Category Archives: Bible Study

Technology and Sexual Temptation

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            As Christians we believe that the Bible is God’s word to man, and a Christian man who is trying to be faithful to his Lord will try to govern his life according to God’s will as given in the Bible.

            The purpose of this series of articles has been to examine the relationship between technology and the Christian. In this last section I want to look at the issue of technology and sexual temptation. However, I think that in order to explain the sexual implications of technology I need to lay the groundwork of a few principles from the Bible that I’m assuming in this discussion.

            The first thing we need to remember is that God created sex and sexuality. Sex in itself is not a dirty or vulgar thing. It is a God-given gift. Next, we need to remember that God has told us in Scripture that sex is to be enjoyed, but that enjoyment is to be within the relationship of marriage between a man and a woman. All through the Bible the rightful sexual relationship within marriage is praised and held up as a joyful thing, not as a vulgar thing.

            After Adam sinned, man’s nature became sinful in all areas of his being and strong desires, which the Bible calls lusts, began to have a dominant force in a person’s life. The Bible says that the strong desires of the body (or the flesh as the Bible describes it), the strong desires coming through our vision, and the pride of life, are not from God the Father, but are part of the world system. (I John 2:16)    These strong desires are very difficult to overcome, and without the Spirit of God at work, it’s almost impossible.

            When a person comes to Christ, God gives him His Spirit and divine power to enable him to overcome these desires and to live a life that pleases God. We need to recognize that God has given us commands and directives because He is the one who created us, and He knows best what is good for our well-being. We should never look at the commandments of God as though they were meant to spoil our fun. When we buy a product, a manufacturer will enclose a list of instructions that show the proper way to use the device. For example, we are perhaps not supposed to use the device in the water. It may cause damage to the device or injury to us. These are rules written by the ones who know best how things are supposed to work. The same is true of God’s rules for us.

            The Bible describes sexual sin with several different terms. One term, porneia, is used for any sexual sin that is outside of the norm and standard that God designed.  The Greek word I referred to here you will recognize as the root word for our word pornography. Another Greek term is translated adultery and usually refers to sexual sin committed by a married person. Another couple of terms refer to sexual sin as uncleanness or lewdness. God uses all of these words to describe sins whereby we violate God’s standard for our sexual behavior.

            Let’s look at some of the descriptions the Bible lays out. Let’s start with what Jesus actually said. In Mark 7:21 Jesus, speaking about the fact that sin comes from within a man, says, “For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality (porneia, fornication),…adultery, …sensuality (lewdness, sexual excess). All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” Notice a couple of things here. First of all, they come from within. The Bible says that the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9). So the source of our difficulty is not from the outside, but is from within. James writes that “each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.”

            Next we see that Jesus describes these actions as evil. Most of what happens sexually in our culture is not considered evil by most people. The Bible has a different approach.  It makes a clear-cut statement that sexual immorality is to be avoided and shunned.  Lastly, we notice that they defile a person. We defile ourselves from what comes from within ourselves. Defilement means we make ourselves dirty and unfit for service for God

            Paul, writing to the Romans in 13:13 says, “Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality (free and easy sex) and sensuality.”  In the next verse he tells us to make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.”  In other words, we should not make it easy to serve our lusts. Paul writes similar things to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 12:21.

            To the Ephesians in 5:3 he writes, “But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking which are out of place. Be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.”  In other words, God’s wrath is coming because people engage in these behaviors. Why would we as Christians want to be a participant?

            Finally, let’s look at what the Apostle Peter wrote in his first letter. In 4:2 he says that we should live “no longer for human passions but for the will of God. The time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality (lewdness, sexual excess), passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry.”  He is basically saying that we need to put our past behavior behind us and live for God from here on out. And the life we live for God is different from the description of our past life. Christians don’t behave the same as non-Christians when it comes to sexuality.

            With that background in mind, how does technology fit into the picture? Technology, whether it is TV, video, or Internet based, can bring us realistic portrayals of sexual situations that in turn trigger the strong sexual desires that are built into us. With men, the strong desires that are aroused through what we see can be very powerful. The Bible calls these lusts. These lusts then can give rise to sin if not dealt with.

            Jesus tells us that, “whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Matthew 5:28. From this simple statement, we can see that Jesus’ standard is very high. If we are to avoid this kind of potential sexual sin, we need to take precautions.  Jesus’ very next statement is to say that if our eye offends us, we should pluck it out. Now we could debate whether he was serious, or whether he was using hyperbole to prove a point, but nevertheless, it’s obvious he takes this very seriously, and we should take whatever precautions we can to avoid this sort of sinning. The Apostle Peter wrote to his readers, “I beg you to abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul.” (I Peter 2:11) Peter knew that lusts and strong desires can actually make war against our very souls. We are to abstain from such lusts. They can harm us deep within our psyche. Paul told Timothy to flee from such lusts. So the admonition for us is to do whatever we can to avoid situations that produce these self-destructive lusts and enable them to flourish.

            The problem with lust is that it is never satisfied. Sexual immorality of all kinds promises that it will meet the inner longings of our souls, but it never does. We are trapped into an ever-deepening desire for more, and the satisfaction we derive from our sin becomes less and less. God’s secret to happiness is what Jesus taught the people in the Sermon on the Mount—Happy is the man who hungers and thirsts for righteousness.  While this seems totally foreign to the modern mind, it is God’s way of finding satisfaction. Do we believe God or the world system? Our direction and focus need to be toward a life of righteousness.

            In Ephesians 5:10, Paul tells us that we should find out what pleases the Lord. In verse 11 he tells us not to have any fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, and then in verse 12 he explains that it is shameful to even speak about things which are done by them in secret.  In other words, there are things that displease God that people do in secret, and it’s shameful for Christians to even speak about these things. But isn’t this what happens when we view certain scenes on TV or over the Internet? Aren’t we looking in on what people are doing or talking about in secret?

            So let’s take these ideas and put them together. We as Christians are to avoid the immorality that is initiated in our minds by the things which we see, and we are to not even talk about the kinds of things that people do under the cover of darkness or in secret. Focusing our attention on these things can trigger strong desires that war on our souls and do great spiritual damage.

            So what does that tell us about TV viewing for example? Doesn’t this mean that we should take every precaution in our viewing to avoid those programs and commercials that either trigger immoral thoughts in our minds, or display or discuss immoral activities in detail?  In this case, I’m not even talking about pornography. I’m just suggesting that we take great care not to become careless and accustomed to immorality and casual sexual content because in doing so, our own minds can become fertile ground for imagined sexual activity that Jesus condemns.

