Introduction
“Tolle lege, Tolle lege.”
Those were the words that Augustine heard spoken by a little boy or girl (or angel) over a thousand years ago on the day of his conversion. “Take up and read, take up and read.” And that’s what he did. Augustine took up his Bible, turned to Romans 13:13-14 (“Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.”), and he was converted on the spot.
In his seminal Confessions, Augustine wrote of that fateful moment, “No further would I read; nor needed I: for instantly at the end of this sentence, by a light as it were of serenity infused into my heart, all the darkness of doubt vanished away.” (1) Amazing things can happen when a sinner takes up his Bible and reads the inerrant, infallible, and life-giving Word of God. It is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes (Rom. 1:16). Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ (Rom. 10:17).
This centuries-long, sensory experience that changed the trajectory of Augustine’s life and the life of the Western Church as a whole is, however, falling more and more out of fashion. Fewer and fewer of us are taking up and reading the Word of God after the manner of our spiritual forefathers.
Open Your Bibles
To be clear, I do not have in mind those ministers or churches that have a low view of the authority and importance of God’s Word and use isolated texts of Scripture as a pretext for whatever hobby horse they want to ride that week. The disastrous results of that sort of preaching (so called) are well known already and need not detain us here. What I’m referring to is the physical act of taking one’s Bible in hand, turning to, and reading the passage of Scripture on which the minister is preaching.
While on the surface this may appear to be a very small thing, so small that it makes even a molehill seem mountainous by comparison, small things over time combined with other small things can exert large, outsized influence. If it is true that not only the object, but also the way we worship shapes us as Christians, then how to best handle the Word of God should certainly be worthy of our stopping to think, “Are there better and worse ways to do this?” It’s true that circumstances and forms of worship are not as important as the elements of worship but that doesn’t make them unimportant. Church leaders should give due attention to the content of their worship service and ensure that the circumstances and forms of worship are communicating the content as effectively (i.e. biblically) as possible.
So yes, I’ll admit the point I’m making is niche. But you’ll have to forgive me—I am hopelessly Presbyterian. Now, with that half-hearted apology aside, here are several reasons why church leaders should encourage their people to “turn in their Bibles” on Sunday mornings and to turn off the screens.
How We Got Here
The practice of many (if not most) churches today, even sound churches who love God’s Word and hold it in the highest esteem, is to project the biblical text onto a screen. The reasons offered for this are many: it ensures that everyone is reading from the same translation, it’s more cost effective and less cumbersome than using print Bibles, it ensures that those who don’t have a Bible with them are able to follow along, and it keeps those who were always last in sword drills from breaking into a cold sweat when they hear the pastor say, “Please turn in your Bibles to Obadiah.” The goal is to remove any possible sources of confusion, awkwardness, or intimidation.
In addition to this, some preachers use presentation software (viz. PowerPoint) to highlight individual verses or words, compare English translations, or even do word studies of the original Greek or Hebrew. Still others use PowerPoint to project their sermon outlines and signal to the congregation when they’re transitioning from one point to another. And since the screen is already being used, some feature welcome videos, church announcements, and video updates from foreign missionaries. When it comes time to preach, some pastors will embed video-clips and images of biblical places or artifacts in order to immerse the hearers into the world of the ancient Near East. To make the story of Scripture come alive.
While I have zero doubt that those who use visual media in these ways have good intentions, we have to ask the question—are good intentions a good enough reason? Does the mere fact that we can use something mean that we should? The answer, I’m persuaded, is “no.”
If gene mutation, eugenics, and the limitless capabilities of artificial intelligence have taught us anything, it should be that can-ness is not the same thing as ought-ness. Having the ability to do something does not mean that we have the right or permission to do something. If uncritically incorporating new technologies into our lives without first evaluating them according to our values has proven to be a net negative for society as a whole (e.g. the effect of smartphones on children’s mental health), then I say it is long overdue for church leaders to consider whether the visual technologies being used in corporate worship today really tend toward engaging or disengaging our people. (2)
Why Go Back and How?
What is lost if we stop taking up our Bibles in corporate worship? For one, we miss out on an easy opportunity to see and to feel the unity of Scripture. It was A.W. Tozer who famously quipped “Nothing less than a whole Bible can make a whole Christian,” and Augustine who’s typically credited with saying “The New Testament is in the Old concealed and the Old is in the New revealed.” If the gospel is indeed the golden thread running from Genesis to Revelation—one seamless story of God saving his chosen people according to his sovereign plan by his almighty power—then how better to express that unity than by holding both Testaments, both testimonies of God’s love together in our hands? Whenever we preach from a New Testament text, our people should know that those verses do not exist in isolation or in opposition to the Old Testament, but are part of a larger body of Scripture. As an individual tile, vibrant and colorful as it may be, takes on a new dimension of beauty when you stand back and see the entire Mosaic of which it is a part, so too do our people get a “bigger” view of redemption and the gospel of God when they bring their whole Bibles to church.
