Mark Twain once famously quipped, "The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them." Prescient in his wisdom, Twain concisely describes perhaps one of the greatest endemics of our time—aliteracy.
Perhaps not all our readers are familiar with the distinction between aliteracy and illiteracy; thus a clear delineation must be given. Simply put, illiteracy is the inability of a an individual—or even a culture—to read. Heralded as one of the marks of a primitive culture, illiteracy still may not be as grave a threat as its counterpart, aliteracy. One who is alliterate is able to read; he simply does not.
Today, we live in a culture where reading has--in many instances--fallen by the wayside. One telling statistic claims that only 5% of the North American continent currently reads nonfiction. And yet, perhaps never before have we been presented with so many options for how to read. The world has moved far beyond only reading books. Newspapers, magazines, eBooks, Kindles, iPhones, Facebooks, and the nano-second “tweets” all vie for our attention. While the myriad of reading venues has steadily increased, the frequency, and perhaps even worthiness, of our reading is decreasing. Perhaps presentational plenitude has adversely triggered literarily bankruptcy.
Scripture tells us that “to whom much is given, much will be required.” Not too many centuries ago, the printing press revolutionized the world by handing knowledge to begging souls. Facilitating even the great reformation itself, this providential gift from God was a blessing of immeasurable consequence.
But today, we have forgotten the legacy of the past—we have forgotten that “leaders are readers” as the saying goes. But such words are no mere epithet for an emptied and hollow self-sufficiency that can be derived from self-exertion and an unexamined pursuit of reading. Rather, Scripture itself commands that leaders read; one Book in particular warrants the attention of those in positions of authority. Of the leaders of Israel, Moses writes,
"And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law, approved by the Levitical priests. And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them, that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, either to the right hand or to the left, so that he may continue long in his kingdom, he and his children, in Israel.” (Deuteronomy 17:18-20)
Friends, if we are not training our children to read the law of their God “in . . . all the days of [their] life,” then we are failing them in a fundamental way. The early founders of our nation understood the weight of such responsibility. In 1647, Massachusetts passed a law which they called The Old Deluder Satan act. Portions of it read as follows,
“It being one chief project of that old deluder, Satan, to keep men from the knowledge of the Scriptures, as in former times by keeping them in an unknown tongue, so in these latter times by persuading from the use of tongues, that so that at least the true sense and meaning of the original might be clouded and corrupted with false glosses of saint-seeming deceivers; and to the end that learning may not be buried in the grave of our forefathers . . . It is therefore ordered that every township in this jurisdiction, after the Lord hath increased them to fifty households shall forthwith appoint one within their town to teach all such children as shall resort to him to write and read.”
Do you see how seriously the founders took the threat of illiteracy? One can only shudder to think of their reaction to aliteracy. Is it any wonder that when a culture has forsaken God, it should also forsake the very means by which it may be convicted by His life-bringing Words?
As a remnant people in a land of darkness and despair, now, more than ever, we must take heed to the words of Joshua, who commanded, “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.” (Joshua 1:8)
We are told how, in the day of Ezra,
“. . . they told Ezra the scribe to bring the Book of the Law of Moses that the LORD had commanded Israel. So Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could understand what they heard . . . And he read from it facing the square before the Water Gate from early morning until midday. . . And the ears of all the people were attentive to the Book of the Law . . . They read from the book, from the Law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.”
Do you see the emphasis this passage lays on understanding the Word of the Lord? We must teach our families that it is not enough to merely read the Word of the Lord without obeying the Proverb of Solomon: “Incline thine heart to understanding.” We live in a day and age where the moral imagination has been unrecognizably crippled by the maladaptive purposes of the media, social pressures, and even our very own desperately wicked hearts. We must turn our hearts to the Savior for the saving grace necessary to understand, and teach others to understand, His Words.
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