International Bible Societies Sending Bibles to Cell Phones
The American Bible Society, together with the Bible Societies of Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Ireland, Scotland, England, Wales, Russia and South Africa, has introduced the first-ever web-mobile phone site to deliver Bibles around the world.
The project resulted from a collaboration with ChristianMobile - creator of VirtualBible, the first Bible to be sent via sms-text message – which implemented the direct-to-web consumer site wapbibles.com. The site is considered a breakthrough in Scripture promotion, as it makes the Bible available to a large population in a convenient and effective manner. Wapbibles.com offers Bibles to consumers in over 130 countries in multiple languages.
"The American Bible Society is pleased to partner with ChristianMobile to distribute Scripture in an innovative and highly accessible format," said John Cruz, vice president of Bible publishing at the American Bible Society, in a statement. "Through this creative technology, people can read the Bible's messages of inspiration, strength, courage and hope on their cell phones whenever and wherever they wish."
Besides the convenience of the Bible being sent to the phone, it is also easy for users to pay for the Bible. The service offers a variety of payment programs, including direct operator billing, Premium SMS, credit and debit cards, and PayPal. In that way, payment is compatible with most types of currency as well.
"The site will engage directly with its users in multiple languages in order to promote and sell a number of Bible Translations to users across all the mobile networks," explained Bertus Preller, marketing executive at ChristianMobile, in a statement. "The 'browse and buy technology' enables users to pay in a chosen currency and to download the Bible in easy steps."
People that are interested in the service simply have to log into website using their mobile phone and browse through what they want.
The company is also looking to broaden the distribution by engaging with more mobile phone carriers.
"It is a real honor to be an instrument in God's hands to spread the Gospel in such an exiting way," Preller concluded.