But what are the positive reasons? For one, countless scientific studies show that reading comprehension and retention are greatly improved when reading from a page and not a screen. According to science writer Kerry Benson, this disparity in reading comprehension will not only persist, but will become even more pronounced in the future:
Instead of getting better at digital reading, we may be getting worse. A study examining reading comprehension research between 2000 and 2017 indicates it’s harder to comprehend digital text. The researchers found print’s advantages are greater now than in 2000. In other words, this digital-reading problem isn’t going away. (3)
So, even if we grant that screens were helpful twenty years ago when they were first introduced in many churches, studies show they have become increasingly less helpful over time and will likely continue in that downward direction. Reading from a physical Bible, then, seems to be the best way to encourage our people to actively store up the word in their hearts and to practice it in their lives (Ps. 119:11; WSC. 90).
Benson continues:
When we read, our brains construct a cognitive map of the text, like recalling that piece of information appears near the top, left-hand page of a book…When holding a book, we receive reminders of how many pages we’ve read and how many remain. We can flip pages to reread text as needed. Some research suggests we process information more effectively when we recruit multiple sense, and multiple brain areas, during task learning—seeing the words, feeling the weight of the pages, and even smelling the paper. (4)
I couldn’t agree more with Benson’s point. Speaking from personal experience, I prefer reading physical books. I don’t care what Egon Spengler said in the original Ghostbusters—print is not dead. Not only do I prefer print, I also heavily mark up and annotate whatever I’m reading, Bible included. Doing so enables me to recall information that I’ve read in print far more quickly than anything I’ve read digitally. Because I suspect that most church leaders would take umbrage with people marking up the walls of their church with asterisks, circles, and neon-yellow underlining, there is simply no good way for people like me to turn a text over in their hands, to cement the truth they’re hearing in their minds when it’s projected onto the church’s walls or onto a screen.
The difference between knowing a passage from having read it in my Bible versus reading it digitally is like knowing my way through a town because I’ve personally driven through it versus studying a roadmap. Being there engages more of my senses and makes what I see stick in my mind. If scientific studies show that print reading helps comprehension and retention generally, then church leaders should start applying those common grace insights to our reading of the Bible especially.
A Tangible Example
To circle back to the well-meaning desire not to confuse, divide, or alienate any who are in attendance on Sundays for a moment—I share that same desire. I don’t want to put unnecessary roadblocks in people’s way. But, reading from a physical Bible can actually accomplish all of these same goals, and better. If church leaders want the members of their congregation to read from the same translation, buy pew Bibles. They don’t need to be gold-leaf or goat skinned. Paperbacks will do. (5) And if you’re a church planter and that means you or your deacons have to lug those Bibles to and from storage every Sunday, just remember—it’s not easy lugging our kids to church either, but that doesn’t mean we leave them at home! Consider it a service opportunity. You may be surprised how many people in your church would be willing to collect and transport Bibles if you asked them.
What about those who have low biblical literacy or no Bible at all? How do we spare them the possible embarrassment of rifling through their Bibles, desperately trying to find the sermon text? The easiest way is to print the page number from the pew Bible in the bulletin. There was a day our church didn’t, and it resulted in a situation like the one I described above. But, I am happy to report that this brief awkward moment actually turned into a sweet story that I’ll close with now.
Several years ago, a young woman visited our congregation who, I learned after services, was not a regular church attender. She was greeted warmly at the door, given a bulletin, and took her seat next to my church administrator. Given our not infrequent use of the Trinity Psalter Hymnal in corporate worship, this young woman seemed lost at points in the service. But in one of those proud pastor moments, what did I see? My church administrator leaning over to help her find her way through the hymnal and to the sermon text in the pew Bible. When I greeted her after the service, I noticed that she had taken detailed notes. She was clearly engaged, despite her unfamiliarity with our manner of worship.
Was there a learning curve? Of course. Such is to be expected when someone who is foreign to the things of God is immersed in them on a Sunday morning. But what a joy to witness a member of my congregation showing the love of Jesus Christ to this young woman.
For the sake of transparency, I haven’t seen this young woman since that Sunday. And to that, some may say, “See, you lost her. That wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t put so many roadblocks in her way.” But the same happens in churches who have ostensibly removed any and all roadblocks to making people feel welcome. We all have people stay and people go and that is ultimately the work of God’s Spirit, not any sure-fire method of retention. I don’t know what the Lord may do in her heart as a result of her time with us. I’m praying for her conversion. But what I do know is that she got to see, hear, and feel the gospel both in her hands and in her experience with the members of my congregation. An experience that wouldn’t have been possible had I not said that morning, “Please take up your Bibles…”
(1) From The Confessions of St. Augustine, printed by Random House Publishers (1949), 167.
(2) For further reading on this topic, consider: iMinds by Mari Swingle, The Shallows by Nicholas Carr, The Extinction of Experience by Christine Rosen, The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt, Dopamine Nation by Anna Lembke.
(3) Kerry Benson, “Reading on Paper Versus Screens: What’s the Difference?” https://www.brainfacts.org/neuroscience-in-society/tech-and-the-brain/2020/reading-on-paper-versus-screens-whats-the-difference-072820?utm_source=chatgpt.com
(4) Ibid.
(5) Even hardback Bibles sell for less than five dollars a piece with some online retailers.
