This sponsored post was written by Cory Verner, Co-founder of christianaudio.com
My first experience with audio Bibles was probably similar to yours, and on my commute, back in the 90’s I bought my first set (or should I say case) of cassettes to listen to in the car. It came with a whopping 48 cassettes that snapped nicely into their molded casing. It took up more of my passenger seat than I’d like to admit, but I was excited to get listening. Selecting the right tape was a bit of a challenge to say the least, but once you found the right one, it wouldn’t lose your place and they proved to be surprisingly durable. My initial enthusiasm slowly faded as the pain of swapping cassettes set in and they began to collect dust.
Once cars came equipped with CD players, I purchased a set of CDs thinking they’d make my listening easier. They still came in a big case, but luckily the CDs fit in a nicely packaged wallet. This cut down on clutter and made it so someone could actually sit in my passenger seat. It was easier to jump to the track I was looking for, but it was still burdensome and unfortunately, CDs were much less convenient than I thought they’d be. Scratches and skipping became the norm, making it even harder to find the passages I was looking for.
Since I prefer to go through the Bible on a reading plan that jumps between books, I knew I needed an easier way to navigate. When smartphones started to pick up steam, I thought the advance in technology would be an easy fix to my navigation quandary, so I picked up the New Testament from one of the big audiobook sites and dove right in. However, I was quickly disappointed. It wasn’t labeled by book and the app would randomly lose my place. I found myself longingly looking back to my laborious cassette days because at least I didn’t lose my place and books were clearly marked. It was a tough reminder that there still wasn’t a clear solution to the audio Bible problem. I guess it makes sense that a big audiobook website would treat the Bible just like any other audiobook because to them this isn’t something special — it’s just another audiobook. Their focus is audiobooks in general and they don’t quite understand how people listen to a Bible. It only worked well if you listened front to back like any other audiobook.
When I started christianaudio in 2004, I knew optimizing audio Bibles would be a focal point because it was at the core of who we were as a company. After all, we are Bible readers ourselves. Our goal is to get Bibles and helpful Christian books easily into everyone’s hands. We’ve given away millions of downloads including over 100,000 copies of the Bible and work with publishers to run frequent promotions on audio Bibles to make them as affordable as possible. We’re always working to improve the experience of listening to the Bible.
Early on we saw that people used audio Bibles differently than a normal audiobook and have gone through plenty of iterations. Admittedly, they were far from perfect initially and to this day we continue to improve our audio Bible delivery. We started with a big folder with every book of the Bible and then every chapter. After receiving valuable feedback, we realized this system was too complex. Since then, we have worked to make our Bibles the most accessible versions available on the web. We don’t just treat it like any old audiobook. We nest the chapters into their respective books making them easy to navigate and listen to. Using our Android or iOS apps, we strive to create the best experience to remove any barriers and make listening to God’s Word easily accessible, wherever you are.
If you’ve had a similar story to mine and have been a little let down by audio Bibles in the past, now is the time to give them another try.
FREE Audio Bible Offer
Right now at christianaudio.com over 6,500 audiobooks and Bibles are only $7.49 during the Twice-Yearly Sale. So you can select a few and see which one suits your preferences. Better yet, If you select the christianaudio KJV and use discount code “CHALLIES” at checkout you can get a great KJV audio Bible for FREE.
