The age of innovation is upon us. In 1981, IBM invented the PC. 16 short years later, IBM’s Deep Blue defeated chess master Gary Vasperev. Four years later, the human genome was sequenced. We have self-driving vehicles, instantaneous communication and have put satellites into orbit. Some of the leading technology experts predict that soon we will use AI translation devices to converse with anyone on the Earth. AI truck drivers will replace real drivers. Some even believe that we will be able to reverse human aging by altering the very DNA that we mapped 2 decades ago. (Information Age, Key Events in the Story of Technology, 16 November 2019).
We already live in a disorienting period of technological development. It can be exhausting to keep up with the almost daily onslaught of information from our computers and phones. We have speech assistants that turn off lights, start the washer and dryer and adjust the thermostat. We are bombarded by advertisements specifically tailored to our wants and desires. Our devices eavesdrop on us constantly, always listening, adjusting, trying to figure us out. It is no surprise then that we are losing our way in all of this!
Teenagers, children and parents must now wrestle with a whole new gamut of mental health disorders and diseases. Internet addiction has proven to increase feelings of loneliness and isolation. Social media use has even been seen as an indicator in increased levels of depression. Young minds are becoming radicalized in the internet echo chambers of fake news and AI-assisted propaganda efforts. This doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of problems like pornography and internet predators. Despite the good intentions behind our technologies, we have inadvertently exposed ourselves to who new levels of trouble. The stakes are even higher than ever before.
Many people wonder if the Bible has anything to say about all this. After all, it was written thousands of years ago. And the technology that caused God to scatter the nations of the tower of Babel? It wasn’t self-driving vehicles or brain implants to alter our neural connections. No, with something as seemingly benign as the brick, God said that the peoples of Babel must be scattered “lest they become like us.”
While the story of Babel is probably the most obvious example of how technology can stand the way of our relationship with God, it’s not the verse that I would like to focus on right now. The parallels between the scattering of the peoples of Babel and the deep divisions in our country today are striking and worthy of mention. The very devices we have created to unite and unify us have torn us apart. They have opened a Pandora’s box of dizzying problems. We have been able to solve the problem of broadcasting internet from space but haven’t fixed the problems of the soul.
For this, let’s turn to the book of Job, an unlikely source for a meditation on technology:
“Man puts his hand to the flinty rock
And overturns mountains by the roots.
He cuts out channels in the rocks,
And his eye sees every precious thing.
He dams up the streams so that they do not trickle,
And the thing that is hidden he brings out to light.
But where shall wisdom be found?
And where is the place of understanding?
Man does not know its worth,
And it is not found in the land of the living. (Job 28:9-13)
Yet the one thing that eludes human beings—the one thing that cannot be engineered—is wisdom and understanding. Not only is it elusive, but human beings do not even “know its worth”. We spend our days trying to do more, to build bigger houses and to have nicer things. We try to manufacture happiness with faster phones and better cameras. None of these things ultimately satisfy. In fact, an entire economy has been built on exploiting the bottomless pit of our desires. Billions of dollars are at stake. People go to college to study how to appeal to these desires and sell more products. Companies invest millions in marketing departments.
As this world marches toward its aimless, utopian “progress,” the Christian should be wary. If anything, it should be obvious by now that technology doesn’t solve the problem of the heart—it amplifies it. What once were private thoughts, are now 2AM rants on Twitter. What we once held sacred and near, has now become private spectacle on YouTube and TikTok. As we give more and more of our time and energy to technology, our devices no longer serve us—we serve them.
It can be dizzying to find our way through this mess. Not only do basic facts seem to elude us, but our thoughts have also been co-opted by a melting pot of ideologies that adorn our lives like jewelry. We put them on for a day or a season and move on to something else once we grow tired of them. The author of Job is almost prophetic when he writes, “It (wisdom) cannot be valued in the gold of Ophir, / in precious onyx or sapphire. / Gold and glass cannot equal it / nor can it be exchanged for jewels of fine gold” (Job 28: 15-17, ESV)
Job continues:
“From where, then, does wisdom come?
And where is the place of understanding?
It is hidden from the eyes of all living
And concealed from the birds of the air” (Job 18: 20-22)
Technology has given us many amazing blessings. I believe that God works providentially through technology. Millions of lives are saved and lost because of technology. Despite the amazing innovations that we now adorn our lives with, however, we should remember that Wisdom remains hidden from us. No amount of technological innovation will ever supplant the true fountainhead of all Truth and Knowledge. For this reason, Christians should cling to the words of Job 28:23-28:
“God understands the way to it,
And he knows its place.
For he looks to the ends of the earth
And sees everything under the heavens.
When he gave to the wind its weight
And apportioned the waters by measure,
When he made a decree for the rain
And a way for the lightning of the thunder,
Then he saw it and declared it,
He established it, and searched it out.
And he said to man,
‘Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom,
And to turn away from evil is understanding.”
Simple enough, right? We should behold the fear of the Lord. These days, most people would agree that they find themselves preoccupied with worldly worries: the dysfunction of our political system, the state of our economy, COVID-19, the effects of technology on our hearts and minds. In the midst of all of these worldly concerns, it can be so easy to become distracted by the worries of the world and technology simply amplifies them. We wake up worried about a thousand things; however, fear and reverence of the Lord are reserved for a few short minutes (maybe) in the morning and a few hours on Sunday.
We would do well to remember these verses from Job. The answer isn’t to abstain from technology—although a technology detox can be beneficial—any more than it is to open up the Pandora’s box of social media in our lives without understanding the trade offs involved. Instead, we are called to put first things first. We were bought for a price and despite what the world may try to say, we aren’t slaves of technology. Yes, smart phone addiction is a real thing. But if Christ’s death and resurrection on the cross are sufficient for every other sin, it’s more than sufficient to break the chains of our addictions to our devices. Jesus came to the earth to fix our brokenness and to restore us to the Father forever. Rather than pursuing a fundamentalist approach to our technologies, we should witness to the power of the cross to resurrect our dead and broken hearts from within the midst of this amplified social experiment. I believe in my heart, that by allowing Christ to work from within it (rather than without), we will heap upon him more and more Glory by displaying to the public a previously inconceivable, virtual mission field. What does the Bible have to say about technology? No more and no less than it has to say about everything else the Christian may encounter in this life. The beauty of the Christian life is that we don’t need a new approach to deal with the dangers of 21st life. Rather we should look to the solution that has proven itself over and over again for over 2000 years. As the currents of the world grow stronger and social media has amplified it to deafening degrees, we should remember that we serve a savior who calms the waters in the storm.
Cubs of Judah 