Ear­lier today, Al Mohler pub­lished a requiem to the Ency­clopae­dia Brit­tan­ica upon their announce­ment that they “will dis­con­tinue the 32-volume printed edi­tion.” Here’s Mohler’s assess­ment of the sit­u­a­tion. “West­ern Civ­i­liza­tion just took another hard blow to the chin.”

I’m not sure it’s quite as vio­lent or dam­ag­ing as that. I’m sure there’s a bit of hyper­bole in his state­ment. How­ever, could it be instead that West­ern Civ­i­liza­tion is con­tin­u­ing to expand and enlarge its method of com­mu­ni­ca­tion and deliv­ery? Did her­alds, min­strels, and scribes mourn when Guten­berg shouted “Eureka”? Change hap­pens. Cul­tures change. Time marches on.

I’m really try­ing to sym­pa­thize with Mohler’s jere­miad over the loss of the printed Brit­tan­ica, even though I don’t own four vol­umes (let alone one). My con­cerns reg­is­ter when his essay segues into the issue of Bible reading.

This is a loss, even if inevitable. I also believe that the expe­ri­ence of read­ing the Bible on an iPhone is rad­i­cally dif­fer­ent from the expe­ri­ence of read­ing the Bible in printed form, feel­ing the tex­ture of the book as our eyes take in the inspired text. The dig­i­tal age brings won­ders, but sub­tle dan­gers as well. Mul­ti­me­dia pub­lish­ing can offer riches, but maybe some things are bet­ter received with­out dig­i­tal sound and fury.

Here’s why I’m con­cerned. When we view Bible read­ing as an expe­ri­ence pred­i­cated upon the medium of deliv­ery, and not as the raw, sim­ple words of God, we do an injus­tice to the Bible. When Mohler writes “that the expe­ri­ence of read­ing the Bible on an iPhone is rad­i­cally dif­fer­ent from the expe­ri­ence of read­ing the Bible in printed form” he reg­is­ters a soupçon of neg­a­tiv­ity towards the iPhone method, and there­fore towards the read­ing of God’s Word by any other means than a printed page. It seems he thinks that the “dif­fer­ence” may be some­thing that is “sub­tly dangerous.”

I want to gra­ciously sug­gest that per­haps one form of read­ing the Bible is not supe­rior to another. Con­sider 1 Tim­o­thy 4:13 “Until I come, devote your­self to the pub­lic read­ing of Scrip­ture.” Paul told Tim­o­thy to read his let­ters so the peo­ple in the church could hear it. It is likely that many in the early church either could not read or did not have wide access to Scrip­ture (Colos­sians 4:17; 1 Thes­sa­lo­ni­ans 5:27). For these early Chris­tians, lis­ten­ing to the read­ing of God’s Word was the way that they received God’s Word.

I believe that God is more con­cerned with the fact of our Scrip­ture intake rather than the form of our Scrip­ture intake. God’s Word is God’s Word whether it appears on a retina dis­play or on art-gild paper. It’s power is the same (Hebrews 4:12).

Mohler fin­ishes his thren­ody with this statement.

I know to be happy that young peo­ple are read­ing the Bible in any form, even squint­ing into their iPhones.

And I agree with him there. I for one, will prob­a­bly be doing that myself (even if I’m not squinting).

I’m not attack­ing Mohler, just com­ment­ing on an issue that he brought up. Should you read your Bible on your iPhone? The form you use to read the Bible is an issue of pref­er­ence. If you want to feel paper and smell ink while you read the Bible, go for it. If you pre­fer the lumi­nes­cence of a dig­i­tal vari­a­tion, please par­take. Don’t feel guilty if you need to sneak your devo­tions in using your iPhone. Don’t feel snubbed by the dig­i­tal elites if you pre­fer hold­ing a leather­bound Bible.

To quote the Brit­tan­ica , “It’s okay. Really.”