What is your advice to those wanting to write Christian literature?

This text is from a letter written by David Gooding in 2009.

I am delighted to notice that you are now beginning to devote yourself to writing Christian literature. You graciously ask me to write down some suggestions on how to go about such writing.

To be frank with you, I am not really the man to ask on this score. My output has been somewhat limited, and you would be much better advised to consult those whose books the Lord has abundantly blessed and as a result have achieved wide circulation.

As far as my small experience goes, I would say that the number one principle is to have something to say before you attempt to write it.

For my part, I am not good at exhortation and comfort and encouragement. I simply try to write what I think God has shown me in his word. I write because I feel myself like the lepers outside of Samaria in 2 Kings 7, who decided that they might as well go over to the Syrian camp to seek some food. If the Syrians killed them that was no great disaster, for they were going to die anyway of famine outside Samaria. Having arrived at the Syrian camp, however, they found the Syrians had fled and left behind abundant supplies; so rich in fact that they felt they had to go and tell somebody else about these abundant supplies, otherwise something bad would befall the lepers themselves.

That is why I have written, though whether I have convinced the Christian public that what I have written about is indeed great treasure—of that I am not sure. It is, however, generally the preachers who have written to say they have found some of my work useful to them, in the sense that it has opened up windows and given them something to preach about.

Another disadvantage I suffer from is the gulf between me and the young generation of believers. It is not merely that I am old; it is that the schools and university I went to are all now in the distant past, and the English that we spoke and wrote was somewhat different from that which is now popularly acclaimed. My English, so I am told, is far too Latinized and Ciceronian.

May God encourage you to write.

Your brother and fellow solider in the faith,