It is becoming increasingly evident to me that how we study the Bible has changed radically in recent years through the use of computers. Whether you use a PC or a Mac like me (MacBook) the way that a Christian gets the basic information of scripture is very different and a lot quicker.
Before computers, if I was preparing a lesson and wanted all the verses on a particular subject I would get out both my Exhaustive (no condensed versions for power users like me) Concordance and my Bible Dictionary and often my Vines Expository Dictionary. Usually with these tools I could over a matter of hours find most references to a particular subject in the Bible.
Now I load my Bible program. there are many types available today. On the Mac I particularly like Online Bible. Within in a matter of minutes I can have every verse relating to a subject from ten different English versions as well as the original Greek and Hebrew. The information comes very quickly now.
The reason I love is because now I can spend more time studying the biblical text rather than in finding the texts. I can focus more of my energy on the how to relate the eternal message to the time bound people I will be teaching. I love that.
This also means that many who used to rely on their huge intellect to retain some much information from the Bible now are really not needed. It's not just preachers like me who can use computers for finding Bible verses. Anyone can. The days of the preacher being the Bible Big Brain who we consult for biblical knowledge are gone (at least for the technologically enhanced).
Just as the printing press lead to the putting of the Bible into the hands of millions the computer puts the navigation within the Bible at the hands of anyone who can do a search. You don't even need a Bible program. You can do a Google search and get pretty good results. Or go to sites like www.biblegateway.com and do all your study over the internet.
What I love about this is that it restores the preacher to his biblical role of proclaimer of the gospel. He is not needed as a scholar who has the specialist books that he uses to distill basic biblical information. We do need scholars but they are very accessible to everyone now.
Along with great blessings to the preacher, the new technologies have brought great potential for evil. Not only is God's truth more accessible so also are the lies and seductions of Satan. More on that another time.