            If these things are true, then what does that say about actual pornography? There’s no question that exposure to graphic sexual material will produce strong sexual lusts in our minds and in our bodies that we cannot legitimately act upon from God’s point of view. This being the case, we as Christian men need to take every precaution to avoid getting ourselves into the trap that pornography represents.

            Technology itself can be addicting as we have discussed before. When you add pornography to the technology, you have a powerful mix. The Bible often speaks of diligence when it comes to the Christian life. It takes a great deal of diligence to avoid the entrapping nature of pornography. What are some of the things we can do to avoid the trap?

            First, I think we need to look at our lives to see if we really have the desire to live a life that is honoring to God no matter what the cost. This is where a lot of it falls down. We may claim that we are Christians, and we very well may be, but we don’t really want to sacrifice the time and attention that it takes to live a consistent, biblical, righteous Christian life. We may enjoy our sin too much! We may believe that God isn’t really interested in our good if He would withhold all of these things from us and ask us to live such a narrow life. So we need to make up our minds. Do we want a God-honoring life or not?

            Second, we need to look at our personal spiritual disciplines carefully. Are we regularly taking the time to pray? Are we reading, studying, and meditating on the Scriptures regularly? Are we regularly involved with other Christians in fellowship, prayer, and ministry? If not, we are making ourselves vulnerable in many areas including our sexuality. If you are weak in any of these areas, take immediate steps to improve. Start today by getting in the Word and taking time to pray. Don’t make any excuses to miss church on Sunday. If there’s a church prayer meeting going on somewhere near you, be there.

            In addition to making sure our Christian life is being supported the way it needs to be, here are some other steps you can take to increase accountability and provide protection for yourself and your family.

1. Make sure TV viewing is open and public within the home. Children should not have televisions in their rooms where they can watch what they want without supervision.

2. If you live alone and can’t control what you watch, get rid of the TV. If you can’t handle the Internet, have it disconnected (Remember Jesus telling us to pluck out our eye or cut off our arm?)

3. Computer use should be open and public within the home—for everyone. Children should not have computers with Internet access or DVD capabilities in their rooms. They may fight you on this and tell you what every other child gets to have, but that’s ok. We are Christians who desire to please God, and so we have different procedures.

4. Husbands, give your wife complete access to your computer, your browsing history, your Facebook passwords… everything. Ask your wife to keep you accountable.

5. Establish an accountability partner who has your permission to ask you anything he wants about your viewing and browsing habits.

6. If necessary, sign up for a filtering service that will email your browsing history to your wife or an accountability person.

7. Under no circumstances should teenagers have a smart phone. That sounds radical, I know, but why do any of us have to have access to the Internet 24/7? Do you honestly think a 16-year-old boy can keep away from pornography if he has Internet access on his phone wherever he is? Think about it! If your son wants to know why you don’t trust him, explain that you don’t even trust yourself.

In conclusion, we realize that developments in technology will continue. We have no way of knowing what the future will bring, and what kinds of devices we will have to adjust to in the years ahead. But know this, we must live for the glory of God in all areas of life, and technology is one of those areas that needs to be brought under the Lordship of Christ. We need to be discerning, and we need to pass on discernment skills to our children, so they won’t be overwhelmed by the alluring, addicting devices that are sure to come. Let’s pray earnestly and ask God for the wisdom we all will need to live lives that are pleasing to Him in all areas.

Technology and Interpersonal Relationships

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Technology and Relationships

            I think all of us have seen the bizarre sight of a man and woman across from each other in a restaurant each texting or talking to someone else. I saw something similar to this on a beautiful evening while walking down the sidewalk. Toward me came a man and woman walking side by side. Both of them had a phone up to their ear talking to someone elsewhere. It seemed to me that in so doing they were missing both the potential communication with the other person as well as all of the interesting sights and sounds of their actual location.

            Why do we do this to ourselves? What is it about remote contacts that is more appealing than those we are with?  There is a danger here that I don’t think many people think about. If the person you are with is someone near and dear to you such as a wife or a child, and if you repeatedly move yourself from attending to them to attending to someone else (or something else), the relationship changes and is ultimately harmed in some way. It may not be damaged over night, but in time the relationship will not be as strong as it should be.

            We are already familiar with the jokes about the husband who is distracted by a newspaper or a ball game when his wife is trying to talk to him. Think about how much greater the barrier is when there is an actual person on the other end of a conversation who is getting precedence over one’s own spouse. This kind of thing will certainly happen from time to time, but let’s just imagine the scenario that every evening one spouse is texting some invisible person to the neglect of the person right there in front of him. Doesn’t that have the potential to break down the communication and put distance between the two of them? What if they both are doing it? They are each receiving some sort of fulfilling input from a source other than their spouse. Over time, this has to have a damaging effect on the relationship.

            Read what one anonymous reader posted on my blog in response to a technology article:

I read through what you wrote……my comment combines a few, as I am having jealousy issues with my husband’s cell, FB usage, iPad etc. Mostly it is the cell phone usage with access to FB. We have only been married a short time *less than a year* and this is a big issue for me- as it takes away from our time together whether at home, at restaurants, the mall, even at times, at church. Lately I have been praying for patience and understanding…. understanding as to why he chooses it over me. We also, btw, have 4 kids with us at any given time. I am going to read through some of the other postings for enlightenment. But, my stance is: these pieces (cell, iPad, FB) can hurt a person or a relationship just by sucking up the TIME it takes away from a loved one.

            Let’s consider another scenario. A family of five is home for the evening for a change. Dad and mom decide to watch a movie. The children don’t want to watch that particular movie, so the first child goes to his room to watch something he’s interested in on his computer. The next child props his feet up in the family room and listens to his favorite playlist on his phone. And the last child texts back and forth with one of her friends from school. In some homes this is normal. It happens every day.  Do you see a problem here? The family is together, but not communicating.

            Next consider the fact that self-centeredness is fed by this scenario. No one has to learn to appreciate the other person’s taste in music or movies. No one has to learn to share. Everyone can have what suits himself. Sister is not required to talk to brother if she doesn’t want to. While this might seem like a reasonable thing in today’s world, for the Christian it is not the direction we want to go.

            I’ve discovered that living the Christian life is an extremely difficult thing especially when it comes to our relationships with others, especially when those others are members of our family. If we are to become the kind of people God wants us to be, don’t we have to learn the skills that He values?

Let’s look at some relevant scripture passages:

Ephesians 5:25 Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. (Emphasis mine.)

Philippians 2:3 In lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself.

Romans 12:10 In honor giving preference to one another

Galatians 5:13 Through love serve one another.

