Last week my Bible Study Fellowship (BSF) class ended for the year. If you are not familiar with BSF, it is an interdenominational group that offers weekly, in-depth Bible studies to men, women and children throughout the world. They have a four-fold philosophy where you first read and study the passage on your own, then you discuss it in a group, then you hear a lecture on it and finally you get explanatory notes on the passage. You are not supposed to consult reference material such as commentaries or dictionaries until you have gone through all four stages of study. It is a very organized way to study the Bible and I really like that they focus on the Bible text rather than taking a topical approach.
I have been participating in BSF for nearly 10 years and I find that my use of technology in studying the Bible has changed over the years. While I am still the only one in my discussion group that uses a phone instead of a printed Bible, I find myself using my phone in different ways now than I did at first. In the beginning, I was using my phone (actually it was a PDA way back when) for everything. I refused to carry a printed Bible. Perhaps there may have been a small desire on my part to convert the masses, I am the chief marketer for Laridian after all. But I also felt like PocketBible should do everything for me since I had loaded as many Bibles and reference books as my device could hold.
This year was different though. Maybe it was the fact that we were going through the book of Isaiah or maybe I’m not so rigid anymore, but towards the end of the year I dusted off my print Bible and started using it both in answering my lessons and in class, along with my phone. I really liked having the whole passage open for review. That is the one thing missing on my phone (although an iPad could help with that).
My secret weapon though is still my iPhone. While we can’t consult commentaries and reference material, I have a variety of translations installed on my iPhone. When the NIV leaves me wondering, I can quickly review a verse or passage in the Amplified, NLT or Message and I’m not cheating one bit. I also do that when I’m working on my lesson at home for the following week. And it is still much more convenient to look up related passages using my phone than to flip around the Bible.
The marketing side of me hopes that some day everyone in my BSF group is using their phone loaded with PocketBible at the meeting. The practical side of me realizes there may always be a place for the print and the electronic.
How about you? Are you still using your print Bible? If so, do you use the print and electronic together or for different times and purposes?
I use my Pocket Bible mostly, but find it nice to hold and read a printed Bible occasionally.
I still love the capability the Pocket Bible gives though!
I typically use PocketBible on my iPhone. My dad gave me a 1st gen iPad recently, and I was surprised to find that PocketBible is one of those apps designed to run correctly on both. Thank you for that. Many of my iPhone apps either haven’t been developed to run properly on the iPad, or I have to buy a new copy.
I haven’t quite worked up to bringing my iPad to church. It’s great for personal study, but one of the reasons I’ve been carrying a PocketPC and now an iPhone is so I don’t have to remember to carry a book sized object.
I’ve been using electronic Bibles exclusively for years. In fact I haven’t taken a paper Bible to church since I started using MyBible on the Palm way back in the day. It’s so much easier to jump to jump to passages using an electronic Bible and look up verse references (Baptist preachers love to jump all over the place in the Bible. Keeping up with them with a paper Bible was almost impossible).
I just bought an iPad on Wednesday and am ecstatic over the improvements the larger form factor brings to using PocketBible. I will definitely be taking the iPad to church on Sunday and henceforth. Truly, I don’t see any reason for using a paper Bible at all.
I generally use an electronic Bible of some sort, if only because I always have my phone with me. I also find it convenient for prepping Bible Studies (use PB for Win). However, I tend to use YouVersion or an offline ESV app because I’m on WP7 and ipocketbible.com doesn’t work for me.
I know that’s one of the joys of being an earlier adopter, though.
I really enjoyed having PB on my HTC Fuze, though. Lots of translations, commentaries, dictionaries, and study Bible notes right there. Easy way to cross-reference other translations or find a verse someone had referenced without too much trouble or time. Probably the main thing I miss about that phone. I especially liked the easy swipe back and forth to get to notes or other translations.
I appreciate some things like the ESV study Bible when I’m working offline, but having those notes electronically helps for lesson prep.
I have been using PocketBible for years on various platforms. Currently using it on iPhone and iPad and it’s great!
I do find it important for me to use the printed text as well because it helps me visualize the passage better. What I mean is, though I may not have the passage memorized, I visually remember that a verse I’m trying to remember is in “the upper left corner of the page.”
So, I use both extensively.
I started using Laridan software on my Palm device back in early 2004. I think by summer of that year, I quit packing print to church, but still used it for personal study for another year.
Now that I have an iPad, I think I have opened my printed Bible once in the last year to find a specific note that I remembered writing on a verse. I have so many more tools on my iPad, it weighs less, and it has that “geeky cool factor” that it is what I use for devotional reading, personal study, church services, classes at church, EVERYTHING! My pastor will frequently reference different translations during a service, and it is so nice to have them with me as well!
God bless you for all you do!
I absolutely love my iPad PocketBible and use it 80% of the time. I still love the feel of a leather bound Bible in my hands and especially when I do my Bible study for church. I have my lesson on my iPad and Bible beside it so I don’t have to flip back on forth. Also, PocketBible spoils me by making it so easy to look up passages that I purposely use a Bible so I don’t forget how to find passages in the Book. But, I typically use my PocketBible at church services since I can quickly change to the translation being used. Now I don’t have to carry a multiple-translation version of the Bible. The iPad PocketBible is soooooo much lighter even with all the translations, commentaries, devotionals etc. it contains!
