy doing his 'prep'. For such people reading often becomes mere work. The text before them comes to exist not in its own right but simply as raw material; clay out of which they can complete their tale of bricks.

This is what Bible reading has become for many of us and it is a soul killer. What does it profit a preacher to mine a bunch of alliterated sermon ideas yet forfeit the Word of life waiting for us if we would only linger?