Deuteronomy 6:7 You shall teach them (God’s words) diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie  down, and when you rise up.

Romans 15:1-2 Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, leading to edification.

            After reading passages such as these, I learn that my role as husband and father is one that is supposed to be other focused. I am to be attentive to the needs of my wife, not only giving preference to her, but making sure that she is built up spiritually and emotionally. I am to esteem her as better than myself when it comes to preferences in the use of time, money and activities. I am not to be focused on pleasing myself but on her good so she can be built up in her faith and character.

            In addition, I am to spend time at all times of the day instilling in my children the words and commandments of God. My focus personally and for my family is one that is to have a God-ward direction. I’m to make sure that I am teaching my children to be focused on the needs and interests of others rather than the natural tendency to focus on self.

            However, when I make arrangements for each of my children to have his/her own electronic entertainment, I am teaching them that they don’t have to learn to cater to the desires and preferences of others. I am teaching them that each of us can have what we want. Some may argue that such arrangements are not taking away from the preferences of others because they too get to listen to or watch what they want. But the issue is in learning to communicate and to submit to one another. It’s difficult to let another person have the choice of the music that I have to listen to or the movie we’re going to watch. Why should I have to watch a movie my sister picked out?! My selfish self rebels against this. If we all have to watch the same movie or listen to the same music and share the same space, we learn to put others first and to share. This doesn’t come naturally, but it is what God wants from us. And as parents we need to make our daily instruction an integral part of our dialogue throughout the day’s activities. Our decisions about how we use technology impact that daily instruction. If everyone including parents is distracted with their own movie, playlist, Facebook page, and text messages, where are the opportunities going to come from for sharing the Christian life with one another?

            It takes time to build and nurture relationships. It takes time for me to nurture the relationship with my wife and children, and it takes a lot of practice for children to learn to relate with each other in the way I’m describing. The fact that our technology has become ubiquitous and personal has worked against us in the area of personal relationships. In fact, just this week as I was working on this, (January 2012), CNN had an article on how multitasking hinders young people’s social skills. http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/25/tech/social-media/multitasking-kids/index.html)

            We need to take steps to reverse the trend and nurture the personal relationships in our lives the way God intended. As parents we need to make sure we are fulfilling God’s desire for us to train up our children in the way they should go. As spouses, we need to fulfill God’s design for marriage by being all there for our spouse throughout the moments of every day.

            As I was thinking through the thoughts I shared last time, I was thinking through the difference between the way we interact with technology and the way we used to interact with newspapers or books. We’ve all seen the older sitcoms where a woman would be trying to speak to her husband, but he would be hiding behind a newspaper. He was shutting her out of his world during the time he was reading the paper.

            My dad was a pastor. He loved to read, and so he almost always had a book with him. When we’d go on vacation, as soon as he had a chance, he would sit down somewhere in the shade and read his book. This would sometimes perturb my mother because she often had other ideas of what she would rather have him do with his time, especially time she considered to be family time.

            In both of these scenarios, it’s important for a husband to learn to be attentive to the needs and desires of his wife and family. It was still possible to be withdrawn and separated from those around us even when the technology consisted of paper and ink.

            But I’ve been asking myself the question as to whether our issue today is just another version of the same thing, or is it fundamentally different? On the surface there are some of the same issues. I can be reading the daily news on my phone when my wife wants to get my attention about something. A phone isn’t as big as a newspaper, and so she can easily see my face.  Or, I can be on vacation, and when I think I have a good opportunity, I can go off somewhere and read a book on a Kindle. Is this different or the same as what happened in previous generations?

            On another level, the two media pose completely different circumstances that I think we as Christians need to look at very carefully. With print media, one is normally locked into one task. When I’m reading a book, everyone around me knows I’m reading a book. If I decide I’d like to check on the yesterday’s sports scores, I will put down the book and go pick up the newspaper. If my son is reading the sports page, I have to wait until he’s finished. I don’t know how other people are, but very seldom, if I had five minutes of free time between getting dressed and leaving for work, would I go find my book, pick it up, and read a page. Because I wasn’t used to so much distraction and multi-tasking, my brain didn’t think it needed to find some little thing to do during every quiet space in the day.

            How do things differ now with technology? Let me use myself as an example. I have a phone that I use for just about everything except typing. I mean I can study my Bible, check the weather, read the news, read any number of different books, play games, text people, send out tweets, check on Facebook, etc. Because I am older, I tend to use this tool more like I would the device it replaces. In other words, when I read, I tend to read it the way I would a book. Younger people tend to be much more distracted and multi-tasking than I am. But having said that, I have noticed some tendencies that automatically come with this type of technology.

            I may be reading my Bible and meditating on it, but then wonder what today’s weather is going to be. So almost in mid-sentence I may switch over and check the weather. Then I’ll wonder what the 10-day outlook is and so might check that out. Needless to say, this breaks my train of thought. I may be reading another book, when I wonder if anyone has posted a response to a grandchild’s picture I posted on Facebook, and so might switch over there to see what’s been happening. Someone there may have referenced a cute YouTube video, and so I might check that out and chuckle as I see the inane antics of some 2-year-old. Meanwhile, the thoughts evoked by the book I was reading are long gone.

            All of the previous events can take place while I’m “reading” a text. But what about all of the other snippets of time that are spread throughout the day?  We have a tendency to check in with the technology in almost every spare minute. There is a pull there that was not present in the newspaper and book. I’m not saying there is anything innately wrong about that, but it has a pull. Can’t you feel it? You have a few minutes while your wife is putting dishes in the dishwasher, and so you check out the sports scores. She comes in the living room to find you looking at your phone. It was just a few seconds, and you found out what you wanted to know, and so you put it down. Later on, there’s a lull in the conversation, if you ever got started in a conversation in the first place, and so you check to see if anyone has updated Facebook. In a few more minutes you remember that you had put a bid on Ebay, and so you check your email for a minute to see if there’s a message there regarding your bid. Again, you set your phone aside, only to hear the familiar tone that tells you someone has texted you. It would be rude to leave it until tomorrow, so you quickly check to see what that was about. Oh, it was only Culver’s restaurant telling you you could get a buy-one-get-one free Sundae on Thursday between 4 and 5 pm. That was important, wasn’t it? Through all of this you are pulled aside from conversing with your wife or distracted from what your children are doing. Rather than talking to or playing with them, you are fiddling with your phone.

