When I bought my first Macintosh, I also bought bible software.
My print bibles? Getting dusty.
And I’ve met certain Christians whom this bugs to no end.
Most are
It’s not the medium which makes a book. A book can exist in a stone tablet, a papyrus scroll, a parchment codex, an eight-ring binder, a strip of microfilm, a 30-pack of audio cassettes, a 12-pack of audio CDs, a floppy disk or
Me, I prefer the hard drive. I don’t always have a wifi signal, so the cloud’s definitely my second choice.
So during Sunday morning services, when these bibliolaters wave their big black pleather-clad
Because to them, these aren’t bibles. They’re just phones. And they’re pretty sure you don’t read bible on ’em.
And they’re also pretty sure you don’t actually have a bible on them. In that, they’d usually be correct. I’ve met many a Christian who has no dedicated bible app; they go to Bible Gateway. And when they do have a bible app, most of those apps don’t actually install any text on your phone, which you can still read even when you’re offline. All their bible translations are on a server, not your phone. They’re entirely dependent on internet.
I don’t really see that as a problem, but bibliolaters certainly do: They worry that at some point in the future, probably during the End Times,
Is it fair to say people don’t read bible on their phones? Well, kinda. Which is just as true for bibles in print.
The argument that people won’t read an app.
Christians don’t read their bibles because people don’t read. For every individual you know who loves to curl up with a good book, 50 don’t, and would rather do anything else.
And when people read, they don’t read much. They read short articles. The shorter the better. I’ve lost count of how many people have complained to me TXAB’s articles are way too long, and that’s why they don’t read this blog. “You oughta make it shorter!” Yeah, but plenty of other people tell me they appreciate me being comprehensive, because most Christian stuff on the internet tends to be too short, superficial, light, and fluffy. I wholly agree with them. There’s no shortage of those pieces.
So when people read their bible apps, they read the verse of the day. Seriously. One verse. I got into a discussion on a bus two years ago with someone who never, ever misses his bible app’s verse of the day. Memorizes it, then shares it with everybody who asks. Which is a neat trick!—I’m not gonna knock the practice. But has he read more of the bible today than that one verse? Well… no, not really. He has read bigger portions, but it’s been a while.
You might, and bibliolaters have, point to that sort of behavior and say, “See? Proves my point about the bible apps. You need a print bible!” But I’ve been Christian for five decades, and remember in the olden days, before apps, when Christians did the very same thing. My church back then had free copies of the popular devotional Our Daily Bread in the lobby. (My church today does too. It’s still in print; it’s also on the internet.) Every day’s one-page article begins with a bible passage, and a verse from that passage. And I kid you not, plenty of people will only read that two-paragraph passage. Or only read the verse. And they’re done. That’s their daily bread for the day: One oyster cracker. Or none, if they think they already know the passage, so they don’t bother to look it up to read
Doesn’t matter what form it comes in. People. Don’t. Read.
So yeah, some Christians might read their bible app, and even follow along with their church’s
I read an article by this one pastor who claims the phone itself is a distracting problem: People might pick it up to read their bible apps… but there are so many other things on their phones! Like text messages. Videos. Games. Social media. Your Kindle app. So, they claim, they’re anxious about that: You might intend to read bible, and instead you choose to read some popular novel, and so much for bible.
As if you’re not gonna have the very same temptation when you keep your bible on your bookshelf, or in any other place you also stash books and magazines. The only thing that’s changed is the medium.
“It’s just… not a book!”
Like I said, a lot of the arguments against reading bible on your phone have to do with the value people perceive in a physical print book. One I’ve actually read is, “Do you take pride in your bible app? Probably not. But does your family take pride in your old, beat-up, marked-up, wrinkled- and dogeared-pages, decades-old family bible you use every night at the dinner table?”
Um… no. If anything, I took pride in a new bible I’d just purchased. When I was a kid I bought an
Beyond that, did I take pride in my print bibles? Nah, not really. For a while there I took pride in my print-bible collection, ’cause I bought a bunch of different translations before I finally went all-in with digital. I felt it was really useful to have all these translations to compare. Of course, Bible Gateway does the job so much better and easier.
The writer went on and on about the personal connection he felt with his favorite print study bible—about how it’s so much more meaningful, more nostalgic, more beautiful, more sacred, than the non-existent connection he had with his bible app. He never thinks of the app as “my bible,” but he’s very much attached to his study bible. That’s his bible. It gives him all the feels.
And yeah, he gets into the feeling of using a print bible—he claims you don’t just learn a book by reading it, but by feeling the pages turn, flipping around it, carrying it, holding it, smelling it, cuddling it like a teddy bear after he’s gone to bed… Okay he didn’t go there, but he comes mighty close.
