The Good and the Bad of the Bible App

Vicar:                                       And now, godparents, are you ready to help the parents of this child in their duties as Christian parents?

Molly and Mrs. Hudson:     We are.

Siri (on Sherlock’s phone): Sorry, I didn’t catch that. Please repeat the question.

Sherlock S4 E1, ‘The Six Thatchers’ (2017)

I’m such a fan of my Bible app.¹

 

Somebody’s smartphone. May or may not have the Bible app installed.

Never again must I cart around a paper copy of the scriptures to every event and occasion where I’m likely to want to consult them, and be frustrated when I find myself wanting to do so unexpectedly; the slim little device I habitually carry on my person anyway is more than sufficient for such consultation, anywhere at any time.² Never again must I wait more than a moment to resolve any suspicions I find myself entertaining about a particular translation decision: not only does the app offer access to over fifty different English versions (most downloadable for offline use), but the text of the Westminster Leningrad Codex³ and four different Greek New Testaments are also available, so that I can take my queries to the original straight away, still using that same slim little device. Never again must I flip through page after page searching for some half-remembered reference (I think there was a number two somewhere in the citation, and I can picture where it was on the page, and it was definitely somewhere in Paul, unless it wasn’t); the app has a search function that’s recently been enhanced with more filtering options: not quite STEP Bible,⁴ but not half bad nonetheless. And, minor a point though it is, never again must I be irritated at the cramped print size or inelegant typeface of a paper copy; in both cases, the app grants its users to select their preference from a variety.

In other words, the Bible app allows one to access a huge volume of scriptural data in an extremely convenient and facilitatory fashion, and of that, my friends, I am such a fan that I will unequivocally urge you to go and download it right away.

Nonetheless – and you knew a caveat was coming – there are some elements of the app that I’m less keen on. I’m a huge fan of the Bible part of the Bible app, but there are all these other random peripherals that have me rather scratching my head as to why the developers should have included them. For example, whenever I open the app, it greets me with an update on my current ‘streak’ of Bible reading: Good evening, Anne. You’ve connected with God’s Word for 34 days in a row! It’s a feature reminiscent of the kind of motivational strategy used by educational apps like Duolingo⁵ – staking something on continued daily practice, and celebrating achievement – but it seems rather inappropriate to applaud me in such fashion merely for opening the Bible app. For one thing, the opening of the app alone doesn’t necessarily mean I’ve actually read any scripture; and moreover, I have a hard enough time battling my pride as it is, without one more voice adding itself to the chorus of my sinful heart in its persistent urging that I should feel pleased with myself for maintaining godly habits like Bible reading (however loosely). In fact, to hear from God through the scriptures is a privilege, not an achievement.

The app also seems obsessed with persuading me to complete devotional ‘Plans’ (I frequently receive emails to this effect). One signs up for a themed ‘Plan’ – current headline examples include ‘The Way Back – Get Your Christian Life Back On Track’, ‘Developing The Leader Within You 2.0’, and ‘The Winter Olympics And The Bible’ – and is then presented with a quota of stuff to read, including some Bible extracts and some reflections by such-and-such an author, split up into supposedly day-sized chunks. Personally, I’ve never found this kind of devotional pattern particularly helpful: I’d rather read scripture by itself, and do my own research if I feel in need of further commentary, since scripture is, you know, inerrant and that, and the devotional content of ‘Developing The Leader Within You 2.0’ or whatever is, you know, not. Still, the app is oblivious to my views on this, and tries to tempt me into committing to Plans with the promise of special achievement badges for completing certain numbers of them. Plus, get this: the Badges, once achieved, appear on my profile so that any Friend with whom I am connected on the app can view them. In fact, my Friends can view as much of my activity on the app as I choose to disclose to them, including the bookmarks I’ve placed, the verses I’ve highlighted, and the notes I’ve made.

Stop right there, Bible app. Stop. Right. There.

Beware of practising your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.⁶ – Matthew 6:1

Maybe I should highlight that one, hmm?

 

Honestly, I’ve never been a fan of highlighting my Bible; it’s all equally inspired, after all. Thanks to thanunkorn at freedigitalphotos.net.

 Granted, allowing and encouraging people to show off just how engaged they are with the many possibilities offered by an app amounts, on one level, to nothing more than good app-building strategy. But this is the Bible we’re talking about. There are more important things at stake here than merely good app-building strategy. Jesus said that if we do righteous things – like studying the scriptures – in order to be seen doing them by others, then being seen doing them by others is all the reward we’ll get. It’s the good we do unseen, conversely, that pleases our unseen Father. How on earth is the Bible app’s system of adorning its users’ profiles with shiny trophies for all the world to see, in return for their apparent pious activity, consistent with that? More to the point, have the very people who put together an app designed to encourage people to engage with the Bible, not read it thoroughly enough themselves to have twigged that its divine Author takes rather a dim view of people parading their righteous doings before others?

Perhaps it’s patronising to imply that the mere existence of the Badges would compel us all to helplessly fall over ourselves completing Plans and highlighting verses and making notes, not caring whether such activity was actually edifying for us or pleasing to God, in order to add another Badge or two to our profiles. But regardless of how users respond to the system, the fact remains that it exists. The fact remains that the way the Bible app is built contains an entirely unbiblical encouragement to sound a trumpet before one’s own obedience in the hearing of others.

I remain a huge fan of the Bible part of the Bible app, for the reasons expounded above. I still, therefore, recommend downloading it – but because I think it will probably be useful for you (as it has certainly been for me), rather than because the implied values its developers have woven into its features are worth endorsing. After all, nothing in this world being perfect, we’re inevitably going to end up providing custom to services whose values don’t entirely match our own. It’s just a peculiarly acute shame that in the case of the Bible app, its values prove not even to match those of its own divinely-inspired product.

Footnotes

¹ It’s this one: https://www.bible.com/app. The first one that comes up when you stick ‘Bible’ into your device’s app store search engine, basically.

² My particular device is a Fairphone 2, https://www.fairphone.com/en/, which is fabulous for several reasons, including: its modular design so that it’s repairable and long-lasting; its ethically sourced materials; and its general good quality as a pretty high-end smartphone. I got mine factory-refurbished (just to add an extra layer of ethical soundness to the process) from the Phone Co-op: https://www.thephone.coop/.

³ A key Old Testament manuscript, if you didn’t know.

⁴ I love STEP Bible: just stick whatever it is you’re looking for into the search bar and boom, the information is handed to you on a plate: https://www.stepbible.org/. Though I’m still waiting for them to put a Syriac Old Testament on the list of available versions…

⁵ Duolingo has now raised the standard of my Modern Hebrew from ‘can really only hazard a guess based on Biblical Hebrew’ to ‘stands some small chance at understanding a simple statement, especially if it’s about cats’: https://www.duolingo.com/.

⁶ The examples given in the chapter are charitable giving and prayer, but that first verse makes it clear that any sort of righteous activity falls into the same category: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+6&version=ESVUK.