            Another difference I’ve discovered about technology media compared to print media is that it tends to hold our attention more. Often that’s because a video is somehow involved, or because the communication is fluid. That is, it’s changing. There are new postings and responses all of the time. It used to be when a person was reading a book, and another person in the room wanted to say something, it wasn’t too difficult to pull the attention away from the book to listen to the other person. When that happened to me, I would usually put a finger down where I had left off and then listen to what was being said and reply back and forth if that was called for. Now, when someone interrupts a person using a computer or phone or other device, it’s hard for the person to break away. There’s a tendency to keep looking back at the device that has grabbed our attention. This leaves the other person feeling like they are not as important as whatever it is that’s showing on the screen.

            One other related issue is that it used to be that when family gathered in the living room after a meal or whatever, they would easily carry on conversations. Even if someone was browsing a magazine or knitting or something like that, the conversation could continue. When there were normal lulls in the conversation, someone would bring up another topic, and the conversation would continue. What’s happening now is that we feel the tug to keep doing something “profitable” during those lulls, and so we pull out the phone or computer so that we can keep tabs on something else, other than what’s going on in the room. The problem is that it is not as easy to return to the conversation again, and people don’t know whether to interrupt or not. Some people even plan ahead so that they have their device ready for those lulls. When they do this, it looks to others like they are prepared for the conversation to be uninteresting and unimportant. It sends exactly the opposite signal from the one we should be sending.

            God is interested in interpersonal relationships. The members of the trinity have loved each other since eternity past and have been carrying on a loving communicating relationship forever. When God created us, he created us in his image. One of the things that means is that he created us as communicating beings. He gave us faces so that we could see one another as we communicated. We could read each other’s facial expressions, point of focus, eye movements, and so on. Proverbs 15:30 says the light of the eyes rejoices the heart.

            In his book The Next Story, Tim Challies explains that before the fall, God and man had direct communication. (page 93) He calls this immediate communication. The prefix im means not, as in immature, meaning not mature.  So immediate communication is communication that is not mediated. In other words, it is face to face with no intervening medium. Challies contends that this is God’s preference and ideal. He writes, “I would argue that it [mediated communication] is, in fact, a lower form of communication, one that is intended to be a mere supplement to our lives. The best relationships we can have are not those that rely on mediation, but rather the ones that allow for unmediated contact and communication.” By unmediated contact he means face to face communication. I agree with this assessment. We thank God for means of communication that allow us to be in contact with family and friends that are far away. Sending a letter or email or text message allows us to communicate with those with whom we cannot have immediate communication.

            When we were first created, God had face-to-face communication with us. After the fall, God basically turned aside in a way, and Adam, for his part, hid so God couldn’t see him. Ultimately God sent Jesus Christ to be the mediator between God and man so that fellowship and communion could exist. God wants immediate communication with us, and he desires that we have immediate communication with one another.

            But what’s happening now is that we turn our backs on the immediate communication we could be having with family or friends who are right with us and communicating in a mediated way with others. We are neglecting what is arguably the ideal method of communication and substituting an inferior type of communication on purpose. Besides switching to an inferior mode of communication, it is often communication with someone who is further removed from us relationally than those right around us.

            In her book Distracted, Maggie Jackson writes, “Moreover, a boundary-less world means that coming home doesn’t signal the end of the workday anymore than being on vacation is a time of pure relaxation, or being under one roof marks the beginning of unadulterated family time. We rarely are completely present in one moment or for one another….To cope and to keep up with our pulsing personal orbits, we live in worlds of our own making, grazing from separate menus, plugged into our own bedroom-based media centers, adhering to customized schedules. … Seventeen percent of the families in the UCLA study consistently ate dinner together. On weekdays, the parents and at least one child came together in a room just 16 percent of their time at home. True, hours together don’t automatically translate into intimacy. But if we can’t be bothered to keep coming together in the fullest, richest sense of the word, we lose the opportunity to form those deeper bonds. … Are we losing our willingness to wade down into the painful, soulful depths of human relations? ‘When you can have a face-to-face conversation, do you? When you’re right in very close proximity, do you bother?’ asked Ochs. ‘I’m afraid we’re going to wake up and think, “Oh my gosh, we could have been having a conversation.”’”

            My hope is that as Christians, we will not be absorbed into the world’s way of thinking about these things. Relationships are important to God. Satan would do all that he can to disrupt and destroy relationships because good relationships are an image of God and he hates that image to be portrayed with all of the love and self-sacrifice that is an accurate portrayal of God.

            Our technologies, as helpful as they are, have the capacity to disrupt and break down the most crucial and intimate relationships of the home and family. We must not be naive about this. We must be on the alert and take active steps to counter the communication breaking aspects of our technology. It makes no sense to use less than ideal communication media to communicate with people who are further removed from us, when the people we should be caring for are right there, and the means to communicate face-to-face is immediately available.

            So what are some steps we could take to counterbalance the tendencies we’ve discussed? Two choices are not really possible. The first is to throw our hands in the air and say we can’t fight it. It’s too hard, and we can’t make any progress. The other choice is to say that the good old days were better. Let’s get rid of all the technology and return to a previous life. That is not going to happen. So, what can we do?

  1. Realize and accept the fact that you do have the power to control the technology and to manage it for the glory of God.
  2. On the personal level, make the conscious decision that “wherever you are, be all there.” (Jim Elliott)
  3. Based on the previous decision, refuse to take cell calls, look at text messages or emails during times that call for your participation listening and interacting with others. That would mean during mealtimes either at home or in restaurants when you’re with others.
  4. Be careful even during group events such as watching a movie or ball game together. I have discussed the implications of multi-tasking on the brain as well as the importance of being involved socially with others, and so if you are involved in a shared experience, participate in that experience without being distracted by your technology.
  5. If you’re in the kind of setting where reading a physical magazine, book or newspaper would be appropriate, you should be able to read any of these on an electronic device as well. But beware of the tendency to jump from thing to thing. Control your self. Do not allow yourself to be controlled by the technology. Stay tuned to those around you so that you can be involved. If there are conversations going on around you, pay attention to one of them and join in. You don’t want to hear, “… isn’t that right, Roger,” and not know what they are talking about. It is not only embarrassing; it’s rude.
  6. Whether you’re with others or not, control the urge to flit around the internet, hitting links in an almost mindless way. Your brain will become less able to focus. If you find yourself doing this, find something constructive to do either with or without technology, but find something you can focus on for a long stretch.
  7. If you are a parent, this and the following suggestions are for you. Restrict cell phone use. Children do not need to be in communication with their friends at all hours. Perhaps they have a cell phone for safety reasons while away from home, but all phones go on the recharging table when they are home.
  8. There’s no good reason for children and teens to have smart phones. The Internet is not a safe place. As a young man told me just yesterday, “There is no good reason for a 15-year-old boy to have unlimited and unrestricted access to what’s on the Internet.”
  9. Children and teens shouldn’t have TV or computers in their bedrooms. Everything done on a computer should be out in the open in public.
  10. If you allow your children to use Facebook or other social media, you must be their friend online and read through what gets posted both to and from them. Be disciplined about this. It is part of your job. When they have new friend requests, ask them, “Who is that?”
  11. Teach your children electronic etiquette – No phones during meals; don’t interrupt a conversation with a friend to take a call or check a text message; etc.

