To Read Is Human

A few years ago, a beloved elderly member of our church was going through a health crisis. His decades-long hearing loss had exacerbated to the point that even hearing aids could no longer help much. At the same time, his eyesight was rapidly deteriorating because of several medical conditions. At last, his doctor informed him that it was only a matter of weeks before he would be fully deaf and blind. His reaction? A lifelong avid reader, he started spending his entire days reading Scripture over and over, with the hopes of memorizing as much as possible before the complete and irreversible dark and silence set in. The Bible was the book that had meant the most to him throughout his life, so he had resolved to treasure it as the last book he would ever read.