Bible study « Mobile Ministry Magazine (MMM)

Posts Tagged ‘Bible study’

Goodbye Analog, Hello Digital

Sunday, May 20th, 2012

This article was originally posted as a blog post at Urban Scholar:

Earlier today I was contemplating the thought of purchasing a new print Bible. One of the first posts I made on this site was about my switching to the ESV. Well, the only print ESV I own is a 2001 text edition, and there have been a number of changes since then with the 2007 & now 2011 update. So, I started to think that I should purchase a new ESV to have on me, especially for when the opportunity presents itself to teach again. I thought about it to the point that I even tweeted about the kind of Bible I wanted, saying the following:

considering buying a new print Bible… yes, a print Bible… thinking it’ll likely be a new thinline ESV w/2011 text updates

As the day went on, with the thought still on my mind, I wondered if the local Lifeway store had any 2011 ESV Bibles in stock. Then, as I thought about it some more, I was thinking, “Oh, I need a nice ‘preaching’ Bible too, to go with the thinline as my everyday ‘handy’ Bible!” After a while, I finally paused and asked myself a question. If I do all of my studying of the Bible digitally, why should I have a Bible that I only use for teaching? Shouldn’t the same Bible I study with be the same Bible I teach from? The answer was: why not?!

As I thought through this some more, I wondered what this would look like for me. Preaching from a tablet is nothing new and has become more popular in the last couple of years, so it’s not like I’d be breaking new ground or anything; yet, there could be something that better suits how I do things. In my thought process, I quickly realized that the way I teach requires lots of “page flipping” because I typically cross reference a lot of Scriptures. How could I leverage a tablet to my advantage? Right now Logos is my primary tool for study, but their mobile app doesn’t support a split screen of Bible & notes; so, that wouldn’t work. Then, I remembered that I have Olive Tree, which does & can also sync with Evernote. Having Evernote means that I can simply copy/paste or dump my passages or notes into an Evernote note and sync it with Olive Tree quite easily. Then, I can have my notes split with my Bible, and tap to open a reference. Now that could work! That would completely eliminate the need for a print Bible & printed notes.

So, let’s take this further because now I’m thinking about completely getting rid of my laptop from the pulpit. This proves tricky because that’s how I run my PowerPoint slideshow for the congregation to follow along. If you’re asking, yes, I usually run my own PowerPoint. Then I started thinking that this is somewhere that Logos could come back into play. They recently released Proclaim Church Presentation Software and it is built for this kind of thing. So, I just get a computer, any computer, connected to the overhead projector (whether it be my own or the one in the sound booth) and load it up; then, I can use my phone (or the tablet) as a remote to progress the slides as needed. Now that would be cool!

I could really see myself teaching in that fashion, and it’s right up my alley. I’m a digital guy, so working in this fashion keeps all of my notes accessible to me from multiple devices and I’m not in a jam if I ever forget or lose my print Bible. Plus, there’s always the freedom of being able to switch translations on the fly, which is nice. I also feel that technology is at a point now that it is fairly reliable, especially in terms of battery life, where no real red flags are raised for me anymore. I truly think that this is the route that I’m going to go in the future, however the Lord sees fit for that to happen.

Tags: Bible, Bible apps, Bible study, digital, ESV, Evernote, logos bible software, mobile in moment, mobile in personal/moment, Olive Tree, preaching, proclaim, technology
Posted in Commentary, Devices and Software | No Comments »

Using Your Tablet for Bible Studies

Friday, March 9th, 2012

Some weeks ago, we talked about a specific case of using several applications across one’s mobile and tablet to do bible studies. The response from that article has been quiet, but there has been something quite consistently stated: the amount of inking, drawing, and pictures was a bit overwhelming. So, how about we scale things down a bit to just using your tablet (iPad, Nook, Kindle Fire, etc) for studies.

[click for larger view]

The Setup

Safari Mobile Web Browser
Penultimate
Evernote
Dropbox

We are keeping things simple here with the use of the built-web browser, Penultimate to collect and organize our content, and then Evernote and Dropbox for the purposes of archiving and sharing (you only need one of these, but am including both as Penultimate works seamlessly with both).

