Is “Just Google It” an Effective Bible Study Tool?
Is “Just Google It” an Effective Bible Study Tool?
I’m teaching a class at church right now called How to Study the Bible. Last week I posted this Tool Box (LINK) to introduce the students to the basic types of Bible Study Tools. Here’s the thing. Those categories of Tools come from a pre-digital era. Remember those days when you had to actually go to a library and look at an atlas to find a map? It’s been over 20 years since we lived in that world. My kids don’t remember it, and they’re all in their 20s!
In our class November 7 I went through the motions to describe what a concordance is and how it is useful, but then quickly noted that the students will probably never use one. The concordance has been replaced by the search engine. Essentially, the web search engine–of which Google is master of the universe right now–is a concordance of EVERYTHING (that’s on the internet, at least).
So, we must ask this question: Is “Just Google It” an effective Bible Study Method?
My answer: Yes and No (I am a Lutheran pastor, after all).
Our class is built on three basic steps to Bible Study: Observation, Interpretation, Application. I taught the class to be detectives of the text during the Observation Stage. Barrage the text with questions: Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? etc. Then, use the Bible Study Tools to look up answers to those questions.
For example, a simple question from Acts 1:1-11 (our sample text) might be: What is Galilee?
Where do you go to find the answer? A Bible Atlas. That would be my first choice.
Yet, why not just type “Galilee” in a Google search? Wouldn’t that be faster? For a simple one like Galilee, perhaps. Yet, what if the question was: What is the Holy Spirit? That Google search would turn up a wide range of results.
Here’s the thing about the internet. ANYBODY with a computer and internet connection can write ANYTHING about ANYTHING. That is liberating, democratizing, and TERRIFYING all at the same time.
Here are my tips if you are going to “just Google it”
Check your sources. Before you read a single word on a web page, find out who is writing those words. If you can’t verify the author, skip it. If you don’t recognize the author, or recognize the author’s context, find out. Context matters. In fact, as we have been discussing in our How to Study the Bible Class, context is everything.
Understand algorithms. One of the dangers of search engines is that the artificial intelligence of the engine is monitoring your every key stroke and tries to anticipate what it thinks you want to hear. Therefore, it is very difficult to do actual “objective” searching for multiple viewpoints when relying solely on the main search box of Google. It takes great discernment and knowledge of academic and/or technical websites to get to the really helpful data.
One of my responsibilities as a Faith Formation Pastor in the 21st Century is to vet online resources and curate them for the congregation I serve. You will note the online bible study resources I listed on the Bible Study Tool Box post. I don’t know all the sites, or even the best ones, perhaps, but the ones I have recommended, I trust.
So, here is my pastoral advice: Always practice safe searching.
How to Study the Bible is available for self study anytime!
Go to easter.org/connect once you’ve joined the community look for Classes > How to Study the Bible