Stones to Bread
People of the Nook
A couple of Sundays ago, my husband, son, and I enacted a mini-drama from a script that has likely played out in every churchgoing family in America. Never mind that we live in Kodiak, Alaska, thousands of miles from the rest of the country. Electronics, we know, are borderless.
During the sermon, with our heads intently bent over our study Bibles, my husband and I glanced down the pew to see our teenage son leaning over his cell phone. Texting during the sermon? My husband, later claiming self-defense, drew his own cell from his holster and began furiously sending texts to the other end of the pew. Teenage son didn't respond, which drew more urgent messages. No response again. By now we were steaming toward a march around the center pews to snatch the offensive item from the perpetrator's hands. Thankfully, "we'll get him later" prevailed.
By now you've already guessed the ending of this vignette. The response to our accusations: wide eyes and sly protestations of innocence before whipping out the cell phone—with the Bible fully downloaded on it. Ah, the snarky pleasure on his face.
It's true: I'm a dying breed. I've been lugging around this doorstop version of the Scriptures partly for its inconvenience. It reminds me of its import and my commitment to the words I so laboriously carry. But since this event, I've downloaded the Bible on my iPhone, and, like millions of others, have begun to use it, which has caused me to wonder: Are we Christians still people of the book? And if we're becoming instead people of the Nook, does it matter?
The moment the new icon appeared on my screen, I scrolled to Habakkuk and read it from start to finish. I chose that particular book for a reason. Just three weeks before, I watched breathlessly as my brother-in-law unrolled the Habakkuk scroll, one of the first pulled from the Dead Sea caves in 1948, on my living room rug. It was at least six feet long, on delicate parchment. I even touched it. Before you report me, or worse yet, doubt me, let me assure you: the scroll is a facsimile. It is a fake so real, with such exacting detail—burn marks, frays in all the right places—it bears a stamp to foil attempts to heist and pass it off as real. (Disclosure: My brother-in-law directs the Dead Sea Scrolls Foundation.)
I viewed the scroll with head-spinning confusion: One of the most ancient documents reproduced through the most advanced technologies to look and feel as aged as the original. Its appearance instantly reminded me of the Bible's historicity, the marvel of its faithful passage through the centuries, the significant cost in human lives for its preservation.
I did not consider these things while scanning Scripture on my three-inch screen this week. It's hard for me to remember that these words that now accompany my daily tasks, accessed at my slightest whim, cost anything more than money. It's hard for me to remember that the words in this book, now sharing the same battery and housing as my photos and games, in the same purse compartment as my lipstick and breath mints, have any history behind them at all.
But as I paged through Habakkuk's horrific prophecies of Israel's coming destruction, I came to these final verses: "Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, … and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation" (3:17-18, ESV, emphasis mine).
Stones to Bread
- The Cosmos's Best-Kept Secret
- Throwing Christ Over the Cliff
- Why Are Our Communion Meals So Paltry?
- A Pro-Life Plea This Election Season
- Intercultural Fiesta Fail

God Among the Roma

Grieving with the Good Friday God
La complejidad hispana: Todo cambió en el 2012

(on articles open to the public, you must at least register for a free account).











Comments
Displaying 13 of 5 comments
See all comments
Mark Miwerds
I need to add to my initial comment that all the digital Bible versions and helps IN NO WAY replace the printed Word that I still refer to just as much. They merely supplement. There is something about having an actual Bible in my hands and from which to read and study that I would never be content to do without. I expect I'll always bring a printed Bible with me to church services, and the many margin notes I have in them would take a lifetime to transcribe into my digital versions (which may be my next and biggest project).
Mark Miwerds
I am overjoyed that I can now study a dozen different Bible translations and compare them with a couple of the Greek MSS on my trusty laptop and without having my entire table or living room floor covered by large, open books. Roughly the same applies to handheld devices. For all the bad and evil the Internet offers, I still believe computers and the Net have been a wonderful gift from God to Christians. I have various browsers set up so that one click brings me a selected Bible reader, set to the very place I left off the day before. I find that my knowledge and understanding has increased greatly, and this experience is incredibly edifying, allowing me to better serve others. I really can't say enough about it. My thanks go out to all those Christians who offer the many free and downloadable software programs and the many Bible versions that are also free to all of us. God will reward you in your efforts and service.
John Hale
Maybe it's because I use an iPod touch, not a tablet, but I still need a printed Bible to best get to passages during a service. Our pastor goes from passage to passage during his sermon, and it still remains faster to find them with a regular Bible. Where my iPod touch is useful is when I want to find a particular word or phrase, or want to compare different translations at an online parallel Bible. So I don't think Gutenberg has been quite ran off yet by the Nook and its kin, but instead has found a new friend that supplements rather than replaces.