USA (MNN) — "The world has lost a visionary," President Barack Obama said in a statement posted Wednesday night on the White House blog. "And there may be no greater tribute to Steve's success than the fact that much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented."
The devices he invented have also impacted the Kingdom for eternity. The technology has made possible the spread of God's Word to places never before imagined says Bill Lohr, spokesman for Faith Comes By Hearing.
FCBH specializes in distributing dramatized New Testament. Lohr says, "We have moved into the digital world in terms of getting God's Word out there in ways people can access it. And Apple has been a big part of that: Iphone, Ipad, the ITunes store, through our Bible.is ap — all of those areas they can actually touch God's Word now."
While Steve Jobs probably had no intention of helping Christians share God's Word into hard-to-reach areas of the world, that's exactly what has happened with this Iphone and Ipad technology. Lohr says, "Folks aren't looking at them as 'This is the Gospel' or 'This is a Bible coming in.' They're basically looking at it as technology. Being able to piggy-back that technology and put God's Word on those devices has really given us access to countries that sometimes are a little more difficult to get into."
This technology has had an incredible impact already. In just over a year, FCBH has seen millions worldwide download God's Word on their Iphones and Ipads. "5,812,562 downloads from the AP store. So, through that store which was created by Apple through Steve Jobs' undertaking, many people have been able to turn around and access God's Word."
The FCBH audio New Testament is available on Bible.is in 590 languages. Lohr says the future is bright with this technology. "In the next five years, there are going to be five billion of these smart phones in the market. That's five billion [people] who can be reached through this technology."
Lack of funding, however, is preventing FCBH from expanding to even more languages. "We do need to have the funds available to go out and do the recordings. Our partners need the funds to go out and do the translations. We need the funding to be able to keep [offering] these free."
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