Plus note-taking! He loves the fact he can use a highlighter on his print bible. Loves how he can jot notes in the margins. Loves how he can tuck church bulletins inbetween its pages. You can’t do that with a digital bible, now can you?
Except, um, I have. My Accordance app lets you highlight stuff. Bible Gateway does too. And, unlike a print bible, both of ’em let you erase highlights when you find out you’ve mistakenly emphasized the wrong thing. Apps let you take notes, although I prefer and use Google Docs. If I want a copy of the church bulletin which I won’t lose, my phone has a camera, and easily converts photos to text. If I want cross-references, the app has ’em. If I want study-bible notes, the app has all the study bible modules I’ve purchased.
Unlike handwritten notes, I can edit these notes if I wanna. I can email them to others. If I want to go further into depth, I don’t have to set down my print bible, go to my bookshelf, pluck out a book from one of my 66-volume commentary sets, look up this particular passage, then try to find the same passage in two other commentaries; the commentaries are right there on my computer or phone.
Print bibles are nice, and you might even be nostalgic for your childhood bible or family bible. But when it comes to bible study, whether serious or on-the-fly (and you’ve likely realized by now my on-the-fly stuff regularly gets serious!), apps are always gonna be superior.
Suspicious minds.
Years ago I had a pastor who was really agitated over all the young people in church whipping out their phones whenever he started preaching. He thought they were texting friends or playing games during his sermon. You know, like his own teenagers did, constantly. Would do it all through dinner if you let them—and he didn’t let them.
I wasn’t a young person then, but I’ve been using bible apps as soon as they were invented. Before there were iPhones, there were Pocket PCs, and I had one, and a bible app on it. So I guess I was one of the people bugging him too.
He finally brought this up during a bible study, when he said “Let’s turn to the scriptures. Leslie, you have
- HE. “You have the bible on your phone?”
- ME. “Yep. Bible software for your phone. In any translation you want, so if you have a specific translation in mind, I can switch to that. I can even read it in Hebrew.”
- HE. “Oh! That’s kinda useful.”
- ME. “Yeah, all the kids have them. That’s why they read their phones instead of carrying around a big ol’ bible.”
- HE. “…That’s why they’re reading their phones?”
- ME. “And taking notes. Oh, you thought they were texting.”
- HE. “I did! Oh good. I was worried I was losing them.”
- ME. “Oh, you’re totally losing them.
They can fact-check you now.”
But that’s another discussion.
Still, certain preachers still get agitated whenever someone whips out a phone during their sermon, ’cause they’re pretty sure these people aren’t really listening. And to be fair, it’s possible they’re not. Some are totally watching a game, or reading the news. Or, when I was a kid and the preacher got super boring, reading the bible. I’d read the passage he was preaching on… then keep going. Or flip to another book; as he was preaching on Titus I’d entertain myself with Samson ben Manoah murdering random Philistines for their clothes in Judges.
That one writer who gushed about his favorite print bible, also wrote a bit about how we oughta carry print bibles just to give our preachers peace of mind; just in case they’re worried they’re not getting through to people, and worried the audience is playing Wordle (or the much superior Quordle) instead of listening to him try to preach Christ’s truth.
Me, I think any such preacher is suffering from a deficiency of
Missed opportunities?
Lastly, I’ve heard more than one person complain about how reading a bible in public will start a conversation, but reading a phone is no big deal. ’Cause everybody reads their phones.
This has not been my experience. When I read my phone in public, people will say hello and casually ask what I’m reading. If I’m reading or studying bible, I’ll say so. And we might talk bible, if they wanna. Sometimes they do; sometimes not. I don’t force ’em to talk about anything.
In my experience, opportunities don’t happen because I’m carrying a conversation-starter. Opportunities happen because the Holy Spirit knows I’m naturally gonna talk Jesus, so he can use me in that, no matter what I’m doing. Or reading. Or not reading. (But yeah, usually reading.)
Back when I was
Now? I could be anywhere, talking to anyone about anything, and religious stuff casually comes up ’cause it’s a big part of my life (“Yeah, I was talking with someone in church about that”) and suddenly they wanna talk religion too. I don’t have to prompt anything; I don’t have to lead the conversation anywhere; they bring it up. “What church do you go to? What do you believe? Do you believe
My attitude has always been the best bible is the one you read. If you read your bible apps, great! If you prefer print, also great! But don’t bash the one you don’t use. Don’t fret that something might be watered down, or lost, or ruined because your favorite medium isn’t everybody’s favorite medium. It’s not about you. And really that’s what all the app-bashers are doing: Exalting their personal preferences over all else. Claiming God can’t use what he clearly, obviously, regularly does use—and exposing just how out-of-touch with God they are.