References:

Bauerlein, Mark. The Dumbest Generation. New York: Tarcher/Penguin, 2008.

Carr, Nicholas G. The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. New York: W.W. Norton, 2010.

Challies, Tim. The Next Story: Life and Faith after the Digital Explosion. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011.

Jackson, Maggie. Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age. Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2008.

Also you might enjoy listening to http://www.albertmohler.com/2008/07/25/is-technology-distracting-us-to-death/

or this…

http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/06/23/tech.popcorn.brain.ep/?hpt=hp_c1

Technology and Reading

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Importance of Reading

            In the previous two sections I have discussed the fact that some of our technology has a way of increasing our distractedness and decreasing our ability to attend to or focus on a task for an extended period of time. In addition, technology has the potential to become an idol for us. One of the reasons that these issues concern me as a Christian, is that God has chosen to reveal Himself to us through His Word. That is, He has communicated with the human race through written words. If we do not know how to read, the communication from God is hindered. But most of us know how to read. The problem many have is the inability to focus for an extended amount of time in order to think about and analyze what God has said. In addition to not being able to focus, we have the problem of not being able to think deeply about the text.

            In Joshua 1:8, God says, “This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night.” He goes on to explain that meditating on it brings success in our lives. This is not the kind of success to which most Americans aspire, but it is the kind of success Christians should work toward. It is the successful life of faith that builds a strong relationship with God and with other people. This success is founded on the wisdom of God that is gained as we think about and reflect on what God has said.

            But in contradiction to this, we have developed a culture that is focused more on the visual media such as TV, movies, and Internet browsing.

Here’s an example of the time spent per day by percentages of young people on various media:

watch television: 84 percent 3:04 hours

use a computer 54 percent 48 minutes

read a magazine 47 percent 14 minutes

read a book 46 percent 23 minutes

play video games 41 percent 32 minutes at console; 17 minutes with handheld

watch videos/dvd 39 percent 32 minutes

watch prerecorded TV 21 percent 14 minutes

go to a movie; 13 percent.

(Dumbest, page 89)

            There are many hindrances to extended thinking and meditating on God’s Word. One of the more recent hindrances is the growing inability to focus on anything for an extended length of time. We are becoming more accustomed to reading web pages where there are multiple windows open begging us to look at them to see what is being advertised or what new event has been posted to Facebook. Throughout most of the texts we read online there are hyperlinks that tempt us to click in order to follow some rabbit trail of thought. While this helps us to extend our knowledge in some way, it also interrupts the flow of thought. Even if we don’t click on the link, we are interrupted by the split-second thought of the possibility of clicking on it. As I mentioned previously, these constant interruptions of our train of thought change the way we think so that it becomes more and more difficult to focus for an extended period of time. Just ask someone under the age of 35 how it would feel to sit down for 30 or 40 minutes to read their Bible and think about it, with no background music, no TV, no cell phone beeps, and no interruptions of any kind. Just the thought of it brings pain and panic. Or how about asking them to listen to even an interesting lecture for 45 minutes? More pain and more panic.

            Nicholas Carr, in his book The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, explains that research shows that the average person spends between 19 and 27 seconds at the most on any web page he visits.  How can a person who is used to this kind of scanning, sit down and hear from God through His Word? You simply can’t take in a page of Scripture in 19 seconds! Rather than doing a lot of reading ourselves and encouraging our children to read, we spend time in front of the TV or with our computers and teach our children to do the same!

            Consider the important impact reading time has on student performance in school:

“Buried in the depths of the Kaiser report Generation M is a startling finding about different media use and student achievement. It shows that leisure reading of any kind correlates more closely with a student’s grades than any other media. While eight to 18 year olds with high and low grades differed by only one minute in TV time, they differed in reading time by 17 minutes, (46-29) a huge discrepancy in relative terms ( a 36 percent drop in leisure reading for kids with low grades.” (Dumbest, page 90) What this is saying is that students with low grades spend considerably less time reading than students with good grades.

            We’ve become addicted to our screens: “The screen…promotes multitasking and discourages single-tasking, hampering the deliberate focus on a single text, a discrete problem. ‘Screen mindedness’ prizes using search engines and clicking 20 websites not the plodding, 10-hour passage through a 300 page novel. It searches for information, fast, too impatient for the long-term acquisition of facts and stories and principles.” (Dumbest, page 115)

            This kind of multitasking and rapid skimming is detrimental to grasping the facts, stories and principles found in any text, but most important for us, God’s Word.

            If you are a Christian, you need to take this information seriously. As a parent, you need to make sure that your young person is not losing his ability to concentrate. You have a responsibility to set the example and then establish the expectation that in your home there will be technology-free times when time is devoted to quiet reading and meditation. Just writing the previous sentence sounded strange. When does anyone have time where there is no input from TV, radio, or the Internet? Some people will suggest that reading is a thing of the past and is no longer necessary in our time when our technology serves as the conduit for our information. The problem is, and you need to think about this carefully – the problem is that the God of the universe has chosen to speak to us in written words. Those who cannot read those words either because of illiteracy or inability to focus, will not hear from God!

            But, you may say, is it necessary to read? What about listening to God’s Word? Doesn’t that count? The answer is yes, but how often does anyone sit and listen to the Word of God being read to them? How easy is it in our video-centric culture to sit and listen to words being read for an extended period of time with no other interruptions or input. I think you can see that listening happens less than reading does and is at least equally difficult.

            One of the things educators and researches are noticing is that we are becoming good at skimming, but we are losing our ability to interpret what we read accurately, as well as the ability to think carefully and deeply about what we read. The reason this is important is that when God communicates through words, He is communicating truth and concepts that are not necessarily understood with a quick skim. Many of the sentences in the Bible are long and complex, and many modern readers are unable to understand such complexity, whether it is in the Bible or a book about the Bible. Think about how important this is. God desires to speak to us through His Word, and we may be unable to understand what He is saying because we have become surface readers and have not trained our minds to think deeply and logically about what He is saying. That’s something that should not be dismissed lightly.

            So let me encourage those of you who desire to be faithful to God, to train yourself to put aside the technology and focus on the Word of God for extended amounts of time. Let me encourage you to insist that the children for whom you are responsible do the same. They will grumble and complain, but it is essential for them to learn how to hear from God.