The Study: John 8:1-11
Many of us might be familiar with this section of the Bible. Here, a woman is brought before Jesus by scribes and Pharasees and she is charged with adultery. This was one of those studies where we were given the text before the meeting, and then had to come to the study with items to contribute. I decided to collect my thoughts within Penultimate, and then again use the app during the study to capture additional thoughts.

Before the study, I read the text and started in Penultimate with some questions that came to mind about aspects of the section of text: location, timing, what the Temple looked like, etc. After getting a few of these, I began just by using a simple search to look them up, and then started collecting facts and images from image searches, Wikipedia, and other places.

Then in Penultimate, I just went at it. What I liked here is that my notes very quickly started looking like something in a composition book, but with better links to images and data. What’s missing from Penultimate is some kind of screen that keeps track of the items that you grab from websites (like of like an automated biblography).

During the study, I went back to the document that I started, and just added additional pages to correspond to the questions being asked. No styli, no keyboard. Just grabbing snippets of images and writing as I see fit.

The end product looked like this PDF. I exported the Penultimate file into Dropbox, and it created this PDF. I also did an export into Evernote which gives me the opportunity to view this notebook on my mobile or anywhere else that Penultimate doesn’t exist (aka, anything not named iPad).

All in all, this has become a pretty neat workflow and exercise. Its only one of a few ways that you can use your tablet for Bible studies. Of note, the ability to mashup content within your notes is something you should take advantage of, or encourage those you teach to take advantage of. If you can do somethingl ike provide them with an outline to start with, and then let them cut/create as they go, you’ve got the starts of building understanding (Proverbs 4:7) with the text – note just memorization and rote learning.

Could this work for you? Or, do you have your own workflow for how you use a tablet with Bible studies? Chime in the comments and share.

Tags: Bible study, Dropbox, Evernote, iPad, Kindle, Kindle Fire, Kindle Touch, mobile in education, mobile in personal/moment, Nook, Nook Color, Nook Tablet, Penultimate, software, tablet PC, web browser
Posted in Devices and Software, Social Engagement | No Comments »

Exploring This Idea of Linked Notes from Experiences with Tactilis on the iPad

Friday, March 2nd, 2012

A good bit of the conversations here lately have been driving in an out of this idea that context should drive the way we interact and live out the text within the Bible. That literacy isn’t so much about reading as much as it is an ability to create and explore in between the points you are trying to relate to so that you can derive and teach facts and relevance. Now, there’s not much different about this kind of thinking/activity that’s not covered in courses talking about organizational management, knowledge management, time management, and even basic note-taking.

What we are doing here is taking some of those principles and applying them to the unique opportunities and constraints within mobile and tablet environments. Its not enough to just have a list of items as we would with paper. We have to be able to see and manipulate the connections in and around those points – taking advantage of the tool, and embracing more of what’s valuable about our faith.

I’ve been talking about sketchnotes and showing some examples of how to go about re-visualzing notes in some of the larger sketches – having a larger overall picture that shows you more about a topic area as you zoom and pan. One of the apps that continually sparks how this can be done and done effectively is Tactilis. Tactilis is one of those apps where you can always say “if only it had…” but realize when you get into it that it has just enough to get things done and keep most of the tools out of the way of a certain kind of productivity.

Most recently with Tactilis, I’ve been having an email conversation with its author on potential features and directions of the project. What I’ve enjoyed about this interaction is how he’s listening to people who have used his app, and not necessarily getting away from his central vision for it, but considering how others use it as means to refine what he sees and doesn’t see in his own use. In one of these email conversations, I walked through a Tactilis document I created, and what I think about in terms of features to add which would refine my workflow, and make more beneficial the application in light of its intended purposes. I’m sharing a piece of that email here now, because I think it would be helpful for some of you in seeing how we get from just talking about lists of apps to types of behaviors and the results they enable:

First: the 1st like has a reference to an item in the Bible. I’d love to be able to draw a marquee around that reference, and then have a command which points it to the Bible referencing, URL shortener Bib.ly, to a URL for an online Bible service, or to the search field within a Bible application on my iPad. For the 1st, there’s an API to do something like this. For the latter, it would require those apps being open to outside apps being able to link to it – not sure Apple’s policies on inter-app linking.

