We have more ways to keep in touch than ever . . .
texting (I was late on that bandwagon) . . . emails (I still remember Orion) . . . and what is now called “snail mail” (the ponies of the express would be indignant, I bet). There’s facebooking. (I have 534 friends. My grandmother, whom I recall introducing to facebook, has 1,042. But I’m not bitter.)
There’s tweeting (I don’t know how to tweet. Maybe my grandmother will teach me how someday.) There’s voice mail. I even remember the old answering machines, with their screechy sound when you rewound or fast-forwarded through messages. There’s even talking on the phone . . . at just about every coordinate on earth, it seems. The effervescent light of the cell phone has become familiar in so many places . . . such as dark movie theaters when you are trying to watch a movie.
I guess people think because they are texting and there’s only this big ol’ blast of green light that hits you in the face, it will be all right for them to pull their cell out every 5 minutes. I watched an opera once in which the entire first half of the performance, the teenagers in front of me were spotlighting my face as they maybe texted everybody they knew on facebook, probably almost as many people as my grandmother knows. (Why only the first half? An usher had a conversation with them.)
Then there’s skyping. I’ve never skyped. And webcamming. (Is that a word?) I actually have a webcam built into my computer. I felt very cool when I got it.
I haven’t used it once.
I need to give this computer to my grandmother. She could start youtubing her webcams to all her facebook friends, and there’s another way of communication. I’ve never youtubed, but I did watch a video of a snoring puppy on there one time.
Anyway, we have so many ways to communicate, I’m probably forgetting something cool. And then there’s one way I seem to remember hearing about one time . . . what was that? Oh, yes, conversation. That’s old school, though.
You can communicate with just about anyone in an instant. Nearly everyone (but not my mom) is on facebook. Most people text nowadays. I can even text. I text old school, though. I found one of those old phones that has a QWERTY keyboard with actual, real, truly buttons you can press. My mom has one of those new phones that has phony, innauthenic, pixilized buttons you are supposed to touch. I thought my fingers were skinny until I tried texting on her phone.
And her phone has that handy dandy autocorrect so that when you mean to say, “Sweetie, would you like me to pick up anything for dinner?” and because your fingers aren’t the size of a stylus, you accidentally type *a few* wrong letters, it autocorrects to something like,
“Santa, would you like me to pick up antlers for Dancer? He lost them on the last chimney.”
(It adds extra sentences like that, to make it make more sense like. Ok, no it doesn’t, but it would be really funny if it did.)
With all this communication going on, wouldn’t you think we’d be the most at-peace society since the time of Eden? Don’t I remember self-expression being a way to healing and tranquility advertised on TV and self-help books? We’ve sure got self-expression now. You can find out that your uncle had chicken pot pie for dinner on facebook. Didn’t you always want to know what your uncle had for dinner?
. . But . . we’re not at peace. In fact, we’re a restless society (unless we’re watching TV). And not only are we restless, we’re well, not very happy overall, I’d say. I haven’t seen any drop in divorce rates because of cell phones. I haven’t heard of better friendships thanks to texting. Now that doesn’t mean these new ways of communication are bad . . .
Oh, yes. I knew I’d forget at least one, and I did. But I didn’t think I’d forget one, well, obvious: blogging.
. . . That doesn’t mean these new ways of communication are bad (especially not blogging) . . but it means they simply aren’t working at getting us closer to each other than we were before. That’s because, when it comes down to it, I love someone because of what they communicate to me, not because they used the newest high-tech device. I can text “AZOSDIFMA3SFD” and I’m not going to make new friends, unless C3PO and R2D2 have cell phones somewhere.
The message is what matters. But, sometimes, I lose track of that. I pick up my Bible, but I really want God to text me or Youtube me instead. But something I remember about God: He’s not trendy; He’s timeless. God is from age to age. God is from before the age of stone tablets to after the age of computers. God has no limitations on his language. He can communicate in any way He likes, at any time. God can communicate as easily on cave walls as He can a typewriter as He can the world wide web. So why did He choose to give His Words to people living thousands of years ago, to write scrolls? Why did He choose that one way?
The Bible is clear: the Bible is complete. There will be no revelations, devotions, sermons, or any other communication that will take place on this earth until the time the Lord returns that will be anything like the Bible. Nothing–no music, no texts, no conversations, no videos, no calls, and no blogs will ever be on par with what we find in God’s Word.
The Bible is finished because everything we need to know to receive salvation and follow God is already there.
God chose the perfect time, the perfect transcribers, and the perfect technology. Scrolls were just right. From those scrolls, every word of the Bible is now available in books across the globe, every word on audio files in many languages for free listening on websites, and every word uploaded on a nearly countless number of sites. There are even apps for phones to read the entire Bible, CD’s, and even DVD’s in which speakers have read books of the Bible word for word. Bible verses are tweeted and posted as status updates on facebook, and the Gospel is even carried through YouTube.
God is not silent to us.
The question is, am I so busy checking facebook to see how many people have “liked” my status and browsing email shopping offers and watching videos of cute baby animals that I miss the one Message that matters?
I love my friends, but I don’t want to miss the Son of God.
I listed different ways of communication earlier, but I didn’t list the greatest.
The Bible tells us that Jesus is the Word.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. (John 1:1-5, ESV)
The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’”) And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known. (John 1:9-18, ESV)
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