iPhone and iPad - Royal Telephone ? There's an App for that!

Some time ago the choir sang an energetic ditty about a Royal Telephone we can use to talk to Jesus, and get answers directly from god's royal line.  You can read the lyrics and hear the melody here . It was a fun piece to sing in harmony and we even adapted it for a choir member's birthday party. (What a fun party that was, thank you Bob's family!).

"Telephone to glory, oh, what joy divine!
I can feel the current moving on the line,
Built by God the Father for His loved and own,
We may talk to Jesus through this royal telephone."

I also liked the song because I love my iPhone.  It's one of those "game-changers," like the DVR, where a piece of technology makes a radical alteration in your life, for the better.  I remember asking a friend who had just gotten Tivo (which is a brand of DVR), if it was worth it.  He replied, completely seriously, that it had changed his life.  I did not expect that answer! So I signed up for one, and as I slowly learned to use it, it changed my life for the better.  My friend was right. Now I can't watch TV without a DVR.  It's just too archaic.

My iPhone is the same way. It took a little time and effort to make the switch from thinking "this is my phone" to thinking "there's an app for that," but with a little effort I did make the jump, became seriously impressed with Apple's attention to detail, and now would be loathe to part with my trusty little iPhone. I even bought a share of stock in Apple.  With the recent release of the iPad, which is a larger version of the iPhone, I would buy more Apple stock if I could.  It's going to be huge.

"There's an app for that" refers to the little software applications that you download to your iPhone. Making phone calls is only a fraction of what the iPhone does. There are now 185,000 available apps... many are free or cost only a dollar or two.... games...navigation...books... gadgets... self help... social tools... car maintenance... I could go on.  Perhaps this quote sums it up best-- I read recently of a man who was crushed and trapped in rubble after the earthquake in Haiti. "Alone in the darkness beneath layers of rubble, Dan Woolley felt blood streaming from his head and leg. Then he remembered -- he had an app for that." 

He had a first aid app on his iPhone, that helped him treat his injuries and keep awake and alert until rescue arrived.  (At the end of the story, he still says he's grateful to God for getting him through the ordeal, so the iPhone doesn't get all the credit).

So what makes the iPhone a royal telephone?  Well, it turns out it's a great bible reader too. You can read more about reading the bible on the iPad by clicking on this link  "The Bible is Alive on the Most Modern Tablet"  .

I use my iPhone to read the Message bible.  The Message (click the link to read about it at Wikipedia) is a new translation of the bible in contemporary language, which the author was inspired to begin as an effort to capture the "vitality and directness" of the new testament as written in the original Greek texts. He says, "I hoped to bring the New Testament to life for two different types of people: those who hadn't read the Bible because it seemed too distant and irrelevant and those who had read the Bible so much that it had become 'old hat.'


Well I definitely fell in the former group.  And now much to my amazement, when I have a few minutes to spare, I can now pull up the bible on my phone.  I never used to read the bible.  Now I do, a lot. It's really an amazing story. (Of course these electronic bible editions have all sorts of fancy tools to highlight, compare, notate, etc that I haven't learned to use, yet.  I just read it. If you want to click through 100 images of what bible reading software can do on the iPad, click here) So, my iPhone is now my bible, literally.

It's not all good news, though.  My love for gadgetry and my royal telephone is tempered by this story outlining the negative ecological implications of this type of technology. There are labor questions, and particularly the dangers and consequences of mining and refining the fancy metals needed for all the hidden workings.  And despite the fact that you might think it's better to read a thousand books on one gadget, and thereby save a lot of trees from being turned into paper, in fact, a recent analysis shows that paper books are really more gentle to the planet than e-book readers.  Paper is a renewable resource, unlike heavy metals, and doesn't require a steady stream of electricity.

So maybe I will eventually look for a pocket sized paper Message bible, when I am able to evolve beyond my current state of rapt technological immersion.

Still, today, I thank my iPhone and Apple Computer for bringing me the words of Jesus.