On the right there is a graphic. I’d link that to (a) the calendar (that little tag with the time on it would be where I would be doing that linking) and (b) to an online gallery of other artwork that I’ve created. One of the difficulties that I have now is that when I do these drawings on my notes, I have to save the picture to photos, then import into Adobe Ideas, then zoom to only see the picture so that I can export the picture only. Being able to draw a marquee and export the picture to photos/Dropbox/Evernote/email right from Tactilis would save a ton of steps there.

On the left of that graphic is the notes that I made during the 10am session. While its flat on the document, ideally, I’d love to be able to marquee and tag that section by time (10amnotes for that overall event). Then, you can see that there’s some text and directional arrows there: those would be linked to to referencing scriptures, and then also be able to be saved as a collected image which itself is tagged and able to be exported wherever.

Ok, so you are seeing now how I think (some) about layered content. Just one more.

The graphic in the bottom right of the document is actually off-subject of the rest of the note. This often happens when I’m in Tactilis drawing (I think of something but don’t want to leave the doc and start a new one, it breaks the thought/flow). This would be a graphic (maybe called an “aside” – taking from the HTML5 schema) which too can link elsewhere, but acts more like a pinned note. In terms of the scratchpads, this would be something smaller, like of like a limited corkboard of items (3-5 items) which are outside of the main scratchboards. They are smaller (like this) and don’t have the ability to be zoomed or do most of the other full-drawing tasks – but its able to be a snippet for later use. Perhaps it even has a slit-pin graphic like what’s here when its inserted into a document.

I’m pretty big on the linked items within documents. With such a feature, pages aren’t as needed. Being able to zoom in and draw more could take something like the graphics on this page and make them the notes themselves.

Like I said at the end of that email exchange, a lot of what I’d like to do when I’m taking notes is about linking to other sources and making associations between different content types. When I’m able to do this, the actual creation process of making notes becomes it own adventure into the content. For example, drawings always spark contextual memories of what I was hearing, but linking that to the calendar, a larger art gallery, or even embedding its own set of text into it turns a simply sidebar sketch into something usable across several domains.

I know that we can easily find and talk about Bible applications that make the text available. But, perhaps we should also be looking at better linking to the way that we process, collect, store, and retrieve information we deem personally and collectively valuable. Over the years, do people get from the place of simply wanting to read the text, to wanting to do something more with it (if the initial app experience is pleasing)? If we started making apps from the notes perspective, and then linked into the Bible and other sources, what kinds of expectations could be reset towards retention and living spiritually, that look more like the ways in which people process life and want to learn? Or, what other possibilities for visuializing and hearing the Bible open up when itds not the translation that matters as much as it is the hearing?

Tags: apps, bible software, Bible study, metadata, mobile in moment, mobile in personal/moment, notes, organization, semotics, sketchnotes
Posted in Devices and Software, Social Engagement | No Comments »

Using Your Smartphone, Tablet, and Some Things More for Bible Study (And A Poke to Do Better)

Friday, February 17th, 2012

Two contexts here. The night before writing this, I was at a Bible study where we went over the story of Zaccehaeus in Luke 12. My notes were… different. Then there was this post from our friends at Church Tech Today talking about apps which you can use on your smartphone for Bible studies. Good stuff right? Well, let’s just push this a bit. Let’s actually study the text and speak towards those with different types of learning styles at the same time – with mobile and tablets in the midst of the solution.

Things started when we got the assignment beforehand to read Luke 19:1-12 and have something ready to talk about during the study. Had the thought to draw the text, not just write notes. So, that’s what I did:

All Books is the Bible reader that I’m using these days on my Nokia N8. Having that open, I drew three of the four scenes happening in that section of the Gospel on my iPad. Once I was finished drawing, I imported the image into Penultimate. I then started scribbling notes about the text in subsequent pages on a Penultimate notebook dedicated to just this study.

