Back to the Books

In the evening, I try to avoid my computer and smartphone and get back to books. But I’m not too strict. I use a few different screen devices – desktop, laptop, iPad, smartphone and virtual reality (VR) devices. I think that it’s good to change position and device. I wouldn’t want to be looking into a phone all day.

But in the longer term, I like the notion of moving away from computers to some degree. I like to listen to RTE Lyric FM while reading in the evening. I’m starting to turn off my computer earlier in the day in recent months.

What does the Bible say about all this? Well, there is that verse about Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist asking for a tablet:

Luke 1:62-64
⁶² Then they made signs to his father, to find out what he would like to name the child. ⁶³ He asked for a writing tablet, and to everyone’s astonishment he wrote, “His name is John.” ⁶⁴ Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue set free, and he began to speak, praising God

So, I have bibical ground for buying an iPad for Christmas 😀 – assuming that Zechariah asked for an iPad. But maybe it wasn’t an iPad. Let’s ask Microsoft Copilot.

Material: Likely a small wooden board coated with wax or clay.

Well, I’m not going to be satisfied with a small wooden board coated with wax of clay. I want an iPad. 😖😩

But seriously, I think we’re living in wonderful times with such great resources. Back in 1981, shortly after I committed my life to Christ, I discovered a few sermons on cassette tape – mainly David Pawson sermons. You could borrow them from friends or buy them if you sent a postal order the Milmead Centre in Guildford, UK. And I discovered that you could borrow teaching tapes too, for a small fee. I tried to do so, and it was blocked by the customs in Cork. I don’t know why. I don’t think that there was any censorship law. But nowadays, you can hear David Pawson and thousands of others for free on YouTube and on numerous other sites. I touch on some of these in my Recommended Audio Resources post.

But I still have a house full of books, and I even have old teaching tapes, including one of me speaking in Limerick Baptist Church back in 1989 😀. I’d be way too shy to go on YouTube if I was speaking in a church nowadays. At least if I say something stupid on this blog, I can go back in and easily edit it.

Anyway, variety is the spice of life, so it’s nice to read books offline, but I must confess, it’s a bit of struggle but I’m slowly but surely improving.

A few hundred years ago, few people could read or have access to the Bible in their own language. Nowadays, not only do we have access to printed and electronic Bibles, and audio bibles, but we have so many great resources to motivate us to read it.