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Dwell: a Deeply Satisfying Audio Bible App

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I have been a fan of audio Bibles for some time. First thing in the morning, while I’m dressing and brushing my teeth, I listen to the ESV: Through the Bible in a Year daily podcast. Then while exercising, I have often listened to a daily lectionary. And as I read and re-read books of the Bible to develop biblical thinking, I often alternate between reading and listening. In addition, we’re training our children for a lifestyle of devotional Bible “reading” through daily time with their own audio Bibles (a practice which has continued in our home long past the preschool years).

So I have tested many options for optimizing the audio Bible experience over the years. Some work out spectacularly. Others far less so.

And now that the Dwell audio Bible app is available, I’m happy to report it sits solidly in the spectacular category.

What is Dwell?

Dwell is not a CD set but a smartphone app. It’s currently available only for iOS, but an Android version is set to release in the next few months.

Dwell was designed from the ground up to be, not a Bible app, but a Bible listening app. You won’t find the text of Scripture anywhere in the app. All you will find is streaming audio of the Scripture being read.

Dwell uses the ESV translation (though they plan to add more over time), recorded by 4 voices with distinct accents and styles. You can set a default voice (my favorite is Felix, the East African), or have a random voice each time. Dwell offers 4 “album” options for contemplative background music, along with the option to turn the music off. You can set the volume for voice and for music independently to get the mix you most prefer.

The app allows you to listen straight through books of the Bible. It also has a library of “playlists,” which collect many verses around topics such as loneliness, creeds, the trinity, or God’s greatness. The app also has a library of “passages,” which are longer sections, but not entire books. So you can quickly choose selections such as Joseph’s story, the Sermon on the Mount, the fruit of the Spirit, or the friendship of David & Jonathan. Of these listening options, I most prefer entire books or passages; I find the playlists, with a few exceptions, to be somewhat arbitrary and unfortunately decontextualized.

Dwell also has many (currently 34) listening plans, such as Esther in 10 days, Psalms in 30 days, or Jesus’ miracles in 7 days. If you’re into daily routine, these plans are incredibly easy to use.

Dwell’s Limitations

You’ll want to know four things up front about Dwell before diving in:

  1. Dwell is still very much a work in progress. The user interface is highly polished and easy as can be, but the content is not yet complete. As of this writing, only the New Testament, Genesis, Exodus, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, Esther, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Hosea, Joel, and Jonah are available. But I have been surprised at how quickly new OT books have been added since the app’s release. As they receive more funding, they are quickly recording, editing, and releasing new content.
  2. Which brings me to the topic of funding. If you think of Dwell as only a smartphone app, you may be disappointed to hear that it costs money. (Note: There is a free version, which gives you access to only one voice, regularly interrupted by advertisements to buy the premium version. I found the ads to be frustratingly disruptive to the experience, such that I’d recommend only going unlimited unless you’d like to try before you buy.) But if you think of it as a deluxe audio Bible, the pricing fits about what you might expect. I eagerly supported Dwell when it was on Kickstarter, and I’m making copious use of my lifetime unlimited subscription. Dwell is delivering all that was promised and more.
  3. Dwell works only as a streaming service. You cannot download the audio files for offline playing. Since it consists of four entire audio Bibles (the four voices), the producers believed it to be too costly space-wise to store locally on people’s devices. So it functions only with an active internet connection. This might cause minor delays between tracks/chapters as your phone loads the new file, depending on the speed and quality of your internet connection.
  4. At this point, you cannot customize playlists or listening plans. The app is under vigorous development, however, so I wouldn’t be surprised if these features eventually show up.

Conclusion

I am thrilled with Dwell, and with the way it does everything possible to streamline the Bible listening experience. I can’t wait until the OT is finished, and they launch some through-the-Bible-in-a-year listening plans. This will no doubt replace my daily ESV podcast.

Dwell can’t compete with the quality of dramatization in NIV Live, but it doesn’t try to. For now, Dwell can hold a co-regency with NIV Live in my voracious Bible listening lifestyle. I highly recommend it to you.

The Lost Skill of Listening to the Bible

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Last week, The Gospel Coalition published an article with the intriguing title “Don’t Just Read the Bible.” I was expecting the article to be about Bible study (Don’t just read the Bible but study it.) But in fact, the author went in a different direction: Don’t just read the Bible; listen to it being read.

I have valued Bible listening for quite some time, which is why I’m happy to allow for audio-Bible listening in our 90-day reading challenge. Listening to the Bible is a marvelous way to soak in the big picture, the main ideas, the overarching story line. And in his TGC article, Jonathan Bailey makes a good case for the practice:

So how do reading and listening shape us in different ways? When we read, our default tendency is to study, to pull apart the text and piece it back together, and to draw conclusions. We’re after comprehension: to grasp with the mind, to sharpen our thinking, to learn, and, above all, to understand. When we read, we want to get something out of it. 

When we listen, we have to leave all that behind. We lose our ability to be precise; there’s no underlining, cross-referencing, or consulting commentaries. Listening is more leisurely. When we listen we’re after apprehension: to lay hold of something, or better said, to have something lay hold of us.

Now of course, comprehension is not a bad thing. But I certainly appreciate the useful distinction between comprehension (getting something out of it) and apprehension (merely beholding the wonder). This sounds just right. And anyway, having our own Bibles to read is a rather recent development in the history of the world. Before the 16th century, most people would only get to listen.

So in the bio at the bottom, I noticed that Mr. Bailey just launched a Kickstarter project for a new Bible listening mobile app. An app designed to perfect not the reading experience but the listening experience. Different vocal tracks with a variety of English-speaking accents. Seamless synchronization. Original music scored to highlight the text. Listening plans and playlists.

I must say I am impressed. So impressed that I immediately backed the project to get a lifetime subscription to the app. Perhaps you might want to consider this project as well. It became fully funded within 3 days, but it’s still open to new backers. The more they raise, the more features they can add at launch. But regardless of how much they raise now, it sounds like many more features will come over time.

So I encourage you to check it out! Here is the Kickstarter campaign for the listening app. And here is the article at TGC about the unique value of listening to the Bible.