The Devil Doesn’t Want People to Read

“The devil doesn’t want people to read because God wrote a book.”

TULSA — You may never have heard of Literacy & Evangelism International, but the calling and vision the Lord gave to Dr. Robert F. Rice over 50 years ago are still prospering today.


During several years of service ministering in South Korea, Bob Rice and his wife began to realize the importance of adult literacy and the potential for teaching literacy as a means of evangelism. Two years after returning to Oklahoma in 1965, Dr. Rice launched Literacy & Evangelism International. He had experienced first-hand that it was possible to introduce people to Jesus, but it was nearly impossible to help them grow in the faith because they were unable to read the Bible.

The task of discipleship among the illiterate proved to be much more difficult than sharing the Good News. But, Jesus Himself commanded us to go into all the world and make disciples. Clearly, something needed to be done to address the literacy problem in order to help those new believers to grow.

The core staff at Literacy & Evangelism International understood that part of the problem was to help people become fully literate. A person is fully literate “when he can read and understand anything that he would have understood if it had been spoken to him and who can write anything he can say, so it can be read.”

Hundreds of churches, missionary groups, and FBO’s have partnered with Literacy & Evangelism International over the past 52 years for assistance in translation and training. Among those are Africa Inland Mission, the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism, the United Bible Societies, World Vision, Trans World Radio, and Gospel for Asia.

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