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day 2381: Who Will Have The Last Word?

“These tablets were God’s work; the words on them were written by God himself.”

Farhad Manjoo of the New York Times doesn’t predict such great things for this blog.  He says, “”Reading prose on a screen is going out of fashion.”  You know what?  As much as hate to admit it, he’s probably right.  Come October of this year, purposed worKING will be 10 years old.  At the time when I started this blog, blogging was something not everyone did.  We’d only had an iPhone for a few months and it was still years away from anything that was voice activated.  And according to Manjoo, over 70 million Americans listen to podcasts, we spend 2 hours a day watching online video, 800 million people have Instagram accounts and hang on it for more than 30 minutes a day and over $9 Billion will be spent on original audio and video content. And finally, he predicts that 2020 is the year that over 50% of our online searches will be done by voice.  So, what does this tell us?  Well, it tells me that it’s time to be thinking hard about how we must reshape ourselves if we want to reach our subscribers, consumers and customers. I don’t think we will evolve into a people who won’t read, but since the beginning of time we have liked to see and hear and then tell others about what we have experienced and technology is going to make that easier and easier to happen. The more it does, the more we are all going to have to adopt and adapt.  Otherwise, and not so positively in this case, we might end up with the last word.

What does this mean for us who spend time in God’s Word daily as part of our walk with Him?  I am Bible reader, but there are those who know the Bible as well, or better than me, who hide His word within their hearts because they listened and learned through an audio (or maybe a video) version of The Bible.  How we consume God’s Word(s) will change, but His Word will always be a constant.  If we are struggling with the changes around us and wondering where to look or listen next, we can be comforted that His lasting Word is a place to always return.

Reference:  Exodus 32:16 (New Living Translation)