globe, but obstacles hinder accessibility. Can people afford the
Scriptures? Is the Word allowed in every nation? Can people there even
read it?
Faith Comes By Hearing is obliterating these obstacles, and all with one quick click.
“Now, for the first time in history, you have one application that can
singly distribute the Scriptures in all the languages of the
world—spoken by at least five billion people,” says Troy Carl, Faith Comes By
Hearing’s national director. “We’re very, very excited about
the accessibility of the Word of God to anybody, anywhere, at any time.”
In less than a year, Faith Comes By Hearing has introduced the
Scriptures in 542 languages onto an application compatible with smart
phones, androids, iPads and more. This single app, Bible.is—which is moving so
fast that it has more than doubled the languages offered on it in the
last month—is hurdling every obstacle and opening the world to the
Bible.
The price of the Scriptures is no longer an issue. The app is free. As
long as a person owns a compatible device—or they can even use the app
on a computer—they can access the Scriptures. There are five billion
cell phone subscribers worldwide, making the likelihood that a person
owns such a device quite high. The number of smartphones is going up,
too.
Carl says another thing they’ve watched the app do over the past several
months is transcend even the strictest of government boundaries. While
some countries might reject missionary presence, aid or Scripture
distribution, “One of the things we’ve found is that there’s no
resistance to distribution as long as it’s coming in through
technology,” says Carl.
If people can get it for free, unafraid of consequences, a problem still
remains if they are unable to read the Word. But the very nature of
Faith Comes By Hearing’s decades-old ministry is to provide Scriptures
for those who cannot read them. All 542 languages are in audio format,
so anyone can hear the Word of God.
The accessibility of the app is opening hearts to the gospel as people
are able to hear the words of God’s Truth spoken to them.
“We do get people commenting on the fact that this application—by
hearing the Bible in an audio form, not just reading it—has actually
restored them, brought revival to their soul and even some have come to
Christ as a result,” explains Carl. The ministry gets thousands of
testimonies a week, many from un-churched listeners who are
understanding the Bible for the first time.
The Bible.is app is expanding as quickly as it can, as well as adapting
to its subscribers. Right now, the app can be downloaded for navigation
in seven languages—including Arabic, which has become the second most-listened-to language on the app. But as the app catches on to more and
more users, the navigation languages will increase in number. Faith
Comes By Hearing wants to ensure that everyone who wants to access
Scripture can do so.
“There will be 5 billion smart phones by 2016 around the world,” notes
Carl. “Our goal is to make sure the Bible is on every one of them.”
Carl calls this app the “amazon” (as in amazon.com) of the Bible: no one
has ever put all Scriptures in all languages in one place available for
free and for listening. As the Scriptures are accessed by more and more
people, the Word of God will take root in places it has never been
before. Pray that the Lord would have His hands in this ministry and the
spread of His Word.
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