Be Thou My Vision — What’s Up With Bible Gateway?

Bible Gateway, which was once one of the premier Bible applications, is today struggling, beriddled with technical bugs and distracted from its mission.

Since the introduction of the printing press, the Bible has been a best-seller. So it was no surprise when one of the first things to see traveling over the Internet was the Bible. In fact, even before there was an Internet as such, there were Bible applications on CDs from which users could transfer to Palm Pilots and other portable devices. No longer would people have to feel awkward because they carried a Bible. No longer would school teachers be reprimanded if a Bible was found on their desk. Today, fifty-two countries actually ban the Bible. But what’s the point when it can fit into your watch?! Even if the text is prohibited on your electronic device, it is merely a link away.

As the Internet matured, so did the presence of on-line Bible resource sites. Suddenly available to the faithful were a virtually unlimited range of English versions, as well as an ever-expanding library of Bibles in foreign languages. Bible Gateway currently presents the Bible in 74 languages. In parallel to the book itself were offerings of Bible dictionaries, encyclopedias, atlases, commentaries and sermons. With the advent of the smartphone, the Bible, in its entirety, could neatly fit into the memory space.

Sample desktop shot of Bible Gateway — Bible Gateway’s key feature is a library of notes, favorites and highlighted themes.

I love marking up Bibles. I have a couple of printed Bibles that were custom designed for folks like me, with ample space in the margins for notes. For many years that was my mainstay. But over time I started using the on-line resources. After experimenting with various vendors, I chose Bible Gateway. At the time it was run by its original developers. It was a bit rough around the edges, but it was free. I found it particularly useful as a quick cut n’ paste resource, so I began to visit it more frequently. Its ability to highlight verses by theme and streamlining study history and searches made this program, as a desktop application, a valuable resource. I was a bit of a neanderthal when it came to smartphones, but I eventually succumbed and bought one around 2012. Yet it would be a few years before the phones were robust enough to handle the Bible Gateway app with an off-line version of the Bible. Once that was in place, however, it virtually replaced the printed copy. I began to keep my notes on the app. Its portability was the real selling point. I was surprised how often I would casually open up the Bible in situations where I previously could not.

The Need to Pay the Bills

As someone who helped run the operations of a cloud center, I am fully aware of the assets that are required to deliver an on-line presence. They are, compared to years past, quite cheap. But not free. Eventually everything needs to be “monetized.” Even services provided for free have a funding source (usually donations) that pays for the network racks, the servers, the website developers, the storage servers, the backups and redundancy. Bible Gateway was no exception and it was not a surprise to learn that Zondervan publishing company purchased Bible Gateway in 2008. For the original founders, it was a way out with some reward. For Zondervan, however, it was a speculative opportunity. The potential was there, but like anything else Internet-related, the potential had to be monetized in some way.

Not new was the subscriber option. Everyone does this. You have a free service out there that whets the appetite, so why not add a subscription-based service that is more advanced and feature rich? But added to the free app was a plethora of ads. If you subscribed, the ads would vanish. The ads were a bit annoying, but I just ignored them for the most part and moved on. The ads were normally related to religious themes, so once in a while I would see something interesting and check it out. Yet, over time, the ads got more random. I smelled Google Adsense. I, like millions of other sites, utilize Google Adsense to deflect some of the costs of running a site. It is easy to set up, you can customize it to some degree and, generally, presents ads that are appropriate to the theme of the page.

So the bottom line is that Zondervan has chosen to run the site at least to break-even. No surprise here. And not really a basis for a complaint.

But What is This?

Around 2022 things began to change. The first thing I noticed was that upon bringing up the app on my phone it would present some gaming software ad, something completely unrelated to reading the Bible. It was quite annoying because it ran counter to my mindset. I would be sitting in church, open the app and have to wait several seconds for Tank Battles to finish up before the “X” appeared in the upper right corner so I could close the window.

