I was prompted to think on this by one of my lecturers over the past week. He mentioned it quickly in a lecture on Romans but the topic of thought has been one I have had over the past few years, and I have been re-energised to mull over it some more through his comments.

We know the Word of God is not just any word. It is not a normal book.

“For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow; and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”  (Hebrews 4:12)

The verse clearly outlines that God’s word effects us. It works inside us powerfully. The question then, “Can it do this while it is on your phone/computer/ipad?”. The answer I believe is no. The word of God is seen to be living and active at the point in which it interacts with those God intended to interact with. Human-kind. It is not living and active as words on a page, but words in a mind and heart.

Reading the Bible off your phone once, and forgetting it in minutes leaves us in the same predicament as reading the written word of God once and forgetting it in minutes. Unless the word of God is allowed to penetrate our mind and heart through approaches like thoughtful study and memorisation (both of which take decent portions of time) we will experience limited effect. We must not think that the close proximity of the word of God (on our phone – instantly accessible) is somehow of benefit to our life transformation if we do not read it and memorise it and mull over it.

In fact, I am even inclined to think that the proximity and ease of access we have to the word of God through our phones may actually be damaging to our overall life transformation. I only think this is the case due to a dangerous thought that no doubt creeps into many of our heads (subconsciously most of the time), namely, that “I don’t need to memorise that, I can access it whenever I want”. We must fight against this one. We mustn’t succumb to equating the total benefit of memorisation of scripture with “having the scripture on-hand to share whenever we need it”. Scripture studied and memorises sinks much deeper, and has much more life and action than simple regurgitation of words. As the Hebrews verse states, it helps discern the thoughts and intentions of the heart. It’s not going to do this on your phone.

A project I have been involved with since around 2008 is a web tool I made to help memorise scripture as a part of a demonstration of website coding I did for some of my students when I was a school teacher. It was called the MAPAW (Memorise a Passage a Week) Project. I have since closed it in the hope of redevelopment into something more substantial, that could help more people get the word of God into their minds and hearts. If you visit www.mapawproject.com you will see the stub of it promising a new version soon. I have since purchased a new domain for the tool, www . memver . com (not included it as a link because I don’t want google to find it in its unfinished state), that is still under development. I am very keen to finish redeveloping this tool, to begin using technology to put the word of God into us, rather than using it as an excuse to keep it out. The first free chunk of time I have available I will work hard on it.

This stuff is important. We need to fill our minds and hearts with the Word of God. Use technology to aid this.

I finally got around to it. This is what it took.

• 114 cable ties
• 200+ drill holes
• 2 sheets plywood
• 2 pieces of 10 * 20 * 150m treated pine
• 10m LED Rope Lights
• 5 hours of time

He who praises a holy man ought to imitate him, and if he be not ready to imitate him he ought not to praise him. He who praises another should make himself worthy of like praise, and he who admires the saints should himself become worthy of admiration for the holiness of his life. If we love those who are good and faithful because of their goodness and faithfulness, we may become such as they are if we do as they do. And it is less difficult thus to imitate them if we notice what was achieved by men of ancient times, who had no example before their eyes yet nevertheless became examples for us, following whom we may inspire others, so that the Lord Christ may ever be glorified in his servants. From the beginning of the world innocent Abel was slain, Enoch who please God was taken away, Noah was found righteous, Abraham faithful, Moses long-suffering, Joshua was chaste, David gentle, Daniel holy, Elijah was taken up into Heaven and the Three Young Men had the victory. The apostles, the followers of Christ, are the teachers of them that believe, the valiant confessors go forth to battle, the martyrs triumph, and the Christian hosts, made strong by God, never cease to prevail against the Evil One; whatever their different trials, all these have been equally brave and equally victorious. Therefore, Christian man, you are but a poor soldier of Christ if you think you can overcome without fighting and suppose that you can have the crown without the contest.

This was taken from one of Chrysostom’s homilies on the martyrs. He was relentless in his pursuit of Christ’s character, values, truth & life. He was direct in his pursuits, not concerned with coating truth in “honey” to make it a little easier to swallow. Imitate him as he imitated Christ. It is my prayer that we will all be more like Christ through imitating people like John Chrysostom.

• 70% of the World’s population are Oral Learners (they cannot read or write)
• Most of the people groups unreached by the Gospel are pre-literate.
• Over 90% of the resources developed for evangelism and discipleship are developed for highly literate people

Our faithfulness to the Great Commission calls us to learn new ways of communicating the Word that are intelligle to those who sit in darkness. We must love the world’s least reached peoples enough to share the gospel with them in ways they can understand. It’s then when pagans will be won, believers will be discipled, pastors will be equipped, and the church will expand for the glory of Jesus Christ.