Thing was, I started thinking and writing a ton. I needed more than just the notes from the NET Bible that I was using. So, I fired up the web browser and went to Wikipedia. Learning more about the text meant that I needed to learn more about Jericho. That’s where I went next.

NET Bible (open licensed Biblical texts)
Wikipedia (Safari Mobile or any web browser)

My notes became more and more about the sketch and scribbles. But, there was also the study to be had. How does such this approach with a mobile, tablet, sketches, a browser, and a collection of info into a ink-based notebook work out once I get into a group setting?

Pretty well actually. Because I had this nice mix of linear facts and scribbles, I was able to keep with the various points of the discussion, and even added a few more pages to the Penultimate notebook noting some additional facts, comments, and questions stated throughout. As I listened and scribbled, I noticed something, one of the younger participants in the study was more interested in my scribbling than in what was being talked about. It seemed (later confirmed) that she understood the pictures moreso than the amount of words we were spouting out. That got me thinking about mobiles and learning styles.

You see. We are really used to sprinting towards some aspect of literacy and comprehension. Don’t sell this point short, our sermons, lectures, and studies all start from the point that people want to read and have the capacity to understand the text and the resulting discussions. But, what I saw in that small exchange with that younger study participant was something different. She was enamored with the fact that I was doing more than listening, I was drawing what I understood.

Remember the statistic about literacy we quoted from the Orality Network some time back. 60% of the world is or chooses to be non-verbal. We do a great job in making sure that people can read a Bible, or even share the textual understandings we get. But, with mobile we can do more. Reimagine the Scriptures by taking account of what mobile environments can do. Go beyond linking text resources to text resources. Heck, go beyond just reading.

No, everyone isn’t an artist. Some people might take this and run with creating video snippets using their mobile and want to learn how to stitch those together. Some folks just might need smaller snippets of text. I’ve got this statement that’s been sticking around for a number of weeks now:

Shouldn’t biblical literacy also mean that we can build our own bibles

Not just building your own bibles. Understanding and being able to teach that wisdom to someone else. Going mobile with your Bible studies, lectures, and sermons can go further than just lookups, collections, and reading plans. That’s not to say these aren’t good enough, but that we can do more. This is how I’m pressing the pedal. Do you push things the same in your communities, or, are you just getting around to the apps that do things the same way you’ve always done them?

Tags: All Books, bible applications, Bible study, Mobile in Discipleship/Education, mobile in education, mobile in personal/moment, NET Bible, Penultimate, web apps, Wikipedia
Posted in Devices and Software, Social Engagement | No Comments »

Using the Kindle for Bible Study

Monday, February 6th, 2012

Since posting about OSNOVA’s work on the use interface (UI) for Kindle-formatted bibles, we’ve seen some increasing activity on the site in regards to Bibles, religious apps, and best usages of religious apps on the Kindle, Nook, and other eReader devices. Certanely, the acquisition and use of eReaders and tablets is growing, and we would do well to chart and observe some means of using these devices similar to, and as an enhancement from, how we have used print books and smaller mobile devices for study and reflection. And as This Lamp’s review of the Kindle Touch 3G reveals, there is something to be gained from understanding the benefits and limitations of eInk devices, which are different from tablet computers.

The Biblical Learning Blog posted 25 ways in which the Kindle is useful for bible study. These are grouped, but certainly point to the wealth of content that can be found for Kindle devices. Here’s a snippet:

Bible Options: This search leads to various options to the traditional Bible, including a Bible in contemporary language, the Apologetics Study Bible, a complete Jewish Bible, the Jefferson Bible and much more.

Bible Study: This link leads to the Bible Study option at the Amazon Kindle Store. You can search for Bible study books by title, customer review or by price.

Bible Study Guides: Amazon makes a wide variety of Bible study guides available to many markets, from an equally wide variety of writers.

