The hypnotic, spellbinding power of smartphones in their drip feed of 24/7 constantly-changing, dramatic content has become far more apparent in recent years. That includes investigations of individual and collective attention as a commodity that is being bought and sold by major companies.
A few years after smartphones became widespread, Pastor Todd Wagner gave a sermon at Watermark Community Church entitled, “What if we treated our Bible like we treated our cell phone?” where he imagined just that.
“What if we carried (scripture) around in our purses and pockets? What if we flip through it several times a day? What if we turned back to get it if we ever forgot it upon leaving home? What if we use it to receive messages from the text? What if we treated it like we couldn’t live without it? What if we gave it as a gift to others? What if we used it every time we traveled? What if it was the first thing we turned on in an emergency?”
Christian influencers have now been illustrating this in scenarios showing people just as transfixed in God’s words as many are in their phones.
Pervasive, absorbing, entrancing
These videos show scripture as a constant feature of someone’s day, from the first moment they wake up (after intermittently checking in bed), to when people brush teeth and eat breakfast. After struggling against the urge to take reading breaks at work, people turn to scripture up to the last spare moment in bed at night.
Viewers witness people fitting scripture in every spare moment, including while shopping, while standing in lines, waiting to be picked up, pumping gas or walking a dog, and even in the bathroom on the toilet.
The total absorption of attention means half-engaging in other activities, including distracted cooking, eating, cleaning, exercising, picking up an order (without looking up), disembodied walking (while bumping into others), or pretend-listening in conversation with a friend.
Most will relate to the sheer moment of panic upon realizing they don’t have their scriptures with them, or trying to find it first thing in the morning with trembling hands.
Then there’s seeing the personal delight of discovering something beautiful, and having sweet moments of sharing with others.
After reviewing more than 30 available videos, here are a few favorites:
1. Sorry, can’t stop ... even at lunch with friends
Milk spills on the floor during an engrossing passage at breakfast. Everyone in line at the eatery is fixated in scripture — then again at a meal, so much so that they get a lecture for not paying attention to lunch mates. One is distracted by the Bible when they’re supposed to be listening intently.
2. So much Bible, causing problems at work
“Hun, are you nearly done? It’s been 20 minutes,” his wife asks from the other side of the bathroom door. “I’ll be just a sec,” the husband responds, Bible in hand.
It’s starting to cause problems at work — stealing a few minutes in the middle of busy deadlines to read. Then on the way home, he rear ends someone. The other driver erupts, “Mate, were you on your Bible!”
“It would be great if this were an actual problem,” Alys Williams wrote in the comments, while Apriluser said, “If only we were caught reading our Bibles!”
Matthew Fearnley said he thinks one reason we prefer our phones to the Bible is that we consider the Bible’s content to be static, but our phone’s content is “living and active.”
Citing Hebrews 4:12, where the word of God is described as “alive and active” (or “alive and powerful”), he said if we really believed this passage, “maybe we would reach for our Bibles more often.”
3. So good ... can’t help showing to my friend!
The side-by-side videos showing the expected phone scene with a scriptural counterpart are especially telling, including this from Gabriel Storm:
Lizania Robles also has a nice side-by-side:
4. Completely mesmerized
This one captures well the totality of attention absorption we’ve become accustomed to with smartphones — from zombie-walking to the iconic, “yeah, I’ll be right there” when someone tries to interrupt a current scroll.
5. Teens who just can’t stop
This one’s special due to the teenage actors, and the scene when they’re all eating together, engrossed in their respective Bibles.
Then, this teenager sneaks the Bible into her high school class to get a little more reading time:
6. Uninhibited delight
Other videos stand out for how delighted the individuals are — wholly enchanted by what they’re experiencing in God’s words:
One commentator cynically responded to this with “absolute cringe”; another person responded, “living in sin is cringe, buddy.”
Aanuoluwapo Adeniyi‘s video from Nigeria again shows the same delight you’d expect from people’s daily interactions with screens:
7. Relishing God’s word in diverse traditions
Similar videos have been created by Jews imagining what it would look like to treat Hebrew scripture as tenderly as their phones — and Muslims imagining the same with the Quran.
For members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Tautai Fano also imagines this same scenario applied to the Book of Mormon. Watch for the scene where he holds up something wonderful in the text, taking for granted his friend will love it just as much as a hilarious meme.
8. Overcoming the temptation to read scripture while driving
Unlike many other videos where the person eventually succumbs, these two individuals deserve some props for sneaking a little Bible reading only while their cars are stopped:
Sparking new commitments
Roderick Jackson Jr. admitted the idea behind these videos hits home: “We’ll check our phones the very second we wake up in the morning, won’t leave the house without it, constantly have it in our hand or within reach — and for some of us, we even drive holding it.” If we treated God’s word this way, he added, “it would transform us.”
“I don’t know about you, but I am guilty of this, and need to repent,” said Zach Hinojos in a response to one of these videos. “I always grab my phone first thing in the morning. I check my phone a million times throughout the day.”
He encouraged others to join him in changing, suggesting that increasing the ratio of scripture to smartphone would guarantee “a lot more peace.”