Author: Nathan Crawford

Faithful Gospel Ministry

We live in a time of unprecedented access to information. If we have a question about anything, we can find answers in seconds. We now even get an AI summary of our search results to relieve us of the tedious process of clicking the links ourselves.

When it comes to teaching about God, the Bible, and Christian living, you can find millions of articles, videos, books, and podcasts to learn from. Yet, in our age of tremendous access to Christian teaching, we face at least two serious dangers:

  • False teaching pervades many online resources. From TBN to TikTok, men and women peddling a false gospel seek our attention. Thus, one of the greatest needs in the church today is biblical wisdom and discernment about who we listen to and follow as spiritual leaders in our lives.
  • The online teaching we listen to is usually disconnected from real relationships. It is a blessing to learn from faithful pastors and teachers from the past and present through books and articles and sermon clips on YouTube. I am so thankful for the influence of faithful servants of Christ, dead and alive, in my own life!

Yet, these were never intended to be the only or the main diet of the Christian. The Christian life is meant to be lived in the context of relationships, in the context of a local church, where we can be formed in Christ through the ministry of men and women we know and love.

To help us combat these dangers, we should pay attention to Paul’s words in Galatians 4:12–20. In this passage, Paul contrasts his ministry with the ministry of the false teachers who were making inroads into the churches of Galatia. His words help us recognize what faithful gospel ministry looks like.

Marks of a Faithful Gospel Ministry

1. Faithful servants of Christ preach the true gospel no matter what.

Paul had come to these churches and preached the gospel to them (Gal 4:13). He proclaimed to them as we read in Acts 13:38–39: “Let it be known to you therefore, brothers, that through this man [Jesus] forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and by him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.”

Paul declared to them that salvation has come to the Gentiles, to the ends of the earth, for all who believe in Jesus.

Now, Paul continues to speak the truth to them and wonders if that makes him their enemy (4:16). But no matter how the Galatians respond, Paul preaches the good news of Jesus. He speaks the truth to them.

We shouldn’t take this for granted: faithful gospel ministry gets the gospel right. That is foundational. True servants of Jesus never deviate from the truth of the gospel. No matter what, they declare Christ and him crucified.

The chief calling of gospel ministry is not to make people better citizens or parents or spouses. That can be a result of the gospel. But it is not the gospel. The calling of gospel ministry is preaching the good news of Jesus so that men, women, and children would believe and have hope in Jesus for eternal life.

Faithful messengers of Jesus get the message right.

2. Faithful servants of Christ set an example in gospel-living.

Paul pleads with the Galatians to become as he is, to follow his example (Gal 4:12). Paul didn’t just preach the gospel. The gospel changed the way he lived. He lived in a way that was consistent with the gospel, and he calls others to follow his example as he follows Christ.

Those who seek to serve Jesus and his people should be example-setters in gospel-living. Faithful gospel ministry not only gets the gospel right, but it also lives in a way that is consistent with the gospel. Legalism is put to death. Christlike holiness is pursued. Love characterizes life and ministry.

We hear of many pastors and church leaders who end up failing in ministry, not because they get the gospel wrong, but because they live inconsistently with the gospel. They may be genuine believers in Jesus who have fallen into sin, but they are clearly unfaithful servants, who we can no longer trust or follow. They get the gospel right in their teaching but wrong in their lives.

3. Faithful servants of Christ willingly endure weakness and suffering for the gospel.

Paul was no stranger to suffering as a servant of Jesus. Yet, his suffering and weakness did not deter him from faithfully preaching the gospel. Paul suffered illness, pain, weakness, and persecution for the cause of the gospel.

Paul’s physical weakness did not weaken his ministry. His weakness did not rob the gospel of its power. We need to get rid of this idea that physical weakness, suffering, illness, and persecution are hindrances to gospel ministry. It is often the opposite. Our weakness can be the very channel that God uses to display the power of his gospel.

We tend to follow the strong, those who seem powerful and popular and attractive to us. Those who are most popular online and on social media are usually those who hone the craft of appearing healthy and strong and attractive.

Yet, those things are far from the key to faithful or successful gospel ministry. Often, God’s power is displayed in our weakness. Because then it is obvious that the power is not in us but in him. True servants of Jesus know they are jars of clay (2 Cor 4:7–10). It’s not about our appearance or brand but what’s inside our ministry. It’s about the treasure of the gospel. It’s all about Jesus and his glory that shines through us even in our weakness.