            Read to children early in their life, and then encourage them to read for themselves throughout their growing up years. Have regular conversations with your children. You’ll be keeping the relationship strong, and at the same time you will be giving them the vocabulary they need to navigate through life.

            Mark Bauerlein writes, “Everything depends on the oral and written language the infant-toddler-child-teen hears and reads throughout the day, for the amount of vocabulary learned inside the fifth-grade classroom alone doesn’t come close to the amount needed to understand fifth-grade textbooks. They need a social life and a home life that deliver requisite words to them, put them into practice, and coax kids to speak them.” (Dumbest, page 138)

            This is especially true in the Christian home where you want your children to pick up the vocabulary that they need to describe God’s relationship to man and our relationship to Him. In a recent study of adolescents and twenty-somethings, it was observed that young people simply do not have the vocabulary to describe their thoughts and feelings about God and the truths the Bible teaches about God.

            Another thing that the all-encompassing presence of technology does is allows us to pursue topics that are of interest to us and to avoid topics that we don’t think are all that interesting. We can have it our way.  Now when it comes to educating our children and ourselves, it’s important to expose ourselves to things we may not necessarily be interested in. When someone proposes a class in some unfamiliar area of Christian doctrine, there is a tendency to avoid that class or to allow your children to avoid such a study.

            Bauerlein writes, “For education to happen, people must encounter worthwhile things outside their sphere of interest and brainpower. Knowledge grows, skills improve, tastes refine, and conscience ripens only if the experiences bear a degree of unfamiliarity.” (Dumbest, page 145)

            From this I take it that we shouldn’t try to get off easy when it comes to what kind of learning we subject ourselves or our children to. If we continually read things that we are already interested in, we won’t learn much. With our technology, the tendency is to read about and follow trains of thought that are of interest to us. Because there is so much information available, we do not need to explore the unknown or difficult. One would think that having the proliferation of technology would allow people to learn more and grow more. But the natural tendency is the reverse. It is not natural to delve into something difficult or that we think we wouldn’t understand. But if we don’t, our minds won’t be strengthened.

            As technology moves along, there is a tendency to substitute web reading for book reading. As an older person who was raised on books, I find that I read the web much the same way I read a book. This is not the case with younger readers. And if I spend more and more time reading online rather than in a linear text such as a book, my brain will be affected and changed as well. Book reading affects regions of the brain for language, memory, and visual processing whereas web reading affects the brain areas for decision making and problem solving. (Dumbest, page 120) Why the difference? Because when reading the web there are hyperlinks and ads and other messages along the periphery of the text that causes your brain to constantly be making decisions as to the relative importance of these links.

            Deep reading is hindered by problem solving. Intelligence requires taking things into short term memory and then weaving it into conceptual schemas in long term memory. If our problem-solving areas of the brain are active, the concentration and focus aren’t there to transfer information into long term memory. Our problem-solving capacity has been using up brain power to decide which links to click on or avoid. This can overload working memory which results in distractedness, “understanding” weakened by overloading

            Why am I emphasizing all of this detail? Because I think we as Christians should have an idea of what’s at stake. As we read the Bible and religious texts about the Bible and Christian devotional life, God wants us to meditate and reflect deeply on the truths they contain. In order for that to happen, we need to understand what we read and then take that information deeply into our lives where all sorts of interconnections can be made so that it affects our life. It’s important to understand that out-of-control technology and its resulting distractedness can rewire our brain in such a way that understanding and assimilating the truths of Scripture can be severely impaired. We certainly shouldn’t want that to happen to ourselves, and we especially need to be careful to prevent that from happening to those who are most susceptible to this danger, our children.

             So what are some concrete steps you can take to help prevent this from happening to you and your children?

  1. Limit exposure to visual media – whether it be TV, videos or web-based media. I remember way back when our kids were small, my wife was concerned about Sesame Street. Everyone was proclaiming the virtues of such educational material, but she wasn’t so sure. In retrospect, after having observed middle school and high school students up close in an educational setting for over 40 years, I believe she was right. The images on programs such as Sesame Street change every couple of minutes either causing or adding to children’s inability to focus for long stretches of time.
  2. Encourage creative, imaginative play. Reduce the number of choices children have to play with at any given time. When your children are faced with which one of 20 different toys they should play with at any given moment, it increases the decision-making part of the brain, but reduces the thoughtful part.
  3. Read to your children often and encourage them to read when they are old enough. Let them see you reading, thus setting a good example that they will want to follow.
  4. When using technology personally or with children, use it for specific purposes and reduce the impulsiveness of it. In other words, don’t jump to the technology to fill every 5-minute void in something to do. Don’t give your children the example of interrupting one activity with another as demanded by your technology. In other words, when you are writing in a word processing program, as I am right now, don’t keep switching to see all of the world-shaping events in the news and weather and Facebook changes that have taken place in the last 5 minutes. Let it be obvious that you stay on a task for extended periods of time and teach them to do the same.
  5. Don’t allow children to have the technology in their rooms. Let everything be out in the open so that you can see and control how its used.
  6. As strange as it sounds, create times of quiet in the house where kids can read and work on homework while parents read a book or magazine. Leave the TV off. Make sure cell phones are unavailable for texting or web browsing after a certain time.
  7. Teach your children explicitly how to use technology as I’ve outlined it here. If they need to do word processing, provide a computer that has no Internet connection or games so that they only use the tool for one thing. They must be overtly taught the skill of focus rather than distraction.

All Things Together in Christ

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All of this is so that in the Fullness of Time He would:

Reconcile and gather all things together in Christ

“For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross. And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight—” (Colossians 1:19–22, NKJV)

“having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him” (Ephesians 1:9–10, NKJV).

“Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:18–19, NKJV).

The goal and purpose as stated in these passages is that God has purposed in eternity past that everything will be reconciled back to the Son of God. We live in a fallen world, and mankind is in rebellion against God. There’s been a separation. But God is going to bring it all back eventually. Every knee will ultimately bow to Christ. Christ is to be all in all.

Put an end to all rule and authority

“Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power” (1 Corinthians 15:24, NKJV).

All other competing powers will be brought under His control.

Destroy death, the last enemy

“The last enemy that will be destroyed is death” (1 Corinthians 15:26, NKJV).

Show the exceeding riches of His grace and display the manifold wisdom of God.

God’s plan from eternity past is that His Son and the people He has redeemed will be a display for all creation to see. It will display how great and inexhaustible the wisdom of God are and how amazing His grace is that He would take rebellious treasonous subjects and transform them by His love and grace into His sons and daughters, adopted into His family and made co-heirs with His Son Jesus Christ.

