If our churches were to model themselves after the church of the first century, the first thing we’d have to do is throw away our personal copies of the Bible. I don’t say this because the first century church didn’t have a complete New Testament (the New Testament books were written in the first century but weren’t compiled until later). I say it because the Bible the early church had was handwritten on scrolls and parchments, not machine printed in books. But why should that matter?

It matters because technology changes what we think about and how we read Scripture. When Gutenberg invented the printing press, Bibles were the first things he printed. For the first 1,500 years of Christianity, most Christians didn’t read, so they didn’t read the Bible. And most people didn’t have Bibles (or any other books) because they were too expensive. In the first century, Christians gathered together in congregations to hear and search the Scriptures together (Acts 17:11). In the Middle Ages, Christians were taught by priests. The printing press changed all that.

As Bibles became easier to produce, they became more numerous and less expensive. More people learned to read and more began reading the Bible on their own. Equally important, when converted from handwritten letters to a type-script, the words of Scripture became somehow more real to us, more solid, and more authoritative. And for many that authority shifted from the church to Scripture itself. I’m saying here that the very form which the Bible took, along with the ability to mass produce it, changed the way Christians thought about the Bible.

The first result of this change was the Protestant Reformation, when some theologians questioned the traditions and interpretations taught in Catholicism. The second result was church disunity in the rise of Christian denominations. While the Reformation forced Catholicism to look at itself and make changes within, most reforming took place through groups of people starting their own churches.

If denominational splitting had eventually ended, there might be little negative criticism to make; but the fact that such splits continued for hundreds of years and happen today suggests that the printing press had one major negative effect on our view of Scripture.

When non-Catholic Christians decided that the Bible was the authority for knowing God’s truth, we actually placed that authority in the hands of individuals. We ignored an important question: “If the Bible is our source for truth, how do we know we are reading it correctly?” While we worked hard at creating methods of interpretation that seemed sound to us, we continued to fight over the meaning of the Bible, creating divisions and denominations.

We made two mistakes. First, instead of making God our source for truth, we made it a book (even if it was his book), allowing us to leave God out of the equation. In other words we rightly said, “The Bible is God’s Word; we can read the Bible and know God’s Word.” But how did we know we were reading it correctly? Second, while embracing our individual ability to interpret the Bible for ourselves, we assumed we never need help from anyone else to figure out what the Bible means or how we ought to apply it. We forgot the first-century practice of reading Scripture together.

I remember being taught the importance of learning how to read Scripture on my own and of spending devotional time in the Word (and, of course, the printing press made this possible). Individual Bible study is important, but I still remember the day I came face-to-face with its potential problem. It happened when I ran across Proverbs 1:5, 6 that says, “a man of understanding will acquire wise counsel, To understand a proverb and a figure . . .” (New American Standard). The Bible itself teaches us the importance of corporate Bible study.

Many churches are realizing that we learn from Christ who is the Word incarnate, the Holy Spirit who is the Word within us, Scripture which is the Word spoken in the past and “living and active” in the present, wise Christians in their writings and teachings, our friends and fellow believers in our local church bodies, prayer and the pursuit of a personal relationship with God (the source of all truth), and the experiences and reasoning abilities God has given us. But my primary point is to say that technology has affected the way we view Scripture—with both positive and negative results.

With that point made I can turn to what is now the more pressing question: what is technology doing to our view of Scripture now? How does putting the Bible on a computer (or even in movies) affect the way we use it and see it? That will be the topic for next month’s article. |L

OTHER COLUMNS:
November 8, 2009 - Why I believe in God
October 25, 2009 - Commuting in days of evil
October 11, 2009 - Poets and don’t know it
September 27, 2009 - How Hollywood proves abortion is wrong
September 13, 2009 - Significance
August 30, 2009 - Dance alternatives
August 16, 2009 - Gluttons for gossip
August 2, 2009 - Truth from Twilight
July 19, 2009 - Visitor-friendly churches
July 5, 2009 - The Shack
June 21, 2009 - When forgiveness fails
June 7, 2009 - Re-imagining Education (Part Six)
May 24, 2009 - We are not alone
May 3, 2009 - Re-imagining education (part five)
April 26, 2009 - Conviction
April 12, 2009 - Re-imagining education (part four)
March 29, 2009 - An evangelistic proposal
March 15, 2009 - Re-imagining education (part three)
March 1, 2009 - He makes me sick
February 15, 2009 - Re-imagining education (Part Two)
February 1, 2009 - Spiritual insecurity
January 18, 2009 - Re-imagining education (part one)
January 4, 2009 - Church and politics
December 21, 2008 - Heaven’s music
December 7, 2008 - The church and marriage
November 23, 2008 - God and the president
November 9, 2008 - A time for courage
October 26, 2008 - Likes and dislikes: the Prince Caspian movie
October 12, 2008 - What’s that noise?
September 28, 2008 - Modesty matters (part two)
September 14, 2008 - All it takes is some TLC
August 31, 2008 - Modesty matters (part one)
August 17, 2008 - What would you fight for?
August 3, 2008 - Staying through the credits
July 20, 2008 - Honor to whom honor
July 6, 2008 - Tyler Perry and the movies you’re missing
June 22, 2008 - The peaceable kingdom
May 25, 2008 - Another generation grew up
May 25, 2008 - Technology and the Bible (part two)
April 27, 2008 - What is truth?
April 13, 2008 - And the geek shall inherit the earth
March 30, 2008 - A charactered God
March 16, 2008 - The college choice (part two)
March 2, 2008 - Good news can be hard to hear
February 17, 2008 - The college choice (part one)
February 5, 2008 - Ten suggestions for a godly standard of living
January 20, 2008 - Expelled: that “Bueller” guy’s pro-God movie
January 6, 2008 - Choosing a lifestyle
December 23, 2007 - Teachable TV?
December 9, 2007 - Owners or stewards?
November 25, 2007 - Christians teaching Christians to change TV and film
November 11, 2007 - My money is God’s business
October 28, 2007 - Navigating under the radar
October 14, 2007 - The things God values
September 30, 2007 - Movie moments
September 16, 2007 - God’s economics
September 2, 2007 - The best books to read
August 19, 2007 - There’s a rat in ‘separate’
August 5, 2007 - The art of reading
July 22, 2007 - Atheist chic
July 8, 2007 - Why books matter: the sequel
June 10, 2007 - Books: why they matter
June 3, 2007 - The non-impact of “The Lost Tomb of Jesus”
May 27, 2007 - The universal gospel
May 13, 2007 - Loving Muslims through culture
April 29, 2007 - Hope
April 15, 2007 - God in the dark
April 1, 2007 - The gospel goes to the movies
March 18, 2007 - What the Bible movies can teach us
March 4, 2007 - What will you hurt for?
February 18, 2007 - Why Heroes . . .
February 4, 2007 - Give peace a chance
January 21, 2007 - When fairy tales are true
January 7, 2007 - WYSIWYG lives
December 31, 2006 - What’s coming next?
December 17, 2006 - Mercy, mercy
December 3, 2006 - Proof of evolution!
November 19, 2006 - Hungering for God
November 5, 2006 - Violence and government, war and peace
October 22, 2006 - The mighty meek
October 8, 2006 - The Battlestar and the Bible
September 24, 2006 - Soap for the soul
September 10, 2006 - Right vs. cool
August 27, 2006 - The painful truth
August 13, 2006 - More Lies Hollywood Tells
July 30, 2006 - Christian counter culture
July 16, 2006 - The lies Hollywood tells