Bible Translations: Use the menu to the left of this search page to discover Biblical translations for a wide variety of Bibles.
Christian Books: From fiction to theology and from how-to books to music, this search reveals thousands of books available to Kindle readers.

Read the rest of 25 Ways the Kindle is Useful for Bible Study at the Biblical Learning Blog.

Back in October, we talked about some of the effects that the Kindle opens up to those folks who might have previously considered electronic texts, or even those who have, but might have creative pursuits which better translate into that domain. Wisdom is the skillful application of knowledge and understanding (Proverbs 4:7). Let’s continue to collect wisdom in using all electronic texts by identifying both their strengths and weaknesses, and then making a concerted effort to esteem one another as the reading and publishing environment evolves.

View a listing of bibles and other religious apps for the Kindle and other mobile computing devices.

Tags: Bible apps, Bible study, Biblical Learning Blog, ebook, eReader, Kindle, Kobo, mobile in personal/moment, Mobile min moment, Nook, OSNOVA, This Lamp
Posted in Devices and Software | 1 Comment »

Tablet App Ideas

Tuesday, December 20th, 2011

Am writing this as I am preparing a presentation on tablet computers in ministry for the Mobile Ministry Forum. Some application ideas have come to mind as I’ve looked at the sad state of things in this niche of persona/mobile computing:

Choose Your Biblical Adventure
In the mode of the Choose Your Adventure books of my youth, wouldn’t it be suitable to create an interactive ebook which takes a selection of Bible stories and allows a person to insert themselves into the story. When they choose a route that follows the chronology of literal reading of the text, the person is shown the reference to the text. Such an application would be built with the in-app purchases tech so that stories can be added over time instead of getting the entire text at once.

Color Me A World
A coloring book which draws solely on Genesis 1. As each “day” is colored, additional items appear in the screen to be detailed/colored. Maybe add something like a canvas/palette enhancement where you might only get a few colors to start with, but by the time you get to the 6th day, you have the complete color wheel. Limited use, but invites the artist to join into the understanding of what God went through when creating the world.

Life of a Disciple
Given that there’s little known about most of the disciples, a comic that uses art, text, and video to expand the story of following Christ through that perspective. Something like a cross between Operation AJAX and The Jesus Film Project’s My Last Day.

Scout Out the Land
Using Google Maps/Earth, create a photo book which encourages a person to see the lands talked about in the Bible as if they were walking through it. Here, they’d choose the century/kingdom, and then be pulled down ground-level to the land and its up to them to explore and collect facts. After a certain amount of facts are collected, the maps zoom out and the Scriptures along with other data are given to fill in the blanks about the stories.

Beatitudes Devotional
A 30 day devotional based on the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12, Luke 6:20-26) in which a person is invited to write, record (audio/video), or link to a demonstration of that beatitude.

Seriously, all that I’m seeing in the app store is variations on Bible/devotionals. How about we take things a considerable step forward and actually using the tablet space to instigate maturity in the faith, but making applications that compel us to want to share the outcomes of our steps in Christ?

Tags: bible software, Bible study, ebook, HP TouchPad, HTC, HTC Flyer, internet tablet, iPad, iPod Touch, Motorola Xoom, Samsung Tab
Posted in Devices and Software | No Comments »

Retweets of the Week (Feb 6-12)

Sunday, February 13th, 2011

Back with our Retweets of the Week feature. A number of tweets this week about education, innovation, and access. Here’s this week’s batch.

