LJ and I were recently talking about his potential move to tablets, and how the hold up was for certain Bible applications to appear. In the back of my head, I also had a recent conversation about a person asking me about the NIV Bible for the Rapier open source Bible reader. It hit that while these folks were essentially asking about the same thing (a Bible), they were coming at it from different ends – and both not getting the answers they were looking for.

Both pastor and (I’m assuming) lay person were looking for a Bible. LJ is a pastor-in-training, and so his needs around a Bible application factor not just being able to read the text devotionally, but to also have a library of content that connects to the text, opening up languages and commentaries and the wealth of the tradition of the text to his understanding. The other person’s needs the text as a means of following alongside what’s being discussed in sermons and Bible studies (and mine are somewhere in the middle). Its not that he doesn’t need the other content, but in terms of where he is and how the Scripture is taught, having just the text and access (possibly) to notes makes more sense.

Now LJ was open enough to lend his perspective to this question:

Pastors aren’t special & don’t have special knowledge that the general population shouldn’t be privy to. So, in that regard, it’s my personal belief that all Christians (ALL) should be equipped to adequately study the Scriptures if not at the same level as their pastor, near it or at least know “how”

I share in this belief also. In my early years as a believer, the pastors that discipled me instilled in me this fact and behavior. Therefore, with those that I walk alongside, we always look to study as pastors do, with similar materials. The same methods that the pastor-teacher uses to get to the point, should also be taught alongside the application or theology that the pastor-teacher is giving. This (should) help the mature believer not just mature, but also learn the skills to become apt teachers of the Scriptures themselves.

Yet, it is the case, and not a bad thing, that some people just can’t do with the entire Logos library in/around their mobile device. They need something similar that lowers the barrier to just reading the text (like YouVersion). This isn’t to say that we shouldn’t probably look to mature in our use of Bible apps, but maybe, the key to growth is not so much having a Bible app that you prefer, but one that can grow with you (Olive Tree is a great example here).

There is a different need. And as we talked about earlier with Camp Logos, there’s a need also to be trained to use some of the deeper software packages out there. If you are a pastor-teacher who uses any of this software, are you using it alongside your community? Or, are their uses so different, that you can only keep to the traditional sharing of verses, so that they learn the software of their choice, while you refine yourself spiritually in yours?