The average run-of-the-mill believer like myself will read the great saints like Augustine and Luther or more modern saints like C.S. Lewis, Bonhoeffer etc. and be transformed (or at least want to be transformed). The great saints themselves though were transformed through their reading of scripture and not one-another. They read scripture like a man lost in the desert drinks water…they soaked in it. I don’t think we can ever be transformed by a person’s words – even if those words are reflective of the Word. It would be like a boy going out to the sidewalk at night with his magnifying glass to refract the light of the moon and burn a hole through paper. They will fail every time because the light of the moon is simply the reflected light of the son. Similarly we will never set fires by trying to focus and refract someone else’s ideas about the Word (as powerful as they may be)…but set your sights on God and one person can set the whole world aflame.