Between Pages and Pixels: The Search for Scriptural Sacredness

Exploring How Technology Changes Our Relationship with the Divine

Over the past few days, I've been reflecting on the sacredness of the scriptures. I’ve been wondering if those who study the scriptures daily hold them to be sacred—if, for them, it feels as though a loving Heavenly Father is speaking to them.

It is seen as a divine text; it’s not merely a text; it’s something more profound. As they engage in the scriptures and hold them to be sacred, they also hold to be sacred the responses they receive, the revelation, the impressions, and the thoughts. And because they keep all of this to be sacred, they also write down or record in some way what they've learned and find some way to apply what they've learned to their daily life.

This whole process is what feeds their soul each day, providing a high that cannot be described and a peace that few experience.

Perhaps it’s this attitude of sacredness—especially in the digital age—that makes the difference. As I thought about it further, it wasn't too many years ago when everyone had their physical copy of the scriptures. They were usually leather-bound, and they were beautiful, and they had very thin pages, and the sound they made when you were turning the page, and even the smell of the scriptures.

Perhaps it was passed down through generations, so they were held in high esteem. Today, in the digital age, those who use digital scriptures instead of physical copies no longer consider them sacred. Because it's a device that has Instagram, Facebook, allows us to send text messages, and we pay someone via Venmo, and we read our emails. And so it's hard to hold them as sacred.

And I think there's a way that we have to figure out digitally how to hold our digital scriptures sacred. Now, I hold them sacred within my phone and treat them with respect, and I turn to them for solace, for peace, and to learn.

But maybe I’m not treating them with quite the same sense of sacredness as I do with physical scriptures.. This doesn't mean I'm willing to change back to physical scriptures right now, because they have their limitations. The margins are only so thick, you can't tag them, you can't write a long note, and there's no way to research them quickly.

But I'm just wondering if this attitude of sacredness figures into those who do study regularly, and those who don't, and are using digital scriptures. I could be way off base on this, but it has caused me to think and ponder how I hold these scriptures to be sacred.

I'm reminded of when I lived in Israel, after a church meeting, a Reformed Jew came in, and he saw one of the students drop their scriptures on the floor, and he immediately went and picked them up and dusted them off, and then said something to the young man. Here, he knew those scriptures were sacred, even though it was more than the Torah, but he knew that we held those to be sacred, and this young man just dropped them on the floor.

I think there's something to this. I don't have the full answer, but I think there's something. When we hold something so sacred and dear, we can't wait to connect with it again.