By Modest Ibe
In his famous letter to his son’s teacher, Abraham Lincoln wrote:
“Teach him, if you can, the wonder of books…”
Books are the most popular medium for the capsulation of information. Their power in molding, shaping and altering the destinies of men, societies, and nations can hardly be expressed in numeric approximation. So powerful are the impact of books that certain books are either classified, banned or destroyed in certain climes, just as others are published and circulated like wildfire.
Books are subtle, gradually penetrating the mind of their readers and reconditioning them in the process, with little or no acknowledgement of such changes by their readers, especially if they so engage in passivity. Yet by such reading encounter, something significant takes place in the mental orientation, beliefs and worldview of the reader.
To ignore this truth is like taking coals of fire close to one’s chest and expect not to be burned by them. The undeniable power of books in influencing the mind explains why they have become a veritable instrument for re-orientation across the civilized world. Consequently, we become what we read – mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically – whether we believe it or not.
From Scriptures we understand God’s instruction to Joshua, a leader in Israel, to the effect that his destiny was dependent on the attention he gave to the Book of the Law. Books are powerful change effectors. They are houses of information. The history of information documentation in books is thousands of years into the distant past.
The worth of books is information they house, preserve and communicate. Without information books become a blank slate, tabular rasa. Books therefore are messengers of information and information create change and revolution and even corruption of men, societies and nations.
Again, we understand from the Book of the Beginnings, Genesis, how that the first man and woman, Adam and Eve, were corrupted by the information, words, they heard from the Deceiver, the Devil. Such deceptive information wrote on their innocence, corrupting and destroying them in the process. As the narrative goes, Supreme Deity came down in the cool of the day, as His manner was, to interact with the duo. Finding them nowhere, He called for them.
Then came the distant voice from the man He had created: “We heard Your voice in the bush and hid ourselves because we are naked.” Just then, Visitor to the Garden where the couple abode asked in great wonderment:
” What words or information have you heard, received and allowed into your spirit? Who is the author of such information?” But lo, the mind of man had already been corrupted. And the rest are lessons.
Like individuals, societies are nations engage in wars that change the course of their destinies. The information received, the books read and the system of education play very definitive roles in the whole process. Books are revolutionary. They can make or mar the destinies of nations.
Nations have gone to wars on grounds of the information they have received via books. Wars that make great have been given different interpretation in books. Many of which have spread like conflagration.
Time and season can be understood through in-depth study of relevant books. In the Book of Daniel 9:2, Daniel narrates:
“In the first year of his reign I Daniel understood by books a the number of the years, whereof the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem.”
Read a book today, but more than that, filter all you read on a screen of truth, for books are healthy just as they can be unhealthy to the soul.
What are you reading?
The human mind is too precious to be turned into a trashcan of toxic waste of unguarded and unscreened information.
