Why do I need God’s word on my heart if I’ve got it on my iPhone? 
I often hear pastors lament the fall in Biblical literacy among believers today. People just don’t know their Bibles anymore. Supposedly mature Christians don’t know who built the Ark or that the Children of Israel were not actually all children.
The ignorance may be due, in large part, to the fact that we have technology designed to do our remembering for us, making it easier and easier to not know the information we depend on every day. The internet connection in my pocket means that I don’t need to memorize a recipe, driving directions, or order confirmation numbers. I don’t even know anyone’s phone number anymore. Appointments, birthdays, and reservations all live in my phone and computer, quietly waiting until it’s time to remind me of their pending arrival. The infinite capacity of the interwebs leaves more and more free space on my biological “hard drive.”
Access to digital copies of the Bible should change the way we interact with scripture. For instance, we don’t need to lug around Life Application Study Bibles anymore. (Good riddance highlighters and gold script name embossing!) We don’t need to settle on one perspective for study notes or even a single translation or language anymore. These days, our Bibles hyperlink to commentaries, maps, satellite images, and dramatic reenactment video clips. Metadata tagging make chapter and verse numbers obsolete. Sharing scripture is no longer an expensive (and heavy!) endeavor; now it’s just an upload/download away.
So do YouVersion and Bible Gateway mean I don’t need to know scripture? No. The Word is more than just information- it is “the power of God unto salvation.” That power is applied to my life- not when I download scripture to my Kindle, but when I hide it in my heart. We need to have the Word in our minds and on the tips of our tongues for it to powerfully affect every aspect of our lives. Temptation doesn’t wait for Bible Gateway to load. We need to have access to that foundation of Truth even (especially!) when our batteries are dead.
Unless writing a lot makes one a "writer," Ernest is a former missionary. After more than six years in Western Europe, he moved to Portland, where he drinks too much coffee and over-analyzes human behavior. For more about Ernest, visit the About page where you can read a long-time reader's interview with him. Or, if you don't mind waiting a very, very long time, send him an email.
“In the information society, nobody thinks. We expect to banish paper, but we actually banish thought.” -Michael Crichton
Ouch. Thank you for this.
AMEN! We can’t live it OR pass it on if we don’t have it on our biological hard drives (love that term!)
Having grown up in church, been called “little theologian”, gotten a bachelors in biblical studies, and done seminary, I was unprepared to teach the bible to oral learners until I could do it without the book in front of me. It’s amazing what i “knew” but didn’t know. . . and still don’t.
Learning the Bible in oral form is an exercise that we would all benefit from.
Upon hearing the suggestion that pulling your Bible out of your pocket to share scripture with your boss uninvited might indicate a lack of sensitivity to others in the workplace, my friend was upset and pointed out that the Bible was the “Sword” and we should always carry it into battle. Technically, I agree with that, but how we carry it is important. While the word of God is part of our spiritual armor, since all of the other pieces of armor are not things that we can literally carry or put on, I think it means that we should carry it in our heart. We put it on by spending time in it, not by downloading it or putting it in our pocket just as you suggest.
I also second Stephen Young’s comment about the need to be comfortable interacting with Scripture in oral formats. The West is becoming an oral culture, and to be able to share stories from the Bible with others, we’ll need to be comfortable telling them rather than reading them.