Mp3 Players and the Great Commission

December 30, 2006

Lar,

I received an update email today from Biblicaltraining.org. It’s a great ministry that I highly recommend for anyone who wants to dive into greater study. Anyhow, here is the content of the email. I am quite confident they won’t mind it being shared. It reminded me of your post yesterday and a few of our conversations. The possibilities for ministering to the world through today’s technologies are great! Here are just a few examples.

“We just received an email from The South African Theological Seminary (www.sats.edu.za). They have already trained 2500 students as they partner with South African churches to train their future leaders. They tell us that

some of the [Biblical Training] lectures will serve as great supplements to our corresponding courses. We’ve also been considering providing our students, many of whom come from rural, underprivileged areas, with mp3 players to supplement their studies. Most Africans, even well educated Africans, are primarily oral learners; they will benefit greatly from audio supplements. Thank you once again for a wonderful initiative. We praise the Lord Jesus for it.

And just this week we heard from missionaries living in a Muslim country. They thanked us for recompressing all the lectures in mp3, explaining that

because of our environment, we cannot listen to the classes on a computer. But we can quietly download the mp3s and listen to them in private on mp3 players.”

The Lord is at work in a million ways that we will never know. Let us expand our vision and rejoice!