“That in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:7, NKJV).

“To the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 3:10, NKJV).

Jesus Christ will reign forever and ever with His bride, the Church

“And they sang a new song, saying: “You are worthy to take the scroll, And to open its seals; For You were slain, And have redeemed us to God by Your blood Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, And have made us kings and priests to our God; And we shall reign on the earth”” (Revelation 5:9–10, NKJV).

“Then the seventh angel sounded: And there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever!”” (Revelation 11:15, NKJV).

“There shall be no night there: They need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light. And they shall reign forever and ever” (Revelation 22:5, NKJV).

God will be all in all and will dwell with His people

“Now when all things are made subject to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subject to Him who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:28, NKJV).

“And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God” (Revelation 21:3, NKJV).

The mission will have been accomplished. God will have demonstrated His glory and the centrality and supremacy of His Son by creating and sustaining all things through Him, showing His grace by reconciling sinful people to Himself, by demonstrating His justice by not overlooking sin but punishing it in Christ, and ultimately reconciling everything together to Himself so that God Himself will dwell forever with His people.

Link to video on youtube: https://youtu.be/7979yF2hm6s

Jesus’ Successful Mission

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Because of Christ’s Successful Mission, God has

Highly exalted Him.  We read in Philippians that because of Jesus’ obedience “Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name” (Philippians 2:9, NKJV). In his letter to the Ephesians Paul explains it this way: “He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come” (Ephesians 1:20–21, NKJV).

Jesus Christs has been placed in a position of great glory at God’s right hand, and this is far above all other authorities that exist in the universe. The author of the book of Hebrews explains it this way:

“You have made him a little lower than the angels; You have crowned him with glory and honor, and set him over the works of Your hands. You have put all things in subjection under his feet.” For in that He put all in subjection under him, He left nothing that is not put under him. But now we do not yet see all things put under him. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone” (Hebrews 2:7–9, NKJV).

Jesus Christ is the God-man. But never forget that He is a man with a human glorified body. He is the first person to receive his glorified body and He has His place in heaven as our forerunner. He is the guarantee that all of those that belong to Him through faith will also have their place in heaven with Him. He is our anchor behind the veil.

“This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil, where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus, having become High Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek” (Hebrews 6:19–20, NKJV).

In the Old Testament the temple has a veil separating the two parts. The part behind the veil where God was could not be entered by anyone except the High Priest and then only once a year. That veil ripped in two from top to bottom on the day Christ was crucified. The earthly temple was a model of what is in heaven. This passage in Hebrews tells us that the way is now open. Jesus Christ is already there as our forerunner and our anchor behind the veil. All who belong to Him will have their place with Him in a glorified body some day.

Christ is central and supreme because He is the One who obtained eternal redemption for us through His sacrifice on the cross and is now seated as sovereign in heaven, and every knee will bow before Him (Philippians 2:10).

Link to video on youtube: https://youtu.be/7979yF2hm6s

God Has Made Christ Supreme

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God Has…

Made Him heir of all things. “[God] has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds” (Hebrews 1:2, NKJV).

God has made Jesus Christ the inheritor of all things. Take a moment and consider what is included in the “all things.” All nature?  Yes. Every planet? Yes. Every galaxy? Yes. Every person? Yes.

In Ephesians 1:18, Paul prays that as believers our eyes would be opened to “the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,” (Ephesians 1:18, NKJV). This is not Christ as our inheritance. This is Christians as His inheritance. Christians are part of the all things that Jesus has inherited from God the Father. And as long as we are stretching our faith, let’s consider the fact that God has announced that His people are joint-heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17).

God has given Him Authority. “As You have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him” (John 17:2, NKJV).

“And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth” (Matthew 28:18, NKJV).

God has made Him head of the Church “And He is the head of the body, the church” (Colossians 1:18, NKJV).

Jesus Christ has been given all authority over everything in the universe, and in a special sense, He is head of the Church, because the Church is His body. He is present in the Church everywhere the true church is found, and He is its head. No pastor, bishop, or pope can claim that position.

God has made Him the judge. “For the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son” (John 5:22, NKJV).

“And has given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man” (John 5:27, NKJV).

It’s interesting to note that the Father judges no one. The authority to judge every one of us has been given to the Son. Every one of us will stand before Him one day and be judged. We will be judged by a peer, if you will, another human. The Man Christ Jesus. Paul told the Athenians, “But [God] now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead”” (Acts 17:30–31, NKJV).

When will this judgment take place? The book of Hebrews tells us: “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27, AV).

God has sent Him on a mission. The Word, the Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity was sent on a mission arranged in eternity past. This mission basically was to come to this earth as a human being, live among us, be tempted in every way like we are without sinning, be illegally convicted and executed as punishment for our sins and then to be resurrected to return to His position in glory from where He had come. This time He returns as a conquering King who has “abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Timothy 1:10, NKJV).

He testified that He had come to give life abundantly (John 10:10) and to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10).

Summarizing then what we have covered under this heading, we have learned that God has made Christ the heir of all things, given Him authority over everything which includes His responsibility to judge, and God has sent Him on a mission to rescue people from their sins and the penalty that comes from sin.

We can see therefore how central and supreme Jesus Christ is to everything God has done and is doing in the world.

Link to video on youtube: https://youtu.be/7979yF2hm6s

God With Us

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The Word Became Flesh and Dwelt Among Us

The argument I am trying to make in this series of articles is that Jesus Christ, the God-man, is the core of all knowledge, all science, our very being, and He is the Supreme ruler of all things. As we read in the gospel of John chapter one verse 14, John tells us that the Word became flesh and lived among us. The Word is the second person of the Trinity. Earlier in the first chapter of John he wrote that in the beginning the Word was with God, and the Word was God. So now we see that the Word becomes flesh; this thing called the Word becomes human, takes on a body and comes here! We know this person as Jesus Christ. There are several passages of scripture that I would like us to look at, and I’m going to quote them verbatim so that you can see what the scripture is claiming.

