People believe that a lack of time stops them from reading the Bible. This belief is wrong. People have enough time. People use the time to look at other things. People look at phones. People look at television. People look at the verse-of-the-day app.
The app is not a tool for reading. The app is a tool for feeling. The app sends a notification. The notification is a single line. The line has no context. The line has no history. The line has no weight.
The app wins because the app is easy to finish. A book is hard to finish. The app takes four seconds. The book takes four months. People choose the four seconds every time.
A momentary feeling of holiness without the burden of study.
A deep transformation through sequence and struggle.
The Candy Bowl Faith
The Gospel is a long story. The Gospel has a start. The Gospel has a middle. The Gospel has an end. When a person reads a single verse, the person loses the story. The person treats the Bible like a bowl of candy.
The person picks the pieces they like. The person leaves the pieces they do not like. This habit changes the faith. The faith becomes a collection of nice lines. The faith stops being a history of a man named Jesus. A man who only reads the lines will eventually forget the man who said them.
Denise is . Denise lives in a house. Denise has four Bibles. The Bibles are in different rooms. One Bible is on her nightstand. This Bible is a copy of the Gospel of Luke.
A grocery receipt is inside the Bible. The receipt is at chapter 3. The receipt has been at chapter 3 . Denise does not read the Bible. Denise feels bad about not reading the Bible.
Denise sits at a red light in her car. Her phone buzzes. The phone shows a notification. The notification is a verse. The verse is over a photo of a sunrise. Denise reads the verse. Denise feels a sense of relief. Denise screenshots the photo. Denise thinks she has done her duty. Denise drives the car.
The Economy of concentration
The app works because the app provides a reward. This reward is immediate. I recently compared prices of two identical Bibles at two different stores. One store sold the Bible for thirty dollars. The other store sold the Bible for twenty dollars. I bought the cheaper Bible. I felt smart.
The app is like the cheaper Bible. The app costs nothing. The app gives the user a feeling of holiness without the cost of concentration. The cost of concentration is high. People do not want to pay the cost. They want the result.
They want to be the kind of person who reads the Bible. They do not want to be the person who is currently reading the Bible.
“The developer chooses verses that are positive. The developer avoids verses about judgment.”
A notification starts as a line of code. A developer writes the code. The code pulls a verse from a database. The database has two thousand verses. The developer chooses verses that are positive. The developer avoids verses about judgment.
The developer avoids verses about taxes. The developer avoids verses about long genealogies. The developer schedules the notification. The server sends the notification at . The timing is important.
The user is waking up. The user is vulnerable. The user wants to feel good. The notification delivers the feeling. The user closes the notification. The user has not learned anything about the life of Jesus. The user has only received a digital pat on the back.
The Power of Sequence
The Gospel of Matthew has 28 chapters. The Gospel of Mark has 16 chapters. The Gospel of Luke has 24 chapters. The Gospel of John has 21 chapters. These chapters are connected. One event leads to the next event.
When a person reads the snippets, the person loses the sequence. Sequence is the most important part of a story. If you watch the last five minutes of a movie, you know the ending. You do not know why the ending matters.
You do not know the struggle. You do not know the characters. The verse-of-the-day app is the last five minutes of a movie played every single day.
I made a mistake last month. I tried to find a specific story in the Gospel of Mark. I could not find the story. I thought the story was in Mark. The story was in Matthew. I realized I did not know the order of the stories.
I had spent years reading snippets. I had spent years looking at notifications. I had many Bibles. I had no knowledge. This realization was painful. I saw the receipt in my own Bible. The receipt was old. The ink on the receipt was fading. The receipt was a marker of my failure to finish the book.
The Architecture of Fragments
We live in a time of fragments. We eat fragment meals. We have fragment conversations. We practice a fragment faith. A fragment is easy to carry. A fragment is easy to consume. But a fragment cannot support a life.
A house built on fragments will fall down. The Gospel is a foundation. A foundation must be solid. A foundation must be whole. You cannot build a house on one brick. The snippet is a single brick. The book is the foundation.