Now one thing tech-savvy Christians are good at is finding the “silence” function on the phone. Nothing is more embarrassing than to hear your phone sound-off during the Lord’s Prayer. I usually switch to silent-mode. So you need to appreciate my surprise when during a men’s prayer breakfast I opened up Bible Gateway, the tank battle ad pops up and it OVERRIDES the silent-mode setting! Aside from a few laughs around the table, it was somewhat embarrassing.

So I did the next best thing. I sent Bible Gateway a note about it. Response? Crickets.

The subliminal effect was that I turned my volume down rather than switch to silent mode. But it substantially reduced my respect for the application. First, the ad that is presented when you start the app is an annoying delay. Next, the silliness of the ad. Now, a programming bug that overrides the silent-mode. Finally, a rather well-informed report that is ignored.

But … I stuck with the program. As I traveled frequently this year, I discovered I was often in situations where I had no WiFi. Furthermore, I typically turn off my WiFi when traveling. What I discovered was another “feature”. The so-called “off-line” option was no longer available! From my observation, the ad that is first presented depends on locating a hosting website. The developers of Bible Gateway apparently hard coded this process, so if there is no WiFi, the program simply freezes. The solution is simply revise the code so that the WiFi service is checked before the ad is requested. If the WiFi is off, the ad request is skipped. If the WiFi is on, then access to the ad site is checked. If the ad site is not cleared in a given amount of time, then the ad request is skipped. So, once again, I offered my insight to the support site for Bible Gateway. This time I got a response. More on that later.

After running more tests, it was apparent that the off-line Bible I had downloaded was no longer accessible. Bible Gateway continues to offer a feature where you can presumably download an entire Bible so you can use it while off-line. That worked for several years. Now it does not. I retested this option and conclude that its capability or availability is a bit confusing.

It Got Worse – So I Brought Up Plan B

Capture of gaming advertisement on Bible Gateway. — Example of a gaming ad that locks up the smartphone.

Recurring annoyance about the program led me to try something quite simple – installed the app from Gideons International. Nothing fancy here. Only two versions of the English Bible are available: good ol’ King James and the New English Bible. Yet, as I mentioned above, I had a lot of history with Bible Gateway. So I recently tried to once again bring up Bible Gateway to check out some notes. I turned the volume down to zero, opened up the app only to see it freeze up, full-screen, on some stupid game. I could not even close the ad. Alas, the program is virtually worthless as a smartphone app. As regards using it on my desktop? No problem. It is a great desktop app with none of those annoying ads popping up.

The “freeze up” is some times not trivial. On several occasions the ad is presented, fails to present the “X” to cancel the ad, and completely locks up the phone. The only solution is what the IT Crowd guys always suggested. “Try turning it OFF and ON again!”

To Their Credit

My second attempt to convey these issues generated a response. I was not satisfied with the response because the advice they gave deflected from the issues rather than directly engaging a conversation. I was told to do a screen capture and send them an example. I found this rather baffling because it seemed obvious to me that testing the app should be a routine aspect of the development cycle. I brought up several questions:

Deflection from mission (a marketing problem)
Inappropriate ads (lack of media control)
Non-cancelleable ads (abuse of privilege)
Override of silence settings (violation of security guidelines)
System lockup (possible malware or significant programming failure)

So I took it one step further. It took a lot of probing but somewhere I located the phone number to Bible Gateway, or HarperCollins Christian Publishing, in Nashville. Finding phone numbers that actually have a human being on the other end is almost impossible these days. An automated answering service responded to my call, but I was able to leave a message for the development team of Bible Gateway. To their credit, they answered. The man who called me was well-informed and we had a good conversation about these issues. Alas, he was a customer service representative, but it was obvious he was upper tier. He wasn’t reading from a script.

