Is an Audio Bible Sufficient for Devotions?
00:00:00.000 | We get a lot of questions about audiobooks sent in to the podcast.
00:00:07.720 | Here's today's question.
00:00:08.720 | Pastor John, hello.
00:00:09.720 | My name is Robert.
00:00:10.720 | I am a transport truck driver in eastern Canada.
00:00:14.760 | I tend to get the majority of my Bible "reading" done while listening to the Bible as an audiobook
00:00:21.040 | while I work and drive.
00:00:23.780 | That includes listening to many of the episodes of this podcast also, so thank you.
00:00:27.660 | But would you feel that listening to the Bible has the same intended effects as actually
00:00:32.120 | physically reading it with the eyes?
00:00:34.320 | Keeping in mind I can tell my phone to rewind a chapter if I want to hear it over again
00:00:38.200 | to keep things legal on the road.
00:00:40.440 | Thank you for any advice that you can give me.
00:00:43.120 | Pastor John, what would you say to Robert?
00:00:46.120 | I think what I would like to do in response to Robert's question is to make 10 really
00:00:51.280 | brief bullet observations about the great benefits of listening to the Bible and a few
00:01:01.400 | observations about limitations of listening.
00:01:06.280 | And in the process, I think I will answer Robert's question about whether listening
00:01:11.900 | has the same intended effects.
00:01:15.320 | Number one, it is a beautiful, supernatural, miraculous gift from God that Robert desires
00:01:22.720 | to listen to the Bible at all.
00:01:26.440 | While he drives his truck across eastern Canada, that's the first thing that comes to my
00:01:31.680 | mind, that he has any desire at all for God's Word is a glorious thing because millions
00:01:39.760 | of people, millions, care nothing for the Bible.
00:01:44.000 | It's tragic.
00:01:45.060 | It's heartbreaking.
00:01:46.960 | God has spoken.
00:01:47.960 | God, the creator of the universe, has spoken and millions and millions of people pay no
00:01:55.880 | attention.
00:01:56.880 | Now, here's a man whose heart inclines to hear the Word of God, and that's glorious.
00:02:03.560 | Number two, people's brains are very different in the way we process what is read and what
00:02:12.040 | is heard.
00:02:13.040 | My children were very different in this regard.
00:02:15.740 | Oh, my.
00:02:16.740 | Some people can hear and remember almost everything that they hear, but they don't have anywhere
00:02:24.780 | near the same recall when they read, and vice versa.
00:02:30.020 | So for that reason alone, I would need to say to Robert, "Well, depending on the way
00:02:36.660 | God made you, listening might bear even more fruit than reading."
00:02:43.980 | I don't know.
00:02:45.140 | It could.
00:02:46.140 | He asked if it's the same, and I said, "Well, it could be better."
00:02:49.540 | Number three, every time we listen to the Bible being read, we are listening not only
00:02:55.700 | to the Bible, but to an interpretation of the Bible.
00:02:59.700 | To read aloud is to interpret.
00:03:02.420 | Your pace, your cadence, your emphasis, your pauses, your emotional tone, your softness,
00:03:07.620 | your loudness, your pronunciation, all of these things communicate part of the author's
00:03:13.540 | intention in a way that the reader understands it and experiences it.
00:03:18.580 | I say this as something that may be really good or a real problem.
00:03:23.880 | If the interpretation is perceptive and penetrating and true and powerful, that's a benefit to
00:03:30.100 | the hearing listener.
00:03:32.260 | If the interpretation is contrary to the author's intention in meaning or tone, it can be a
00:03:40.180 | great hindrance from profiting the way God intended us to profit when we read or hear
00:03:48.440 | the Word.
00:03:49.440 | We simply should be aware that when we listen, we are listening to an interpretation, and
00:03:55.900 | we should be discerning about that.
00:03:57.740 | It may be right.
00:03:58.740 | It may be wrong.
00:04:00.220 | Number four, are you willing, Robert, or any of us, to pull over and stop driving in order
00:04:10.860 | to bring your full heart focus to bear on some word or thought or feeling that God has
00:04:20.820 | just used to deeply move you?
00:04:24.940 | I ask this because of how many people just the other day, another one, have told me over
00:04:30.740 | the years that at certain points in a sermon, they're driving, they were listening, and
00:04:36.580 | they were so moved that they had to pull over and deal with God and handle the emotions
00:04:43.860 | without the distraction of driving.
00:04:46.100 | And I think everybody who listens to the Bible while driving or doing anything else should
00:04:50.220 | be willing to do that.
00:04:51.960 | Number five, we should recognize that listening while driving necessarily means that the Bible
00:04:58.060 | is getting a partial focus of our fullest attention.
00:05:01.660 | We must think about driving.
00:05:03.400 | We would be disobedient to God if we were to put ourselves or others at risk by not
00:05:08.820 | paying any attention to the road or the cars or the signs.
00:05:12.220 | So this is a significant downside to absorbing all that God may have for us since the Bible
00:05:18.940 | is competing with the attention.
00:05:21.300 | We must pay to the road.
00:05:23.820 | This is not an evil.
00:05:24.820 | It's not evil.
