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Thoughts on Technology for May 16, 2017

Technology is a blessing and cruse. That sentiment is common through history it seems. There are some who fear and stand against the advancement of technology and others embrace it, being unable to wait for the future.

Stories are told of the invention of the printing press in the late 15th century and how scribes feared for their jobs. Bands of scribes sabotaged and burned printing presses that were being delivered to various towns around Europe. But the printing press could not be stopped. Now we open a document from the web on our phones and print to a personal printer someone at work or in the house. What we can do today with printing technology makes the manual, mechanical printing presses of long ago look ancient, which they are.

As a pastor, I have my entire library of over 12,000 books on my computer. All indexed and cross referenced. I can open 20 Bibles and 200 commentaries instantly and read and compare. Sermon preparation is insane compared two what Spurgeon of England did so long ago. Technology for me allows me to keep my calendar, my tasks, my phonebook and my library in my pocket for instant access. Years ago I used to use a paper pocket calendar. I used a day planner from Franklin Covey and it was great, but if I updated anything I had to manually update all the other calendars. Now things are synced and stored in the cloud and everyone in my church can get the updates to the church calendar instantly.

Technology can also be a time waster. With Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and snapchat and millions of voices posting their opinions on line and every news and fake-news organization doing the same, there is now endless material to read and comment on. No longer do I have to go to the library to borrow a book, I can have hundreds of books in my pocket with Kindle and iBooks. Information flows, whether it be correct and accurate or whether it be fake and a lie, it is all there at our fingertips.

Add to the mix the millions of games that people have created in order to get a piece of the “app pie”. Games are a billion dollar industry with people competing with others all across the world. So if you want to close off the real world and find a new drug, mobile games may be the way to go.

So if a person wants to get close to God, technology can help. Bibles, prayer reminders, Christian books and more are available for every phone and every computer. If a person wants to indulge their own sinful habits, you can do that with technology too with all manner of dating apps and communication apps, games and time wasters and everything that a person can imagine.

Even though the scribes wanted to stop the printing press, they could not, and it looks like mobile phones and internet connected computers, talking refrigerators and medical devices are all advancing at a fast pace. People just need to realize that God is sovereign over all and that all, even technology must be used to his glory.

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