People need a path. The path must be clear. The path must be simple. Most commentaries are too long. Most commentaries are for scholars. A normal person does not want to be a scholar. A normal person wants to understand the text.
Richard French saw this problem. Richard French wrote books to solve the problem. The books use plain language. The books follow the order of the Gospels. The books do not skip chapters. The books do not use Victorian prose.
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J.C. Ryle was a man who lived a long time ago. Ryle wrote about the Gospels. Ryle used words that are hard to read now. Modern readers stop reading Ryle because Ryle is difficult.
– On the Legacy of J.C. Ryle
Richard French updated the words. Richard French kept the meaning. This version of Ryle is better for the modern reader. The modern reader can finish the book. The modern reader can see the sequence.
The sequence is where the meaning lives. Jesus says something in chapter five. Jesus does something in chapter six. What Jesus does in chapter six is based on what Jesus said in chapter five. If you only read the verse from chapter six, you miss the reason.
We have many quotes. We have very few people who know the story. A faith that does not know its own story is easy to bend. Someone can tell you that Jesus said something. They can use a snippet to prove it.
If you do not know the sequence, you will believe them. You will not know that the snippet was followed by a warning. You will not know that the snippet was a response to a specific person. You will be a person who can be moved by any wind. You will be a person who is anchored to a notification rather than a rock.
Anchored to the Rock
The solution is a habit. The habit must be steady. The habit must be weekly. A person can read one chapter a week. A person can use a guide.
A guide helps the person stay on the path. The guide explains the hard words. The guide asks questions. The guide makes the book feel smaller. The book is not smaller. The book is the same size. The person becomes more capable. The person gains the ability to finish what they started.
Many groups want to study together. Families want to study together. They need a plan. They need a plan that works for a child and a parent. They need a plan that does not cost a lot of money.
They need gospels-explained.com to show them the way.
These guides provide a rhythm. The rhythm is more powerful than the notification. The rhythm builds a structure in the mind. The structure holds the story. The story holds the faith.
Denise’s Choice
Denise still has her Bible. The receipt is still in chapter 3. But Denise can change. Denise can decide to read chapter 4. Denise can decide that is for reading a book instead of a screen.
The red light will turn green. Denise will drive away. She will not need a screenshot. She will have the story in her head. She will know what happened before the verse. She will know what happened after the verse.
I look at my own nightstand. I see the books. I see the bookmarks. I see the things I have not finished. I feel the weight of the unfinished work. It is a quiet weight. It is the weight of a grocery receipt that has not moved in a year.
We buy things to feel like we are doing something. We buy the Bible. We download the app. We subscribe to the newsletter. None of these things are the work.
The Reading
The Sequence
The Finish
A receipt can mark a page but a receipt cannot hold a story.
We are afraid of the long read because the long read might change us. The snippet does not change us. The snippet confirms what we already think. The snippet is a mirror. The Gospel is a window.
You can look in a mirror all day and only see your own face. You look out a window to see the world. You look out a window to see the King. You look out a window to see the road ahead.
Stop looking at the mirror. Open the window. Read the book. Finish the chapter. Find the sequence. Forget the notification. The notification is a ghost. The Gospel is a person.
The person is waiting for you to finish the story. He is waiting in the chapters you have not yet reached. He is waiting past the grocery receipt. He is waiting in the silence after the phone is turned off.
The effort is the point. The effort-to-first-reward ratio of the app is high. The effort-to-transformation ratio of the book is higher. We have been chasing the wrong ratio. We have been looking for the cheap win.
The cheap win stays cheap. The deep work stays deep. Choose the deep work. Read the next sentence. Then read the one after that. Do not stop until you reach the end. The end is where the beginning finally makes sense.
No app can give you that. No notification can save you from the shallow life. Only the whole story can do that. Only the whole man can do that. Turn off the phone. Pick up the book. Start again at chapter one.
Spiritual Depth
Start at Chapter One
The first step toward sequence is the refusal of the shortcut.