00:05:25.820 | It's just a limitation of all that the Word might accomplish if it had our full and complete
00:05:32.540 | attention.
00:05:33.540 | Number six, another limitation is that if we are reading, not driving, with the fullest
00:05:40.100 | attention, we can pause and look up a cross-reference that illuminates the word or phrase or idea
00:05:46.540 | that we are pondering.
00:05:48.620 | I do that almost all the time when I'm reading the Bible.
00:05:51.940 | We did an APJ recently in which we compared the new birth in Peter and the new birth in
00:05:57.180 | James, and I wouldn't have stumbled across that and taken the time to meditate on it
00:06:02.980 | if I'd only been driving a car when I heard that.
00:06:06.920 | Number seven, another thing we can't do while driving is preserve something that we just
00:06:12.940 | thought or saw in the text.
00:06:15.780 | Now not everybody does this anyway, but for me, I love either electronically, say an Evernote,
00:06:22.980 | or by jotting down with my pen an insight or a text, a thought that I got while reading
00:06:30.340 | some new light that I had.
00:06:32.860 | You can't do that very easily while you're driving.
00:06:35.860 | Number eight, because of everything I've said so far, I would suggest that listening to
00:06:43.140 | the Bible not be the only way we fellowship with God in the Word.
00:06:51.060 | Listening is a great way to meet God.
00:06:55.160 | It has its own advantages and benefits, but it also has limitations, so why not both?
00:07:02.620 | Number nine, in fact, here's something that I do that is a combination of reading and
00:07:08.500 | listening, doing both at the same time.
00:07:11.780 | Sometimes if I'm especially tired and I still want to read several chapters of the Bible,
00:07:17.620 | yet my eyes and my brain are objecting, "We can't do this now.
00:07:23.300 | We're too tired," I open my iPad to my Bible and I tell it to read to me.
00:07:30.700 | I use the ESV audio Bible, and so I follow along with my own eyes and I listen while
00:07:39.100 | another person reads to me.
00:07:41.580 | The reason I don't think I should do this all the time is because it does not take as
00:07:47.780 | much engagement with my mind when I let somebody else read the words to me.
00:07:54.940 | I think that greater engagement when I read it myself, even perhaps out loud, is more
00:08:02.220 | fruitful than when somebody else reads it to me.
00:08:06.060 | Yes, there are times when it seems to me really helpful to have some other person, just audio
00:08:13.700 | book read to me.
00:08:16.020 | Finally, so, Robert, press on with your listening by all means in the truck.
00:08:23.380 | May God fill you with a spirit of wisdom and of revelation like Paul prays as you listen
00:08:29.620 | and drive, and may he open the eyes of your heart to see glorious things in his Word.
00:08:37.980 | That's our goal, whether we're reading or listening to the Bible.
00:08:43.380 | We want to see him more clearly and love him more dearly and follow him more nearly, as
00:08:52.420 | the song says, and the way he has appointed for that to happen is by the Word of God.
00:09:00.740 | Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you, Robert.
00:09:03.420 | A shout out to truck drivers listening to the podcast right now.
00:09:07.460 | And speaking of listeners of the podcast, I just got a note from one of our dearest,
00:09:11.620 | dearest, most precious podcast listeners in the whole world, a woman whose presence in
00:09:16.340 | a room just makes the room shine with the presence of Jesus.
00:09:19.940 | She's a giant, one of my heroes of the faith.
00:09:21.940 | Her name is Johnny Erickson-Totta, and Johnny is a regular listener to APJ, which is, that's
00:09:27.540 | so humbling, such a huge honor for us to have her as a listener.
00:09:31.940 | And she wrote a little thank you note to us recently, and she said this, I wanted to share
00:09:35.740 | this little part, quote, "As a quadriplegic, I am able to lie in bed at night and easily
00:09:41.340 | navigate the app using Siri voice control on my iPhone.
00:09:44.580 | Although I do not have use of my hands, I nevertheless have the freedom to delve as
00:09:48.300 | far back into APJ as I'd like, with each episode filling my mind with great Bible truths, always
00:09:53.940 | preparing my heart to be instructed in the night.
00:09:57.420 | What a great way to end each evening."
00:09:59.660 | End quote.
00:10:00.660 | That's incredible to read.
00:10:02.460 | Those lines just hit me.
00:10:03.820 | The power of audio content, and Lord, thank you for making it possible for us to record
00:10:08.860 | and share verbal content like this podcast.
00:10:12.300 | Robert's question and his situation just reminded me of Johnny as well.
00:10:16.380 | It's incredible to have all of you along listening.
00:10:19.020 | So thank you for listening in, whatever your situation in life, I'm glad to have you along.
00:10:25.380 | Well MLK Day is Monday, and we're going to look at Martin Luther King Jr., the preacher,
00:10:29.660 | and we're going to look at his partner in the cause, another preacher.
00:10:33.340 | It's an interesting episode coming up on Monday, the story of two preachers, two friends.
00:10:38.220 | I am Tony Reinke.
00:10:39.220 | No matter what you are doing right now as you listen, thank you for joining us today,
00:10:42.420 | and we'll see you on Monday.
00:10:43.620 | Thanks for listening.
00:10:44.140 | Thanks for listening.
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