Faithful gospel ministry is usually marked by suffering. True servants of Jesus recognize that they are weak. It’s not about looking powerful. It’s about displaying the power of Jesus, even in and through our weakness. 

4. Faithful servants of Christ work hard for the growth of believers in Christ.

Notice Paul’s heart for the Galatians: he calls them “my little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you!” (Gal 4:19).

Paul loves these believers. They are his brothers and sisters in Christ, and they are his little children. He pleads with them because he cares so deeply for their souls.

He feels like he is experiencing birth pains again for his children. He preached Christ to them and saw them born again. He endured toil and pain to give birth to them as a kind of spiritual mother. He is again suffering those pains. They are drifting away from Jesus, and he again is suffering and in anguish so that they might hold fast to Jesus.

Paul uses a striking image here. First, he describes himself as enduring the birth pains, but now he refers to Christ being formed like an embryo in the Galatian’s womb! They are listening to false teachers, and thus, they are in danger of miscarrying and losing Christ and the gospel.

But Paul suffers the birth pains so that the Galatians might give birth to a fully formed Christ in their lives.

That’s a bit of a jarring image. Paul uses it to wake up the Galatians to see what is happening. He wants Christ to be fully formed in their lives. He wants them to return to Christ and see Christ reproduced in their lives. In other words, he will not be content until they are grown up in Christ. He longs to see them grow in their faith, lest they fall away and be lost.

This is the heart and goal of all true gospel ministry—that people would experience the new birth and would grow up in Christ. True servants of Jesus labor to see their people grown up in Jesus. They will do whatever it takes to see them following Jesus to their dying day.

Growth in Jesus is not an optional extra in the Christian life. Gospel ministry is always seeking growth. But it is not about growth in numbers or programs or buildings. It’s about the growth of people in Jesus.

We are not content merely with decisions for Jesus. We labor for lifelong faith and growth in Jesus! That’s the heart of every faithful pastor, elder, and ministry leader.

The heart of a faithful servant of Christ often bleeds for his people. He will not be content until Christ is formed in them. He will take comfort in nothing else but their growth in Jesus. He fears and is at a loss for his people as long as they drift from the gospel.

He does the only thing he can: he preaches Christ until Christ is formed in them.

That’s the heart of faithful gospel ministry. It is a heart of deep love and concern for the souls of people. It is a heart that will not stop sweating and bleeding until Christ is formed in people.

*This post is based on a portion of a sermon I preached in May on Galatians 4:12-20.

Reading Slowly in a Hasty Age

“When I get a little money, I buy books, and if I have any left over I buy food and clothes.” I have always resonated with this statement from 16th century Dutch scholar Desiderius Erasmus. I love books. Reading is one of the most valuable disciplines and joys in life. It is vital to feeding and clothing the mind and soul.

While I enjoy purchasing new books, I must also admit that I have many books on my shelves that I have not read—more books than I’ll be able to get through in the next several years. Many are for reference, some are beneficial for a quick read-through, and others need deeper thought and reflection. Add to this the hundreds of books I have digitally on Kindle or Bible software, and I have a wealth of books to feast on for many years to come.

With so many books to read and so little time, those of us who love to read can be sucked into valuing reading speed and reading quantity over reading quality. The goal can become to read a certain number of books a year, when it should be enjoying good books and being formed by the best books.

We can go so fast and pound our way through book after book, when we should be slowing down, reflecting, and chewing on what we’re reading. Especially as we read for learning and spiritual growth, we often need to slow down and read less, not necessarily more. We need to take time in our Bible reading to meditate on the text more than to meet a goal of reading the Bible in a year (as valuable as that is).

Thomas Brooks, a pastor in the 17th century, put it well:

“Remember, it is not hasty reading, but serious meditating upon holy and heavenly truths, that make them prove sweet and profitable to the soul. It is not the bees touching of the flower that gathers honey, but her abiding for a time upon the flower that draws out the sweet. It is not he that reads most, but he that meditates most, that will prove the choicest, sweetest, wisest and strongest Christian.”

If hasty reading was a problem for the Puritans, it is more so today, especially in our digital context. Our digital age conditions us for passive consumption more than active learning. It forms us to prize quick skimming and synthesis over deep thinking and serious meditation. The increasing ubiquity of AI may lead some to think that sitting down and reading a book for information and learning is an antiquated pursuit. We live in an age of speed and efficiency, where slowing down can seem impossible. But slow down we must, if we want to be formed through reading and not just gulp down books.

