A New Kind of Publishing

When I was persuading by my wife and daughter to get a 21st century cell phone, my now indispensable Palm Centro, my friends were amused but not surprised that I soon had Bible software on it.

I must confess that the one time I used that Bible in church I got some really suspicious looks.  “That guy’s using his cell phone during the church service!”  No, but I was checking out a passage the preacher was using in the ESV, which is the version I have on the phone.  (No, the ESV is not my favorite, but it’s quite usable for me.)

At the same time, I’m dealing with the fact that in my own publishing work I’m finding that many more people want content that is accessible online, and you simply don’t get to talk to them if you don’t make things available now, and don’t make them interactive.

David Ker relates these new realities to Bible publishing, and notes some of the potential problems as well.  I have found the same problem he has with devotional time.  I can often work Bible reading and study time into my electronically herded day, but prayer, meditation, and listening to the Holy Spirit are substantially more difficult.  For those I have to cut myself off from the world.

There is a problem, as I noted tangentially in my post about church yesterday, with equating the technology we use to solve problems with the problems and/or the solutions themselves.  For example, the problem of keeping in touch with one another during the week so that we can spur one another to good works is not solved by employing technology as such; rather, technology can help us do what needs to be done.  It’s also excessively easy to equate social trends with the technology on which they feed; I’m certainly guilty of that.  But all these things do interact.

I think the basic question will remain whether our tools control us, or we will control our tools.  The new interactivity can provide many new opportunities.  One element of the method of Bible study I teach is sharing.  By sharing I mean hearing from others as well as speaking to others, and testing what you think you heard from God against what others think and hear.  Technology, and particularly the number of voices we can hear will either help or hinder that process, depending on how we use them.  We can now interact with many more people, from many more points of view, but will we interact with them effectively and seriously, or will it be superficial contact?

The potential is tremendous.  I congratulate David for getting us all thinking about this.  How do we use both social trends and the technology that accompanies or feeds them to improve our Bible study and our spiritual lives?