You are all convincing me that I really “need” an iPad. Now I have to convince my husband. Maybe if I generously give him my Kindle (which I find inadequate for anything to do with Bible study but great for reading books), he’ll be more amenable.
I probably don’t count, but I haven’t carried a print Bible to church for close to 20 years. I don’t have a print Bible that I would call my “personal Bible”. That is, I have lots of Bibles, and I have several that I used to carry to church, but none that I would call “my Bible”. If you asked me to show you my BIble, I’d turn on my iPad and launch PocketBible. My iPad is always with me — moreso than any printed Bible ever was.
I have nearly 20 print Bibles. I can’t remember when the last time was that I opened one. I have 60 Laridian books in my PocketPC (soon to be Iphone)including Bible versions, study Bibles, dictionaries, and commentaries. I have the same books in my PocketBible for Windows. I do all my devotional and daily reading on my HTC Imagio with PocketPC. It is also what I take to church. I do all my bible study preparation on my Windows version. I’ve been using electronic Bibles since their inception. I’ve been using Laridian since it existed, starting with Palm. I have years and years and years of highlighting and notes in mine. I can’t imagine losing them.
I use my printed Bible most of the time, especially during nightly devotions with my wife, but I rarely care it around during the day. I do, however, have my Android phone on me at all times, so needless to say I’m anxiously awaiting PocketBible for Android.
I have PB on my iPod Touch, but it’s not always readily available. Having an electronic Bible handy whenever I might need it is something I’ve enjoyed since I first purchased MyBible for Palm OS.
I don’t yet trust software enough to be reliable when I need to read the Bible from the pulpit, so I still rely on print for that. It’s too embarrassing to fumble in front of a crowd and apologize “Sorry, my Bible crashed.”
I have about 40 different versions (both study bibles and straight text), as well as concordances, word study’s, etc., etc., etc.) Have been using Pocket Bible since I got my first PDA in the late ’90′s, an HP PDA, then a Dell. Then smartphones came out and I had such a huge library of Laridian, I didn’t buy an IPHONE until the last 4 weeks, and was happy to see all available for it. IPAD 2 is now on the way.
I still love some of the visualizing all together in print study bibles, but don’t take them with me, because of weight, size, and the ever present change of translations during the sermons.
I find I don’t use the Windows Version of Pocket Bible so much. Obviously, IPAD 2 is going to win out over all in a few short weeks…..thanks Laridian……
I use an ESV Personal Reference size for my daily English reading. I use the Reader’s Hebrew and Greek for my daily language reading and for church. I like having the ESVSB notes handy on my iPod Touch, but I find that I don’t use it that much.
I would love to use PocketBible at church if I could get Greek and Hebrew texts with one touch to get a translation and/or parsing of a word.
I have not relied on a print Bible in years. By now, I have many notes and highlights in my PB (Windows Mobile), including Greek, so I like having the technology and ease of navigating within and between PB Bibles and other books. The power and portability are huge pluses for me. I am happy to say that Laridian PB is my handheld Bible of choice.
Haven’t used my paper Bible for some time. I even have a UK scripture Union app for my quiet time.
Chippa,
I used to copy my scripture passages into my notes then carry my Bible to the pulpit, open it to the middle somewhere, then preach from my notes. So I didn’t even trust my ability to find a verse in my paper Bible when I needed it.
Surely the book is hard to replace. However, slowly as the devices we use continue to get better for reading, it will be harder and harder to use the book, simply because of the convenience and portability.
However, I think this shows one area for improvement in PocketBible. I think it is perfect on my iPad, basically because of the big screen. however on the iPhone, I find myself wanting to use the program either for reading (pleasure) or comparison (research). The two pane mode is great for research, but not good for reading.
So I constantly switch between 1 pane and 2 pane mode. However this is very cumbersome to do, I have to into settings and then change the setting. It would be nice if the toolbar were customizable, so that I could choose to have a button that toggles between 1 pane mode and 2 pane mode. This would make the iphone better for reading (1 pane mode) and when i want to do research or comparison, I switch to 2 pane mode.
Please think about making this feature more accessible on the mobile hand held devices. TNX!
Since getting an iPad, I’m 100% electronic. When I just hade my Palm 3/Palm TX/iPod Touch I used both for tha same reasons you mention in the article. The paper version was good to have a whole passage in front of me but the plethora of alternative versions and references on my PDA was extremetly valueable.
I use electronic only. For me the advantage is being able to compare different things with one view. In other words, while you can see more words on two pages of a book then on a screen you are limited to those two pages of content. With PocketBible (WinMo devices)I could see see different verses split across pages together – never having a bad split happen. I could also have 2 or ever more windows with different translations of the same verse or even different related verses all viewable at one time. For me, it has been more practical than the print versions. Also, I loved being able to easily open any given verse in all installed Bibles at one time and see the results in a scrollable list – the closest print Bibles get to this is those huge ones with 4 translations but the PocketBible implementation is much better. Of course searching is great and I also like being able to have lots of bookmarks and put them in different categories. I use the note taking as well. The one other huge benefit is size! The size of my Droid X is perfect! I actually prefer reading on my Droid X to a Tablet and it’s great to have a Bible (or reference library actually) that fits in your pocket!