One way to slow down is to read physical copies of books and read minimally from a device. Purchase the print version before the digital version. For your Bible intake, grab a printed copy of Scripture instead of pulling out your phone. I own and use (and enjoy) reading on a Kindle, but for serious meditation and deep reading, holding a print copy usually forces me to slow down. I remember more of what I read. I can get a better sense of the whole book with a print copy and review it more thoroughly.

Reading a print copy also allows for better note-taking in the book itself. Digital note-taking is doable and some may prefer it. There are benefits to reading a digital copy and saving highlights easily. But once again, faster and easier are not necessarily always better for long term learning and growth. Physically underlining a sentence or writing a short note requires you to slow down and be more intentional instead of highlighting every interesting passage. It makes you pause, reflect, and think, not just consume passively.

There are certainly many times we should read quickly. If you skimmed this article, I don’t blame you. You still probably got the gist and maybe received some food for thought. At other times, we might read too slowly and too sleepily or sporadically that we gain little from it. Or we may read inferior books too slowly and miss out on better books. But when we read good books for growth, we all could benefit from slowing down a little. Especially when we read the Book God has given us, his perfect and inerrant Word, we must prize serious mediation over hasty reading.

To sum it up in the words of Mortimer J. Adler, “In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through you—how many you can make your own. A few friends are better than a thousand acquaintances.”

Online Corinthians

Read the letters of 1-2 Corinthians, and you’ll quickly see that the Corinthians had problems. Lots of them. There were divisions in the church. They were letting gross sin slide. They were leaving their poorer brothers and sisters in Christ out of the Lord’s Supper. They forgot that the way of disciples of Jesus is the way of the cross.

One of these issues in the Corinthian church had to do with divisions in the church surrounding different leaders. Factions arose that claimed certain leaders, including Apollos, Peter, and Paul himself, as their figureheads (1 Cor 1:12). A related issue was the Corinthian’s attitude toward Paul and his ministry. The Corinthians apparently didn’t think Paul’s oratory skills were up to par and saw his suffering as discrediting his ministry.

The Corinthians formed tribes around their preferred leaders. They looked for power in personality and worldly show instead of the gospel. They didn’t expect their leaders to be clay jars, ordinary and prone to suffering and brokenness.

Sound familiar? These issues are not unique to the church in Corinth in the AD 50s. In fact, perhaps the internet and social media have only acted as gasoline added to the blaze in our day. In a real sense, you could say that we all tend to be Corinthians online.

We form tribes around our preferred leaders. With the advent of the internet, social media, YouTube, podcasts, etc., we can easily devote ourselves to a leader who fits our preferred style. We come not only to be shaped by their teaching, but to defend their honor online, ignore any weaknesses, and bash other leaders who don’t match our vision of what a real Christian leader, pastor, or author should look like.

We look for power in personality and worldly show instead of the gospel. The online world prizes personality and a certain kind of show. What gets the most attention online is often what is most entertaining, loud, or extreme. And what gets the most attention holds more power. We tend to look for power in personality, charisma, show, and clips that can go viral instead of the gospel.

We forget that we and our leaders and influencers are ordinary clay pots. Our leaders are ordinary people too. They’re broken, just like us. They go through hardship just like us. Yet, we can unduly exalt them (they could never be wrong!) or cancel them for disagreeing with us (how could they be so wrong!). Celebrity culture and cancel culture prevail online, and we forget that while godly leaders are a gift from God, they too are jars of clay, men of dust. The power is in the ministry of the gospel, not in any man or woman.

We need the lessons Paul taught the Corinthian church. Our pastors and leaders, if faithful, are servants of Christ. They are servants of Christ who proclaim not themselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord (2 Cor 4:5). The source of power in any ministry is the gospel. God certainly gifts some leaders more than others. But at the end of the day, even the most gifted preachers and leaders cannot truly convert one soul to Christ on their own.

Even the most gifted preachers, even the most creative Christian content creators online, even the most persuasive communicators are clay jars. What matters is what is inside their ministry. What truly has power to transform lives is the word of the cross, the gospel.

