Brad East on two ways of reading:

One way of reading something is to ask what’s wrong with it: what’s missing, what’s out of place. Another way of reading something is to ask what one might learn or benefit from it.

…

Why should what is flawed take priority over what is good? Why not approach any text—any cultural artifact whatsoever—and ask, What do I stand to receive from this? What beauty or goodness or truth does it convey? How does it challenge, provoke, silence, instruct, or otherwise reach out to me? How might I stand under it, as an apprentice, rather than over it, as a master? What does it evoke in me, and how might I respond in kind?

Such a posture is not uncritical. It is a necessary component of any humane criticism. It is the first step in the direction of genuine (rather than superficial) criticism, for it is an admission of need: of the limits and imperfections of the reader, prior to mention of those of the text.

In a word, humility is the condition for joy, in reading as in all art. And without joy, the whole business is a sad and rotten affair.

Brad is getting at something really important here. The first way of reading—asking what’s wrong with a text—is the wide and easy way that leads to joyless destruction (to riff on Jesus' words). There are certainly many who enter by it. But the second way—that of humbly seeking to learn—is the hard and narrow way that only few can stomach. But there is life and joy to be had for those who do.