I was telling a couple people that I’m grateful several noted writers have fundamentally changed the quality of their work during the past couple of years. I had read their works in the past, but hadn’t been taken by them. Somehow, their writing didn’t work.

You may know of some of them. Jim Collins. Bill Hybels. Patrick Lencioni. Dallas Willard. Peter Scazzero. Parts of God (particularly a couple of technical works coauthored with Paul and Jeremiah). I tried, but just couldn’t connect, unlike a handful of writers that I read all the time. C.S. Lewis. Eugene Peterson. Kathleen Norris.

But within the last couple of years, they must have changed so that I can understand them better. Now, I read some of those works. I want to adapt and adopt their ideas. I talk about them here. I bring them up in conversations with other people. People get tired of me mentioning Collins. I quoted Willard more than once, and started reading more of him.

I’m also noticing that I’m interested in some new authors. For example, I heard the other day that Douglas Moo is coming out with a new book called Galatians. It’s based on a book by the same name from a writer named Paul. It will be a few months before it’s published, but I’m looking forward to it. I recently read most of Moo’s book called Colossians, again based on a book by the same name from Paul.

Until the past year or so, the idea of reading a Bible commentary seemed odd at best. But commentaries apparently have been rewritten, too.

It must be the writers changing. It couldn’t be me. Though I do have a question for us: Whose wisdom have you been thinking was foolishness until recently? And who actually changed?