There’s a Wolf in Your Pocket

There’s a wolf in my pocket. And probably in yours too. At least, that’s what Chris Martin argues in The Wolf in Their Pockets: 13 Ways the Social Internet Threatens the People You Lead. The Bible describes false teachers as wolves out to get the sheep (Matt 7:15; Acts 20:28-29). Martin suggests that one of the most dangerous wolves out there today is in our pockets and in those of the people we lead: the social internet on our smartphones. For parents, pastors, and Christian leaders this poses a problem.

On average, most of us spend somewhere around 2.5 hours a day on social media (11). Given the sheer amount of time we spend online, we’re right to wonder whether the social internet is shaping the people we lead more than we are. The Wolf in Their Pockets answers the question: what should we do about it? How do pastors and Christian leaders disciple their congregations when many individuals in their churches are being shaped by daily exposure to negative facets of social media? How do parents disciple and lead their children who are being influenced by the social internet? Martin takes a look at thirteen ways the social internet shapes those we love and lead, and offers advice for leadership and discipleship in our social media age (22).

Martin calls Christian leaders and parents to start by engaging intentionally with social media, recognizing how it shapes the way we think, feel, and behave (16). We need to see how our relationship with the social internet shapes us to prize entertainment above all, value what gets the most attention, and find our identity in what the online world says is valuable (17).

The Negative Effects of the Social Internet and Our Response to Them

Several recurring negative effects of social media pop up throughout the book:

Our relationship with social media can distort our understanding of identity and purpose. The social internet gives the illusion that we can be whoever and whatever we want (42). At the end of the day, “social media platforms are just mass behavior modification platforms designed to sell us advertisements” (73). As these platforms consume our attention, our sense of self can constantly change, and we often feel like we don’t measure up to the lives of those the algorithms put before us. Other people always seem to be living more interesting and valuable lives. We compare ourselves with others and lose sense of our true purpose as image-bearers of God made to live for his glory.

Social media also reinforces the idea that we are the hero, the main character of the story. It lures us into thinking that life is all about being entertained and living a comfortable lifestyle where everything is instantaneous. Life becomes about expressing ourselves, trusting ourselves, always feeling the need to perform, and thinking that we’re always right and everybody else is wrong. When we come to believe that we’re the main character of our story, we are shaped toward pride, led down the road to anxiety, and give in to the worship of self. We are already by nature self-centered and drawn to comfort and ease, and social media simply plays on these sinful tendencies.

Truth can be hard to discern on social media. Martin reminds us that social media isn’t really designed to be a trusted source of truth. He writes in a chapter on discernment:

“When we let social media take an inappropriate seat of authority in our lives, we let it define truth for us rather than deliver truth to us. We forget, or maybe we never even knew, that our feeds are designed to keep our attention, not inform us. Unfortunately, the kind of content that keeps our attention best is often the opposite of truth, or at least a gross distortion of it.” (84, emphasis added)

Social media is all about our attention, not truth. Sure, there are many true posts, articles, and videos in our news feeds. But the algorithms that determine what we see on social media promote what they think will get our attention, not necessarily what is true. Both truth and error pass before our eyeballs as we scroll our ever-interesting news feeds or recommended videos. Social media makes discernment more difficult and can draw us to believe lies and half-truths and unfounded conspiracy theories.

These are just a few of the major ways social media can have a negative effect on us. The big question of the book, however, is: what are we as Christian leaders or parents supposed to do about it?

Martin offers no quick fixes. Most of his advice is simply basic Christian discipleship. He calls pastors, Christian leaders, and parents to fend off the wolf of the social internet by pressing on in true, biblical discipleship that cherishes real community and Christ-like character.

Leaders and parents must start by leading by example. We can’t defend those we love from the wolves if we’re caught in their jaws too. Parents who are constantly scrolling or pastors who are posting for likes won’t make much headway in leading people toward a more positive relationship with the social internet. The principles Martin offers throughout the book apply to leaders just as much as those they lead.

Leaders in the church must pursue faithfulness, not flashiness. Churches must not give in to the brand-building model of social media platforms. The mission of the church is not entertaining the sheep in hopes of bringing more into the fold. The mission is making disciples of Jesus as we walk in faith, hope, and love (33). Pastors and leaders must remind their congregations that life isn’t about comfort and entertainment, but about following Jesus in the way of the cross.

Leaders and parents must celebrate and promote real, embodied community. Social media offers us the relationships we crave without much of the awkwardness and difficulties that they entail. Yet, this is just another way the social internet plays off our desires for ease and comfort. We must point those we lead to the value of true community. Christian discipleship requires genuine Christian community in the context of a faithful local church.