hrheingold - My bookmarks on using information/communication technologies for economic development http://delicious.com/hrheingold/ict
bdrhoa - What if you have a mobile phone but you can’t read?http://bit.ly/guKblu #mobmin
futuresagency - RT @rossdawson: [Infographic:] iPad Media Strategy framework http://bit.ly/fB1wIY
judybreck - Digital natives have a greater understanding of Wikipedia: There is good reason students trust how Wikipedia is … http://bit.ly/hOgJ95
msearchgroove - RT @matthewdawes: spoke to someone this morning who said that according to their research only 5% of people li… (cont)http://deck.ly/~HZKIk
Mobl_21 - Math and M-Learning: http://dld.bz/Mfzd #mlearning, #mobl21
rossdawson - 6 Web Pioneers on What the Internet of the Future Will Look Like http://on.mash.to/fO6DFp
LaRosaJohnson - Advanced Bible Study video part 8 (grand finale) is up on the TM site. Check it out & learn how to use WS9 4 study -http://bit.ly/dOA1Kc
di_mobile - Another reason mobile is becoming so important. “The number of consumers accessing their email via mobile devices…http://fb.me/KDELby7r
mob4hire - RT @russellbuckley Good summary of The Singularity in Time magazine. http://bit.ly/f9TYvp 2045 is the year man becomes immortal. Honestly
EricssonLabs - MILLEE uses mobile phone games to improve literacy skills in emerging countries. #WRAD (by @AshokaTECH)http://icio.us/0UVx9Y
wezlo - At chapel this morning I took out my phone,opened the calendar,and prayed for the Church listed in the @ABCNJ prayer calendar #fb
GordonMarcy - The Church is Behind on Technology (Maybe Not!)http://bit.ly/dQLa3Q (via @ChanceMason)
psalm971 - Seen this? http://ow.ly/3SqQF – minimalist, text-only, page-based, dial-in, self-contained Internet-like info system for dumbphones#mobmin
mobileactive – Let’s not forget that the whole world isn’t yet connected. Huge gender gap in mobile phone access for ex. http://ht.ly/3SrAd #mwomen #openun
kiwanja – Comprehensive, 350-page free eBook on #mobile telecoms/smartphone business opportunities. Great resource.http://is.gd/oIDhm3
MobileBehavior - Location Labs Launches T-Mobile FamilyWhere™, a “mobile safety net” http://bit.ly/h64OUk
anthonycoppedge – “Every believer is called to full-time ministry, even if you’re not called to vocational ministry.” – @PsRobertMorris #GatewayPeople

If you’ve got something you deem worth sharing, be sure to point it out to us (@mobileminmag) or use the #mobmin hashtag if its directly related to mobile ministry efforts.

Tags: access, accessibility, accountability, Africa, Bible study, business, digital gap, ebook, economic development, education, email, family, feature phones, iPad, Logos, math, metrics, MILLEE, ministry, mLearning, mobile email, reading, Retweets of the Week, smartphones, SMS, statistics, strategy, T-Mobile, telecom, The Singularity, Time Magazine
Posted in Communication, Devices and Software, Future Trends, Social Engagement | No Comments »

How I’m Using My iPad

Monday, November 8th, 2010

It has been a good while since looking at how I’ve been getting along with my iPad, and there has been some changes since that piece about not having books on my iPad. Here are some things that I’m doing right now with my iPad:

Reading, Reading, and Reading

As I said then, and have often talked about on Twitter, I use my iPad primarly for reading. There are two silos in which I do this reading, the Mobile Safari web browser and the Amazon Kindle application. In respect to Safari, I am in places such as websites and Google Reader. There’s a lot that happens in Google Reader.

The Amazon Kindle application has been both good and bad. Good in the respect that it is no more complicated to read there than it would be in a browser. Bad in that I’ve really had to figure out what electronic texts actually work best from the vantage point of the Kindle application/service. For example, I’ve got handle on looking at Kindle for reference books, but for the longer-form non-fiction reads (currently reading Philip Jenkins’s The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity), I am up and down about purchasing them via Kindle. These are the kinds of books that normally I’ll reference and/or lend out, and there just aren’t enough people around me with a Kindle or lendable electronic book platform to do this with.

Collaborating and (Nearly) Creating

One of the experiments that seems to be going ok in some areas, and not so well in others is this idea of using the iPad as a collaborative platform. In this respect, I am using my iPad for several projects that I/MMM am working on.

For one project, I am using the iPad as a project management and research assistant. To this end, I’m learning how to use GoodReader, Evernote, Dropbox, and Google Docs in a synchronous relationship. GoodReader and DropBox help me deal with issues of file transfer and managing paperless PDFs (yea for that). Evernote plays the role of a notepad and really comes close to what I think a document management app should look like for the iPad. What it is missing in terms of collaboration, Google Docs takes up – though I’m more just in a reading mode with all but the spreadsheets end of things for now.

