Tim Challies pleads his case on leaving your iPod at home when going to church:
“I have witnessed recently what I consider a disturbing trend—Christians coming to church armed not with a Bible but with an iPod or an iPhone or another hand held device. With many versions of the Bible available in electronic formats and with the widespread popularity of MP3 players, cell phones and other digital devices, I guess it just makes sense to some people to bring Scripture in that electronic format. Pragmatists that we are, I believe many Christians have done this without thinking at all about the implications.
I want to encourage you not to bring an electronic Bible to church. I want to encourage you today to bring to church a Bible—an old fashioned kind of Bible, with ink printed on paper and slapped between two covers made of cardboard or leather or pleather. I also want to encourage you not to get into the habit of doing your daily Bible reading using an electronic device. I think we stand to lose far more than we gain.”
4 responses so far ↓
Becky // June 13, 2009 at 4:13 pm |
I want to know your personal opinion on this one, Erik.
Becky
Erik // June 13, 2009 at 5:03 pm |
Becky,
My PERSONAL opinion is that I’m very much a traditionalist when it comes to matters of church. I much prefer a hymn to a praise chorus, semi-dressing up to ultra casual, a pulpit to a stool, sermons to “laid back talks”, etc.
So in the matter of whether or not to bring my leather Bible to church versus an iPod, I’ll choose my well worn Bible. Now, is there anything inherently wrong with bringing your iPod or iPhone with the Bible on it to church? Of course not. The Bible is still the Bible in an iPod as much as on paper.
Knight // June 15, 2009 at 4:56 am |
I respect Tim but I don’t think I agree with this one. I personally use a “real” Bible in church but have in the past used a Bible on my Palm T/X.
However, I am also something of a traditionalist when it comes to church.
Tim may be suffering from technological overload. I noticed another article he posted recently decrying the Kindle in favor of a book.
Scott // January 26, 2010 at 4:28 am |
Perhaps Postman did it in his work and you didn’t include it all, but frankly, he needs to defend his claim: “[every medium has] a predisposition to construct the world as one thing rather than another, to value one thing more than another, to amplify one sense or skill or attitude more loudly than another.”
This seems rather far reaching, if not absurd, and I would love to understand how he arrives at that conclusion.
Let’s not make the medium more than it is – simply a medium, a way of getting the content in someone’s hands. A medium in and of itself does not have an agenda, though I’ll grant that the people who chose a particular medium may indeed have one.
I will agree that using a paper Bible for some is indeed a much better way than using an electronic device, but not for the reasons presented in your post. Following the logic presented here would preclude the use of any other medium other than paper, which is in some sense unwittingly putting God in a box.
As you rightly point out, the printed Bible changed the Roman catholic world. God used the technology of the time to get His Word out powerfully, but it was about the Word, not the paper. The goal of the medium was to spread the message, not paper products.
So to with other mediums. It’s about the getting the Word into people’s hands. The Great Commission is non-tech specific.
Please, we need to reach people with the Word. Let’s not wast time worrying about what they use to read it. There are more important issues at stake.