Alongside genuine community, we must promote the everyday worship of God. Our devices consume so much of our time, and we must fight time with time. As Martin puts it, “Daily discipleship by social media is best fought with daily time with God,” (205). We need to encourage those we lead to put down their screens and pick up God’s Word and read it, pray it, and live it.

Ultimately, leaders and parents must pray often and rely on the Holy Spirit. We may feel powerless to disciple those we lead. It may seem that the wolf in their pockets is shaping them far more than we ever could and that there’s little we can do about it. We need to let this feeling of weakness drive us to our knees in humble, prayerful reliance on the Spirit of God to work in their hearts.

We must actively engage the social internet. There’s much we can do to promote healthy community, worship, discernment, encouragement, and humility in the lives of those we love and lead. But true change and growth comes from the work of the Spirit. So above all, we must lead and parent with persevering prayer.

Quantitative Hopelessness?

My one critique of the book is that at times it seems to fall into what John Piper has called quantitative hopelessness. This is the discouraging sense that Christian leaders can feel when they compare the half-hour of teaching or preaching time they get with people to the hours their congregations, small group, or Sunday School class spends consuming entertainment. How can we hope to compete with that? How can a forty minute sermon once a week hold a candle to the 2.5 hours spent each day on social media?

At a few points in the book, Martin suggests that the only hope we have of fighting the negative influence of the social internet is by fighting time with time (64). There is surely truth here. True discipleship takes time and effort, and we must encourage those we lead to spend time with God daily. Yet, I think The Wolf in Their Pockets would have been stronger with a richer theology of preaching and teaching God’s Word. Martin emphasizes that the Spirit alone can truly bring change in people. But what is the usual means the Spirit uses to change us? The Word of God.

So we might get discouraged by the sheer amount of time people we lead and love spend on the social internet compared to the time we get with them. But we can truly be hopeful that the Spirit can do much with the little we do have. We can trust that God’s Word does not return void even when we preach to people with a wolf in their pockets (Isa 55:10-11).

The social internet is a powerful discipleship force. But God’s Word is more powerful. We need to regain our faith in the power of the Word. God can use a thirty minute Bible lesson to bring someone from spiritual death to spiritual life. He can use a sermon or a Scripture-saturated conversation with your teenager to do more change in a heart than could be accomplished in fifty years of scrolling through Instagram.

We must fight time with time, yes. But we also need to make sure we’re putting our hope in the right source: not time but the living and active Word of God (Heb 4:12). Martin is right on that our faith must be in God to be strong and bring about growth and change in those we lead and love (209). I would just emphasize more the normal means God uses to bring about this change: his Word.

Conclusion

Throughout The Wolf in Their Pockets, it becomes clear that social media, while new, simply amplifies age-old problems like self-centeredness, idolatry, pride, cynicism, anxiety, and on and on. The social internet uniquely plays on these and amplifies them. Thus, the wolves in our pockets are not only false Christian teachers/influencers on Facebook or TikTok but the entire system that shapes us in ways away from Jesus.

Christian leaders, pastors, and parents will benefit from The Wolf in Their Pockets as they see exactly how the social internet shapes those we lead. Martin offers sound, biblical advice throughout the book that calls us to value difficult discipleship, in-person community, discernment and truth, humility and peace, and the true worship of God.

Yes, there’s probably a wolf in your pocket and in the pockets of those you’re responsible to lead. But we don’t need to despair. We need to recommit to the hard work of biblical discipleship and trust God’s Spirit to be strong where we are weak.

(Note: I was given an advance copy of this book by the publisher for review.)

Is Technology an Intruder in God’s World?

Technology intrudes on my life. It keeps me from being present. Compared to nature, it can feel impure and imposing. Technology invades my home and takes over my walls, my pocket, my wrist. Technology can feel like an intruder in the pure world God created. We’ve probably all felt this way. Technology can feel like something outside the pure world of nature invading and taking over the earth like a bunch of Daleks from Dr. Who.

Our smartphones, smart TVs, smartwatches, and smart-everything-elses can genuinely feel like intruders, but we need to step back and ask: where do they really come from? Tech critic Neil Postman articulated one view that we may resonate with at times:

“The best way to view technology is as a strange intruder, to remember that technology is not part of God’s plan but a product of human creativity and hubris.”

