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5 Technologies that Are Shaping the Church

3. Verse Numbers

There’s a Bible for every platform – PCs, Macs, Android, iPhone, iPad, even Windows Phone and BlackBerry have cool Bible software with powerful search abilities.

But long before the Bible went digital, it was chopped up into tweet-sized pieces called “verses.” From the time Moses started writing (let’s say 1500 B.C.) to the time those verse numbers were added and standardized (in the 1600s), not a single Christian on Earth knew what a “verse” or a “chapter” was.

If one of those ancient believers saw a John 3:16 poster, they’d be as confused as the people Googling Tim Tebow today. They didn’t have favorite verses or life verses – they simply had the non-technologically enhanced Words of God, which were usually read to them out loud.

Today, verse numbers make all kinds of cool things possible.

I’m currently writing some Bible software that relies on chapter:verse numbers heavily, and I’m so glad they exist. But sometimes, I prefer to read a Bible that has the chapter/verse layer removed (like what you can buy at http://booksofthebible.info and maybe even the new ESV single column).

Read #4 >>

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johndyer@churchleaders.com'
John Dyer (http://j.hn/) has been a web developer for more than 10 years and now has a ridiculously long title (Executive Director of Communications and Educational Technology at Dallas Theological Seminary). He also writes about the intersection of technology, theology, and culture for http://donteatthefruit.com/ and several Christian magazines and is the author of From the Garden to the City: The Redeeming and Corrupting Power of Technology.