After my surgery, I found that I could not easy sit at my computer and was confined to my bed or the couch for a few days. Sitting around with not much to do, does offer one lots of time to think. Being away from my computer for a couple days proved to be a good experience. I realized how useful it was and how it was a time waster for me all at the same time. I love technology and I rely on it on a daily basis from email to blogging to keeping my schedules. It is a necessity in my ministry and my personal life.
However, I think it makes me dumb when it comes to Bible studying. The reason I say this is I don't attempt to find verses anymore using my Bible, I search for them using my PC or PDA software. While many call this productivity, I found that looking thru my Bible for a verse or passage meant I would stumble upon other verses that I have underlined or highlighted over the years. Even using a concordance is better as you will look up many verses or see other verses that are associated with your word or topic. While I may spend less time search for something with my PC, I can't help but wonder if I'm really missing something along the way.
Also when I prepare a message, I tend to copy and paste the verses I need into my sermon notes rather then writing out those verses. If I just took a few minutes to write verses out rather then copy and paste, I wonder how much more of an effect they would have on me.
Instead of pulling out the Strong's concordance, I just right click on a word and look it up in mere seconds. Wouldn't I benefit more by finding it on my own?
I know many folks and TGP readers use Bible programs on their mobile devices and computers. I do as well, but I wonder if they have hurt us more than have helped us. When we don't have access to a computer or our mobile device, and folks are asking about a specific verse, wouldn't it be nice to find that verse right away in our Bibles? It would seem more embarrassing for us to say, "Hold on a minute and let me search for that on my computer or PDA." Doesn't seem like we have let "the Word of God the word of Christ dwell in you[us] richly." Maybe its time to have more of a hands-on-the-Bible approach instead of a simple search-for-it-with-my-Bible-program.
What do you think? Do think your Bible program has been a help or a hurt to you when it comes to knowing the Bible? Click on the comments link below to leave your thoughts.
4 comments:
I think you are on to something. Using the computer (I love BibleWorks) or Palm (I use Olive Tree) can be a great tool for research, but you lose the serendipitous discoveries that can only come through slogging it out with the books. I have found that my sermons are much better when I write out my thoughts--and particularly Scripture texts I want to emphasize--by hand. It takes longer, but the tactile process, from mind to hand back to eye, slowly, does seem to aid in thinking through the text slowly and carefully.
Thanks for your blog, by the way; I enjoy it.
Blessings,
Christopher Esget
While I can agree that using Bible programs have the ability to make one not as skilled with the Word, I do think that your examples speak more towards understanding how we assimilate information rather than just how we access it. There is a large difference and your post doesn't make that very important distinction.
If the intent is to study, then one has a plan and a purpose. However once you get to the information, whether paging or clicking, you then decide how you want to keep that information. If in the mist of your "study" you are distracted towards something you previously highlighted, then one can argue that you aren't so much as focused on studying as much as you are on finding (assimilating).
I do agree that writing speaks to the memory much more so than copying and pasting UNLESS you are a spatial learner and by copying and pasting you are reorganizing information in such a way that you can mentally map to it later.
The last thing that you comment on speaks again to the nature of searching to know versus searching to share. It doesn't matter the mechanism that you use to find the Word, it does matter whether you understand what it is that you found as being applicable to the specific persons you are speaking it to. This knowing of the context of the Word is much more than just searching and is an earnest output from one's studying.
Where my Bible programs have helped me have been in the areas of comparisons of various versions, contextual analysis, and personal meditation via bookmarking and personal notes. Where it does not (yet) provide that help is in the area of earnest studying. That is much more the limitation of the software rather than my methods, as I read and assimilate, dissect and analyze faster and in more divere ways than anything other than paper, pen and the comment feature of MS Word can handle.
Thanks for the great topic, its most definitely worth discussing.
Christopher, thanks for leaving your thoughts. I agree that writing out your thoughts can help you have better sermons. I'm going to make sure I write out the supporting texts I use for my messages as a way to help "hid" the Scripture in my heart and mind.
Joshua
Great thoughts Antoine. Each person has their own way of studying the Scriptures. While, I'm not wanting to discourage people or get them to change, I want to encourage people to make sure they don't miss what they studying. Our computers are extremely useful and can help us save time and make us more productive. Personally, I don't want to become lazy in the sense of my knowledge of the Word of God.
I look back at the early Christian fathers and they studying the Scriptures without computers and without commentaries, Bible dictionaries etc. They had to know the Bible front wards and backwards. Every little detail. They could cross reference verses much better and they could find verses via memory or their Bibles much faster than many Christians today. We study so much faster with computers that we fail to soak in what we have studied. Now it's not the same for everyone, it's just a danger we all face with tech.
Sorry, it took so long to respond. Thought I already had done so.
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