What I learned was the following:

Bible Gateway, while not disclosing how they manage ads, employs filters. If you come across an ad you consider offensive or abusive, you can do a screen capture and send it customer support.
They also suggested that I mark the ad as unacceptable. I know how to do this, but the phone app is so unstable that option is never presented.
They were aware of the silence-override problem and they will be addressing this problem with their next update.

Not Exactly “Gone Woke, Gone Broke”

The last few years have seen the recurrence of embarrassing marketing failures dubbed as “gone woke, gone broke.” From what I can gather, Bible Gateway was swallowed up by Zondervan (a Christian publishing company) then HarperCollins (a secular publishing company) purchased Zondervan. In essence, an application born from the passionate desire to make the Word of God available to everyone is now in the hands of a secular operation. HarperCollins publishes books directed at almost any type of customer imaginable and it should not be a surprise that they have a rather broad, inclusive social policy. How this affects their Christian Publishing division is unclear. What I have sensed about Bible Gateway is not that it has “gone woke,” but that like all the other marketing failures, it has lost sight of its mission. It has lost touch with its customer base. My guess is that Bible Gateway will be history unless ….

Well, I may be too late. It appears that Zondervan is indeed hot on the trail to “gone woke, gone broke.” Since the 1990’s, Zondervan has pursued the idea of a “gender neutral” revision of the New International Version (NIV) Bible. The NIV is the predominant modern translation of the Bible in circulation today. Several Christian denominations and organizations banned what was dubbed the TNIV back in the early 2000’s. So this sort of controversy is old news, predating the progressive madness we have encountered in the past ten years. Yet Zondervan has not given up, recently announcing a so-called “DEI-friendly” study Bible titled “The Upside-Down Kingdom” Bible, with a focus on diversity and inclusion. Zondervan’s insistence in pushing out this type of controversial commentary shows that it is willing to risk disengagement with its traditional customer base, risking the viability of its most successful project. As John Deere has recently discovered, its greatest asset was trust. Once lost, it is almost impossible to recover.

Conclusion

I originally jotted down this article in February 2023. So this was not a rush to judgment. But I eventually wrote this article because issues continued and the near impossibility of gaining meaningful customer support. To their credit, they did eventually respond. As a person who has been involved in system development for decades, rapid response to customer input should be a fundamental aspect of application development. Even after vigorous testing, there is nothing like the real world to expose bugs in a program. Yet it is clear to me that product development was lacking.

The subscription option is out there. For $50 a year! In other words, what it costs to purchase a decent quality leather-bound study Bible. A bit steep. And based on Google Play comments, no guarantee that the paid version is free of the same bugs. As I noted above, I decided to try an alternative application from Gideons International. It has worked well. I still use Bible Gateway on my home computer and have found it to be a helpful resource for some of my writing projects. I now carry an old printed Bible to church and small group gatherings. Back to basics.

One suggestion would be for Bible Gateway to provide off-line downloads of public domain versions of the Bible. This would avoid any copyright issues. Another option would be to offer copyrighted translations for a small fee, similar to what is done on Kindle.

For Zondervan, if these bugs are unintentional, they need to ramp up the customer support. What I reported was clear and was obviously code-related. Those kind of reports should be easy to flag. Responding to the customer during the process is always helpful. But if these “bugs” are actually intentional, designed to force the user to subscribe, it is unfortunate. Bible software is a bit peculiar. It’s audience is rather unique. Taking what is “freely given” and charging a fee to use it is a risk. The end result may be ditching the project or spinning off Bible Gateway from the Zondervan empire. I may not be far off the mark, seeing that Zondervan is a collaborator with the most popular Bible app today — YouVersion.

To say the least, it breaks my heart to see this Bible app descend into the backwater. Google Play reports one million plus downloads. This compares to 100 million plus for the Holy Bible app and the YouVersion app. These apps have ratings of 4.8 and 4.9 respectively, compared to an abysmal 2.8 rating for Bible Gateway. Some sources report as many as 700 million downloads of the Bible over the years. That is a massive market that Zondervan and HarperCollins have squandered.