Could we have The Bible for Telephone Users please? It seems to me that many users of the telephone ignore the basic biblical principles of Christian behaviour when they pick up the handset to make a telephone call.

Such a version would, first, remind Chris­tian telephone users that they have no claim on anyone else's time. It is enough to redeem our own without stealing someone else's. We ought to remind ourselves that for the other party to answer our call is for them to concede time to us, and not for us to demand time of them. Yet very few people inquire as to the convenience of telephoning at a specific time. One may be cooking, childminding, reading, studying, (or all four simultaneously) but some other one is demanding one's immediate and prolonged at­tention. Is this caller really loving his neighbour as himself?

Such a version would also remind Bible-reading users of the telephone that the Word of God forbids gossiping, slandering or backbiting. More rumour, innuendo and character assassination are perpetrated over the telephone line than across any other medium. And Christians are not free from the temptation to preface sentences of dubious worth with words like 'what I heard was...' or 'it seems that...' The telephone, useful as it is as a medium of communication, facili­tates the sin of 'secretly slandering one's neighbour' (cf. Psalm 101:5), and accom­modates the 'debates, envyings, wraths, strifes, backbitings, whisperings, swellings and tumults' proscribed in 2 Corinthi­ans 12:20. So this version would highlight Ephesians 4:29 - Let no corrupt communi­cation proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.

And such a version would also re­mind Christians that they have a duty to encourage. In Deuteronomy 1:38, and again in 3:28, the children of Israel are specifically commanded to encourage Joshua. 1 Thessalonians 5:14 exhorts breth­ren to encourage the fainthearted, and Hebrews 10:24 exhorts us to consider one another, to provoke unto love and good works. How often have we used the tel­ephone line for these ministries of encour­agement and strengthening? As soon as a complaint is to be made, it buzzes into action. But words of encouragement are not so readily sent down the line to those who need it most.

And the one outstanding motto of the Christian telephone user should be: Let your speech be always with grace, sea­soned with salt, that ye may know how to answer every man (Colossians 4:6).