The Importance of Reading

When Abraham Lincoln was asked what has been the most important invention of all mankind, he answered, without hesitation, “The written word.”  No other invention has enabled the human mind to bridge the chasms of both time and space.  Through the written word we can know what Lincoln said, and to some degree, what he thought.  Through the written word, we can know the thinking of Plato in the fourth century BC.

Do you realize that modern men and women can have more knowledge of Jesus than did his disciples?  We have the four Gospels and they did not.  

Even Ancients attempted by writing to share their thoughts
and experiences.

The written word provides every literate person with invaluable wealth and there are few things more important in life than what a person chooses to read.  What are you reading?  What great minds have influenced your own?  Most of us are not great, Elton Trueblood repeated over and over again, “but this need not keep us from walking with the great.”  The written word makes this possible.  When we immerse our minds in the really great writers, something of their character and thinking wears off on us.  You see, I don’t believe our puny minds have all the answers or that our minds raise questions that have never been asked before, nor do I believe our experiences cover the whole gamut of life’s conundrums.  The thinking and experiences of others is needed and we can find this in the written word—in books.

Many of the really “great authors” are those who wrote long ago.  You won’t find their books on the New York Times Best Sellers List.  What are you reading?  I wonder what our presidential candidates have read?  What we have read and what we are reading now makes all the difference!