Technology is a tool, and modern communications technology is no different. Cranes and bulldozers are tools for lifting and carry heavy objects and moving earth. Smart phones and messaging and texting and social media platforms are tools that make the heavy lifting and moving of words and communication easier. So all by themselves, tools are gifts from God, and therefore the fundamental question is: what are you using them for? You can use a crane with a wrecking ball or a bulldozer to break things (and if that’s what needed to be done, that’s great). 

Scripture teaches that the tongue is like a sword, like a flamethrower, like the rudder of a great ship, and therefore, communication technologies amplify the power of the tongue, for good or for ill. While social media can spread lies, slander, propaganda, pornography, and destruction, by the same token, it can be used for great good: spreading the truth, knowledge, gratitude, the gospel, and some measure of community. 

So what are you using these tools for? How are you teaching your family to use these tools? A father who buys his ten year old son a wrecking ball for Christmas may be considered the greatest dad ever for about fifteen minutes, until the first house on the street is leveled. But just as firearms and chain saws are dangerous but have good and lawful uses, parents who do not give any teaching or training for the right use of phones and social media are not preparing their children for the real world. 

There is certainly freedom for greater or lesser use of various tools. But do not kid yourself in either direction. Do not pat yourself on the back for rejecting smart phones and social media apps, and do not pat yourself on the back for embracing them. This is really no better than congratulating yourself on whether or not you allow the use of hammers in your house. The question is: how is the tool being used? Are you talking about it? Are you discussing it? Are you checking in and walking together in wisdom? Don’t assume anything. Your goal is to love God and love one another with these tools in true wisdom.

Toby Sumpter – December 31, 2023

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The new year brings with it the desire to lay down fresh resolutions. With this spirit comes a variety of temptations, one of which is that of lamenting what few resources we have. You want to make advancements in knowledge, but you have little education in your background. You look to grow your business, but you do not have the financial resources of that successful entrepreneur across the room. You want to bestow wisdom upon our children, but your forefathers were Barbarians and Scythians, so you have no heritage of generational faithfulness to rely upon.

What are you to do? You must not despise the day of small things. This was the word from the prophet Zechariah in the days of Zerubbabel when Israel rebuilt a broken-down Jerusalem. It is a Word we must take to heart. While a top-tier education, a successful business, and generations of faithful forefathers are all things for which to be grateful, none of them are things to trust in. Moreover, God’s pattern is to bring salvation from unlikely and insignificant places. Salvation arrives in the little town of Bethlehem. Jesus is called a Nazarene. And can anything good come from there? Jesse’s son was so small that he wasn’t even invited to the “pick the next king” committee meeting. 

We must learn not to despise God’s blessings while at the same time not despising small beginnings. The natural man must despise one or the other. But our duty is to trust that the God who has helped us to lay the foundation of the house is the God who will see to it that we finish it, even if Sanballat is carrying on over there about how vain our efforts are. Trust God and keep swinging your hammer. The clinking and clanging will drown out his taunts.

Jared Longshore – December 31, 2023

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Isaiah 44:13-16 says, “He plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it. Then it becomes fuel for a man. He takes a part of it and warms himself; he kindles a fire and bakes bread. Also he makes a god and worships it; he makes it an idol and falls down before it. Half of it he burns in the fire. Over the half he eats meat; he roasts it and is satisfied. Also he warms himself and says, ‘Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire!’ And the rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, and falls down to it and worships it. He prays to it and says, ‘Deliver me, for you are my god!’”

The prophet Isaiah portrays for us the insanity of idolatry. Man takes a chunk of wood, does nothing to its chemical substrates, but simply changes the shape. The wood now has divots for eyes and grooves for ears. And because it looks different, it is different, at least that’s the lie the carpenter tells himself. He turns to you and says, “Look at this god! Let us bow down and worship it together.” The effectiveness of this ruse depends on either, 1) your propensity towards gullibility, 2) a distrust of your own faculties which leads you to doubt your own intelligence. You think, “Maybe it is a god.” 3) You’re enamored with the carpenter or at least motivated to please the carpenter, causing you to abandon the truth in exchange for attention. You know it’s just a chunk of wood, but you are willing to participate in this idolatrous theater to garner favor. Or 4) and this is the most dismal, you actually believe the carvings and etchings transformed the hunk of wood into a god. 

