When the Bible Turns Into Instagram

Our daughter is in middle school, and recently she deleted the Bible app from her phone. I was glad.

She didn’t make this decision because she no longer wants to read the Bible. (In fact, she’s more engaged in Bible study now than before.) And she didn’t delete the app out of frustration with how poorly it works. (YouVersion’s capabilities get better all the time.)

She let the app go because, in her words, “The Bible app is like Instagram.” The social media component overtook the initial reason for having the app in the first place. The whole experience became about scrolling through the pictures her school friends would post, sometimes with Bible verses attached—some unrelated, some humorous, and some serious. The verse pictures and the constant commentary on each others’ posts got to the point when she felt God’s Word had morphed into just another means of self-expression and connection online.

I don’t know what to make of this development.

Our son is in high school, and his experience with the Bible app has been remarkably different. He maintained a streak of reading God’s Word every day for an entire year when he adopted reading plans and joined with his student pastor and a few teenagers who agreed to use the app’s functionalities to hold each other accountable.

Likewise, my own experience with the Bible app has been positive. I use it to survey different translations in English, and I dip into the Romanian translations as well, to see how some of them render a verse. It’s true that I don’t read the Bible primarily on the phone, but it’s handy to have God’s Word so accessible. Read More