For another project, I’ve been using the iPad for speaker/presenter notes, and soon will be using it more in concert with my mobile to do the entire presentation.

The Social Networking Secretary

Part of making sure that MMM is abreast of data and opportunity means staying attuned to a few social networking sites. There’s the Twitter client on mine to handle that aspect, and then I use websites to handle the rest. What is neat is that I now have this flow where I get a notification on my mobile about something (LinkedIn/Twitter add, etc.) and if I am resting, I don’t pick up the phone to see what it is, I just move over to that section on the iPad and look at it there.

At the same time, there’s notable fatigue that I get in using social networks on the iPad, so I’m never there very long before moving off those apps/sites and onto something a bit better. Flipboard has been a revelation (I could see a picture bible using this format) and has really helped me to look into other topics that will eventually be areas that mobile ministry efforts will have to address.

Digging in the Word

In respect to the Bible, I have mostly stuck with YouVersion. Mainly because I’ve not had a need to do any in-depth studies, and also that the general interface of YouVersion works well when I’m sharing the reading with other people. I only use a few translations when doing readings, and connectivity doesn’t matter as much (yea, I need to share more notes and bookmarks, I’ll get there).

I have recently downloaded Logos’s Bible Reader for iPad. Am a lot late in checking it out, but I needed to know why I’d need to look at another Bible reader and a moment came up where I needed more. I needed to do some contextual lookups of a statement made by a minor prophet and this wasn’t possible in the other Bible reader. Therefore, I’m in the midst of checking out Logos. I’ll have some fuller impressions in a few weeks, but so far, I like how well its tuned to studying the text – besides just reading. But, if you choose to read, the way in which the UI gets out of the way is awesome.

I’d still like to see something like an Evernote-plugin that could take my notes from Evernote and link them to a Bible reader/service. I write a lot of reflections, and being able to start at the reference, and then link into the application would be something very innovative. I get that we use the same behavioral metaphors for digital bibles, but they aren’t yet taking advantage of the digital paradigm enough for me.

Evangelism’s Weird Leanings

The iPad is weird. I’ve entertained two very different sides of discussions since having one. There is the side of people who see it as a magical device – they are impressed at how easy it is to use and how hard normal PCs look and act like after playing with it. To these folks, it causes conflicting thoughts as well, because as the iPad is neat, some have admitted that it makes computer technology seem even more idolatrous than ever before (touching the digital versus having a layer between you and digital with the traditional paradigm).

The other side of conversations have been those people who see the iPad (and its iPhone forbearer) as primarily a Western/developed-nation experience. This is true to some degree, but the larger picture is being missed. The iPad, as with smartphones before, are a technology that doesn’t need legacy computer leanings to find relevance. The speed at which the world has moved to touch-gesture interfaces as normal versus one-off is something being felt everywhere. No, we don’t have iPads (yet) in the price range that makes this accessible, but we do have the need to have content on those iPads disrupting industries such that we are seeing this trickle down and across to other technologies.

In both cases, there’s this pull to at least see what’s possible. Most people see this space as something that won’t last long (and it might not). But there’s a challenge to the way things had been done, and a reluctance on my part to want to go back to the way things were. Certain types of friction aren’t needed, and with the iPad, doing computing easier seems to speak to people differently than even using my mobile has.

Having the iPad has in a sense turned me more into a person that pays attention to the implications of mobile and connected technologies and how we are sending and receiving Christ in these changing times. Surely, not everything will be answerable, but as we all use these more, we come up to challenges and work through them with the hope that what we learn will filter into ways that we can enable the Body to take advantage of these tools.

At least, that’s how I look at using this tech. I’ve got a lot of learning to go.

