What Am I Reading?

When I read, I usually have physical books that require setting up on my book board and page turning with my stick. It takes a bit of work, but it's what I prefer and I know what I'm reading. With digital books, that may not always be the case.

A couple years ago, I installed a program called Accordance. It's a Bible software program that allows you to study the Bible, compare English with Hebrew/Greek, and several other features. I mainly just use it for Scripture reference and some basic reading, so I have hardly looked at how to access all the available features. However, I have added a few electronic books to the program, other than Bibles.

One book is by Dr. James White, Qur'an: What Every Christian Needs to Know. I started reading it around November in order to help keep up my knowledge of world religions and how to bring toward

Christianity. The first chapter was interesting, but the next time I opened it, I had a list of word definitions. It had been a few weeks since I last read, so I figured I forgot something and Dr. White was defining key words or something.

Through December and January, I would return to it on occasion and reluctantly drudge through more definitions. I kept telling myself this section had to end soon and I would be back to the point. Just to be sure, I also checked the title and saw it was still on top.

Early this week, I saw an advertisement for more books available on Accordance (a weekly occurrence), but one screen shot showed the book's table of contents listed. I started my software, looked around, and saw the same button. Clicking it, the book I was reading only listed chapters with alphabet letters, A, B, C, etc. Therefore, I had been reading a dictionary for two months and not the book I thought I was in.

I closed the dictionary, clicked the same book title I had been seeing all along, but it now was a regular book. This week, I have returned a few times with much more enthusiasm and progressed through a few chapters.

If I was reading a "real" book, nothing like this would have happened. I'm not sure why it switched, but it may be a good idea to actually take some time and further learn about the software I'm using. Finding how to navigate between chapters in one click would have saved much scrolling in earlier books I've studied. I guess I will mark it as a quad life learning experience and go from there. Hopefully this coming week won't include any more surprises, but still learning opportunities.