“He [speaking of Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.” (Colossians 1:15, NKJV)

“For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell,” (Colossians 1:19, NKJV)

“in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” (Colossians 2:3, NKJV)

“For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily;” (Colossians 2:9, NKJV)

“[God] has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,” (Hebrews 1:2–3, NKJV)

According to Colossians and Hebrews, Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God. The writer to the Hebrews says He is the express image of God. In other words, He is the exact impression of God. Just like we might make a stamp and impress an image onto a block of clay, Jesus Christ is the impress stamp, the image of God the Father. These verses further tell us that all the fullness of the godhead dwelt in Jesus Christ bodily. That means that when Jesus was walking around on this earth getting his feet dusty, He was the embodiment of the entirety of the godhead. In addition to that, Paul wrote to the Colossians that all of the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are to be found in Jesus Christ himself. The word all leaves nothing out. Every bit of wisdom that exists in the universe has its origin in Jesus Christ. All the knowledge of science, chemistry , astronomy, psychology, sociology, and so forth, are rooted in Christ. Any wisdom that there is in the universe has its source in Jesus Christ. This is why His being is central and supreme.

There can be nothing said of someone that is more profound and an acknowledgment of the supremacy of that one and the centrality of that one than to say that He is the creator of all things, the entirety of God almighty is contained in Him, and that  all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge dwell in Him.

In the Beginning

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The purpose of this series of articles is to demonstrate the centrality and supremacy of Christ as given to us in the Scriptures. The first part of this series I’m calling “In the Beginning.” The first verse in the Bible tells us, “In the beginning God …” Obviously this means that in the beginning, God was there before anything else existed. In John 1:1 the Bible tells us “In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.” Before anything else existed, God was there, as was the Word, and the Bible says that the Word was God. We also know from Genesis 1:2 that the Holy Spirit was also present at creation hovering over the waters. These verses lay the foundation for the Christian worldview and philosophy. We are going to discover that “The Word” is none other than the Son of God and the man Jesus Christ, and He is the center of everything.

What we can see from this is that the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were all present at creation. In John 17:24, Jesus testifies that God the Father loved Him before the foundation of the world. Earlier in that same chapter Jesus looks forward to the day when He will share again in the glory He had with the Father before the world began. What we know, then, is that within the Trinity there was love, communication, and glory before anything else had been created. Should we be surprised then that we as human beings, who have been created in the image of God, have personalities that include love and communication as part of our nature?

These truths lay the foundation for what comes next. In Genesis 1:1 we learn that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. In John 1:1-3 we learn that the Word, that was in the beginning with God, and was God, created all things, and there’s nothing that’s been created that He did not create. Therefore, as we look around, everything we see around us has been created by the Word, the Son of God. Furthermore, according to John 1:14, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”

“He (speaking of Jesus Christ) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.” (Colossians 1:15–17, NKJV)

“[God] has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,” (Hebrews 1:2–3, NKJV)

What do we learn from these passages? Jesus Christ the Son of God created all things including thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers. We further learn that He made everything for Himself. Just as we sometimes create artwork or a piece of furniture for our own use and enjoyment, Jesus Christ did the same with all of creation. In addition, we learn that He holds everything together. Why is it important to consider the centrality and supremacy of Christ? Because He is the foundation of all of creation, and He supports and holds it together for His own pleasure and glory.

Let’s think about these ideas in a different way. In the beginning all that existed was a 3-person God who existed in a spiritual form, that is, He did not have a body. And yet there was communication and love among the members of this Trinity. At some point before time began, this triune God decided to create the universe. All of the atoms and molecules that make up our universe, our world , and our bodies, were created out of nothing through the Word of this God. And what John tells us in John chapter one is that this Word, that created all things, is God himself, and that He is currently holding all things together. If that’s not amazing to you, I don’t know what it would take to amaze you!

I think what we need to do as Christians is to try to put aside the conception of these things as being religion or religious teaching. The Bible is saying, and we as Christians believe, that these statements are actually true. This truth is at the core of all science and all history and, in fact, all knowledge. There actually is a God who exists in three persons, and who created all things by His word. I would go so far as to say that if you do not believe this to be true, then it is likely that you are not actually a Christian, because these statements in the Bible, are the foundation and the core of all the rest that follows.

Link to video on youtube: https://youtu.be/7979yF2hm6s

Some Thoughts on Anxiety and Fear – Part 5

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One more thought is that we are to enter into the peace of God. It is His peace that we are to take as our peace. His peace is completely restful. He is not stressed out about anything that is going on, and He asks us to join Him in that rest. It is not so much that we should try to create peace within ourselves or struggle to come to terms with things. It is a matter of entering into the peace that God already has. We need to accept His peace as our peace.  Jesus says, “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” (John 14:27, NKJV). All of these things fit together. Phil 4:6-7 tells us to be anxious for nothing. Rather than that we are to let our requests be made known unto God, and we are to be thankful. Then God’s peace will be a garrison around our heart. This thankfulness is not just a general thankfulness for all things, but a thankfulness for a faithful God who has promised to meet our needs and be with us. This kind of regular thankfulness for today’s providential care engenders trust which enables us to be less fearful, as God’s peace surrounds us.

Trust is probably the bottom line. When we are fearful, we are not trusting. We lack faith. As Jesus asked His disciples one time, “Why is it you have no faith?” And it’s OK to say, “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.” We can help ourselves immensely by keeping the truth before us and reviewing the promises of God on a regular basis. We need to learn to avoid the “what ifs.” As Jesus said, tomorrow has enough cares of its own. So we need to focus on what is before us today. Are we safe today? Do we have the food and clothing and shelter we need today? Do we have health and strength today? If so, we can be thankful and joyful. The key is trust. The Psalmist says, “Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in You” (Psalm 56:3).

Some Thoughts on Anxiety and Fear – Part 4

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As we see things happening in the world, we wonder how governments can be so corrupt or abusive of their people. However, here is what God has to say about all of this:

“Behold, the nations are as a drop in a bucket, And are counted as the small dust on the scales; Look, He lifts up the isles as a very little thing.” (Isaiah 40:15, NKJV)

“Why do the nations rage, And the people plot a vain thing?” (Psalm 2:1, NKJV)

“The kings of the earth set themselves, And the rulers take counsel together, Against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying,” (Psalm 2:2, NKJV)

“He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; The Lord shall hold them in derision.” (Psalm 2:4, NKJV)

Picture a bucket and a drop of water in that bucket. That is how God sees all of the nations together. Or think of the old fashioned chemical balance with a pan on each side. In chemistry there might be a small speck of dust on one side, and we would blow it off to make sure that speck wasn’t being weighed. That is how God sees all of the fuming of the nations. One little breath does away with them. When the kings of the earth array themselves against God and His plans, He laughs because it is a vain thing they are attempting. That is the way we need to picture it rather than as the big tumult it appears to us to be.

As I said earlier, we may believe these things, and we know God is accomplishing His purposes, but we are afraid of what those purposes might entail for all of us. There is no question that God may have difficult things planned for us, but His motive is always good, His presence is always there, and His purposes are always for our good and for His glory.