We're still addressing Josh's question about what Bible is better, a paper one or a digital one. And last time you made a case for caution when using digital Bibles in church, but also said it's an inevitable trend in the church as well. So what about in our personal devotional reading, what Bible is best, ink and paper or digital pixels?

The main point I made last time when we were talking about digital reading of the Bible is that the Word of God is not identical with the ink and the paper, but the words themselves in their grammatical context. And therefore, it's not of the essence whether we read on paper or read on a screen.

And what matters is that we read it, understand it, memorize it for our souls and for our ministry, that we love and worship the God it reveals and obey it. So here are the upsides to digital reading of the Bible in private. I didn't get to say anything about that.

We talked about public use of it, but there are upsides and downsides to it. Here's some upsides. It's easy to have with you everywhere you go. This is wonderful, both for reading for our own souls and for review in memory work and for having it there to talk with anybody about the Bible.

How many times in previous eras did we get into a conversation and wish we could just show them what we're trying to quote from the Bible? And now we can just reach in our pocket and do it. So that's one. Access is everywhere. Number two is it's easy to have several versions at your disposal, whether it's a Bible dictionary or a commentary.

The U version is a stunning success all over the world. Logos Bible software is a bottomless ocean, it seems to me, of resources for the Bible. Olive Tree is really accessible for handheld devices. I have found I've done all my reading, my Bible reading, my devotional reading on an iPad for several years now, and it is wonderful to have the Greek right there with one button click away at the bottom of the screen.

Hebrew is there. One tap away is a commentary from Calvin or from Jameson Fawcett Brown or quick insights from others. So the digital world has made the Bible more accessible and it has made helps easier to use. Those are some of the upsides. Here's some downsides. Maybe I should have put it in the benefit column.

So far, I'm not sure. I want to see the highlighting passages and the underlining and the note taking with the digital Bible as more secure and more permanent. When I have a paper Bible in front of me, I can be underlining it, taking notes in the margin, and that Bible can go on a shelf and 40 years later, which is what I do with my King James Bible from when I was 15 years old, 50 years later, I can take that down and look what God was doing, what he was showing me, and I just have the sneaky suspicion that as I'm reading these digital Bibles, that's not happening.

And what I would like to see, and maybe it exists and I just don't know about it, is a Bible reading software that takes that real seriously and says, "At the end of this year or at any given time, you may save this entire Bible, put it in a file, and have all your notes, all your underlining, all your highlighting there forever just like you left it, and now you go on to another Bible, or you can keep the same one, another version of that Bible the next year and see what God shows you that year." So a downside is the fear of lack of permanence in what you're marking and what you're underlining and what you're noting.

And here's another one, distraction. I know this because I experience it every day. I'm tempted to quickly look at an email or a message or a blog right in the middle of my Bible reading and I must preach to myself sadly, "Hey, stop! Do you realize who you're talking to and who's talking to you right now?

The God of the universe is speaking to you and you are listening to him. How do you think he feels about that?" And what I find is if I don't really work at this, Bible reading can take on a kind of mechanical feel or functional feel, and you're just jumping from thing to thing, in and out, instead of realizing, look, real change happens in the human soul when God Almighty shows up in his almighty authoritative word and works on you.

And that's just diminished when we are jumping around looking at other things. That's a pretty serious downside. And if people can't overcome that, I would say it might be better not to even put yourself at risk in that regard. So, summing up, I think the digital revolution is inevitable and therefore is not mainly to be resisted, but managed with spiritual wisdom and discipline.

And the main thing is, are we reading the Bible? Are we memorizing the Bible for our souls, for our ministry? Do we love the God of the Bible? Are we worshiping the God of the Bible as we read the Bible? Is he working on us, changing us, deepening us, sweetening us, tenderizing us, causing us to obey?

Yes, excellent. Thank you, Pastor John. And the access we have to digital Bibles may change the way we think about Bible memorization. If I can search my Bible app for a verse, what good is the discipline of memorization? Let's talk about that next time, Pastor John. Until then, please email your own questions to us at AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org.

I'm your host, Tony Reinke. We'll see you tomorrow.