Tags: Amazon, applications, Bible, bible reader, bible software, Bible study, collaboration, Dropbox, education, evangelism, Evernote, GoodReader, Google Reader, iPad, Kindle, Logos, Philip Jenkins, smartphones, social networking, tablets, Twitter, YouVersion
Posted in Commentary, Devices and Software | 2 Comments »

Proposal: A Bible App That Starts from the Commentary Out

Wednesday, October 13th, 2010

Last night, I attended a Bible study where the pastor/teacher had his congregation study the text beforehand, and then come to the study being able to respond with cross-referenced verses to the primary passage. Really excellent seeing the engagement of the entire community to study the text and be able to respond intelligently to some of the questions.

However, there was some issue with cross-referencing while respecting cultural or literal context with some of the additional Scriptures. And while that’s certainly something worth finding out if it is something addressed for that kind of study, it got me thinking about the structure of Bible applications and how switching the primary interaction.

Since the dawn of digital Bibles, the emphasis has been on reading and seeking. We have a library of Bibles and commentaries, but the start of anything that we do is with the text. This works out for many types of interactions, as in many cases, the place of a mobile device is usually within a context where you are looking up a passage or a bookmarked entry.

But, what if we turned that model around a bit. What if the Bible application only stored our notes, dictionaries, and commentaries? What if that same application was intelligent enough to stitch our notes and the Scripture references that we used to online Bible services such as a YouVersion or Biblia? And it would also be able to – by a metadata driven index – be able to link our notes to similar phrases and indices within those dictionaries and commentaries? What would that do for a study like the one that I described able, where the point is to make the connections within Scripture to common concepts, while forcing the reader to literally meditate on the Scripture to know that those threads exist?

Example and Description

Proverbs 28:9
- Note(s): is the position of your life and heart in right relation to God and His instructions
- (XR) Isaiah 1:15 (hands full of blood) – JH Commentary, MH Commentary – 50% Relevant to Source Scripture (History of Isaiah book, book #2…)
- (XR) John 9:31 (God doesn’t hear sinners) – MH Commentary, JMA Commentary – debatable relevance because of context of the speaker and the lesson that was being taught
- Search for more (XR)

So, here we have a person that’s got a source piece of text, and a note attached to it. The note is scanned for all possible search matches (word, phrase, etc.) and the next button asks if the user wants to search all available library material (local and connected dictionaries, commentaries, Wikipedia, etc.) for cross-references (XR). After the search is completed, the user taps on the verse and gets what was cross-referenced (the word or phrase) and those associated resources which speak more on that specific XR. It then gives a percentage of the relevance of that XR to the note and primary Scripture based on some algorithm that weighs the primary Scripture, then the associated resource, then the user’s note content.

Thinking about it like this, the person is essentially having a near-real-time query of every statement they make in their notes run up against all available materials, without storing the Biblical text itself on the device. Ideally, one would use a API call in this app to link the Scripture to whatever Bible of choice the user wants – but this app keeps the focus on the notes and the ability of the user to constantly make connections which have higher relevance ratings.

Potential Benefits
There are several good things which would then come from this: we’d have people who become used to search as a means to relate applicable concepts to literal Scripture and already existing commentary (filling a gap where education might not be attainable); we’d have people who are made more aware (or at least more quickly aware) of their inconsistencies in reading or understanding Scripture against already established memes; it will expose people to the wealth of content that folks like Logos have turned digital in an amazing amount of time; and it would further push this idea of getting content in the open where publishers can better see who digests it, possibly making for them another means to make good where print/legacy study interactions might be failing because of the switch to digital content streams.

I will admit, this is about as rough as ideas get here; but something that would be worth exploring by a developer/publisher who is looking to sow some kind of application into the digital ether, but wants to do something that’s not as “me-too” as the hundreds of Bible apps and reading plans already available.

Your Comments
So let’s hear from you. If you are a pastor/teacher, would this kind of application be a help to you personally or for a Bible study such as what’s described above? If you are a developer, what are some of the good points of this idea? What are some of the issues you can see? Is anything in this idea impossible, or improbable? Let’s discuss

Tags: API, application, Bible study, Biblia API, cross-reference, doctrinal studies, education, resources, search, software, theology
Posted in Devices and Software | 3 Comments »

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