The carpenter is selling a fantasy. A world where he can fashion gods out of wood and sell them in the marketplace, “A god for sale, come purchase your god. He’ll deliver you from calamity, he’ll grant you prosperity. Come and buy protection and long life. Who wouldn’t want to trade a few drachmas for that?” But if the little statue is not a god, then the situation is as follows: either the carpenter is a charlatan and a scammer who profits off of your naivety, or it’s the blind leading the blind.

If you are of the gullible sort, pray for discernment. If you distrust your own faculties, you may have to work harder than someone who is naturally gifted, but pray for the sort of work ethic that would eventually lead to understanding. If you are enamored with the carpenter, then you already own an idol. Your idol is not sitting on the shelf at the vendor booth, your idol is manning the vendor booth. Do not neglect what you have learned, it is written, “You shall have no other gods before me.”

And if you believe the wooden figurine is actually a god, you have been deceived, dear friend. Heed my voice when I tell you, placing the effigy in the fire will be of more value to you than keeping it out. 

The carpenter makes one to look like a boar, one to look like a bird, another resembles a fish. They come in all sorts of shapes. So the question is: What shape does your idol take?

Daniel Namahoe – December 24, 2023

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The unbelieving world doesn’t know what to do with Christmas. It’s too big to ignore, but the world doesn’t know what it’s for. Sort of like Stonehenge. They stare at Christmas in perplexity. “It must meansomething…” 

And so, they try all sorts of things on for size: Maybe if we involve a magically generous old man in a red suit, that will make sense of things. No? Add reindeer. Still no? Well shoot. Okay, well, let’s try to borrow the trappings of a Christian age and see if that will help. It’s like setting the table with your grandparents’ chinaware and hoping that will make food appear. When all else fails, go for the sentimental; appeal to the feels. Just go for what makes you feel warm and snuggly. Fill the dishes with whipped cream. That’s what Christmas is for. It’s for warm and snuggly feelings. Ahhh. Glad we got that figured out.

Joshua Edgren – December 24, 2023

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“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

As Christ opens the Beatitudes with the promise that the poor in spirit possess the kingdom of heaven, we cannot assume that in his reference to “those who mourn” here he means a generic sadness. Certainly, the “mourners” refers to those who mourn as citizens of the kingdom of heaven. Or, in other words, those who mourn righteously and in faith. Or even those who mourn what ought to be mourned.

Chiefly, of course, we are to mourn our sin against our holy God and our neighbors. Paul says that godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, while worldly sorrow produces death (2 Cor. 7:10). Godly sorrow in this instance is an acknowledgment of our own depraved states apart from Christ, by which we come to realize our need of him and his work on our behalf. 

But there are other things godly saints may mourn over as well: Jesus wept at the death of Lazarus. Paul acknowledges the pain of lost loved ones experienced by the Thessalonian church.

So no, the Christian life is not one of being blissfully unaware of life’s hardships. Nor is it an attempt to hover above them or pretend that the loss we experience in life doesn’t really hurt. The Christian life is a life of sins forgiven, of brokenness healed, of the dead raised, and of mourners comforted. The promise of comfort is not a promise of immediate relief from hardships. Like Job, many of us will endure great and deeply painful trials. The comfort comes to us in the presence of Christ himself by His Spirit, whom he calls “the Comforter.” Our comfort is not that God will withhold trials and hardships from us, but that he will be with us through them and that he will use such trials for our good and that he will see them to completion whether in this life or in the life of the world to come. 

A passage like this is always particularly relevant at Christmas time as many of us can no longer enjoy the fellowship of our friends and relations whose earthly lives have ceased. Whether parents or children, siblings or friends, many of us are currently mourning the loss of these loved ones as we remember past Christmas celebrations and feel the searing lack of their presence at our tables. Still, others of us are mourning the loss, not of the lives, but of the relationships that we once enjoyed that are now marred by years, even decades, of estrangement and bitterness. Each Christmas comes with a reminder of sin’s devastating effects on those around us. 

In these and many other scenarios which we currently mourn, let us now look to Christ’s promise here that we shall be comforted in them that we might have peace that surpasses all understanding.

Zach Wilke – December 24, 2023

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