Technology, in this view, is man’s invention that we impose upon God’s pure creation. Postman goes on to argue that technology gives the impression that it is inevitable and has always been there. Technologies and inventions like the alphabet, books, and smartphones can come to a place where we see them as “gifts of nature, not as artifacts produced in a specific political and historical context.” In other words, technology becomes “mythic”.

Postman definitely makes an important point. Technologies are human inventions, and often behind them is the pride of man. No technology is merely neutral. All are formed in a context with certain priorities and tend to shape us in certain ways. However, can we say that technology isn’t part of God’s plan? Is technology merely a product of human pride? These questions get at this important issue: where does technology come from?

I think we must reject from the outset Postman’s statement that technology is not part of God’s plan. Such a statement betrays a kind of deism, not a biblical understanding God’s relation to the world. God did not create the world, hand the keys to humanity, and step out of the picture. The unified testimony of Scripture is clear: God in his providence remains involved in the world. Not even a bird can die apart from his will, and he knows and cares about the most mundane details of our lives (Matt 10:29-30). All technology must fit into his will in some way.

This raises the question: If technology fits into God’s plan, how does that actually work out? Tony Reinke in his book God, Technology, and the Christian Life points out two key biblical texts in Isaiah that help us wrestle with the question about the origin of technology and God’s relationship to it. A quick look at each of these texts will help us begin to drive at an answer to this important question.

The Farmer and His Tech: Isaiah 28:23-29

In Isaiah 28:23-29, Isaiah uses an illustration from the world of agriculture and farming as a parable about God’s judgment on Jerusalem. The main point is that though God is judging his people, the process is similar to how a farmer works his fields: his plowing and threshing isn’t forever, and it’s purpose is achieving the best crop possible.

Notice what God says about farmers and their techniques and technologies in verses 26 and 29:

The farmer knows just what to do, for God has given him understanding. . . . The LORD of Heaven’s Armies is a wonderful teacher, and he gives the farmer great wisdom. (Isaiah 28:26, 29, NLT)

The main point here within the metaphor Isaiah uses is that the farmer learns how to farm from God. The technology and methods he uses are taught to him by God. How? Through patterns in creation. The farmer discovers (through trial and error) how God has wired the world to work. He uses the patterns and elements of God’s creation to create techniques and technologies to produce better crops.

The farmer’s tech isn’t merely a human product outside of God’s plan. No, God teaches the farmer through how he has created the world. The Lord gives the farmer wisdom to make tech to further his goals. He is the Creator of this world, and he has wired it to work in a certain way with certain elements and within certain limits. The farmer makes tech to further his crop only according to the possibilities and patterns God has wired in his creation.

This applies to all forms of technology. All technology is simply discovering how the world works and using what God has already made to make something useful. Nobody makes anything out of nothing in a lab. They can only use what God has already made and shape it into something. Nothing is completely manmade. Everything goes back to God who made everything in creation.

This world was created by God, loaded with potential for technology. Technology is not an intruder on God’s creation; it arises from creation! Reinke writes,

“God taught us how to build rockets and planes like he taught the ancient farmer to grow crops. In every human discovery we find the Creator’s instruction. God is our tutor, and he ordains every link in the chain of technological revolution.” (102)

But what about technologies that are used for evil? Can we say that God teaches us how to build technologies that are used to destroy? That brings us to another text in Isaiah.

The Makers and Wielders of Weapons: Isaiah 54:16-17

In Isaiah 54, the Lord speaks of the future for his people, a future without fear, a future of peace and righteousness. Near the end of the chapter, the Lord declares that his people will not need to fear the makers and wielders of weapons who may rise against them:

“Behold, I have created the smith who blows the fire of coals and produces a weapon for its purpose. I have also created the ravager to destroy; no weapon that is fashioned against you shall succeed, and you shall refute every tongue that rises against you in judgment. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD and their vindication from me, declares the LORD.” (Isaiah 54:16-17)

The Lord is encouraging his people here: I’ve made both the blacksmith and the ravager, the one who fashions weapons and the one who wields weapons. They are under my control, God says, and they cannot hurt you apart from my will. The point is that God has power over those who make and use weapons, and, by extension, to all who make and use technology.

God has created both the makers of technology and those who use them. And this applies even to technologies that are used for evil, like weapons for unjust warfare. No technology is outside his control or his will. He created the makers and users. He is sovereign over them. No technology can thwart God’s purposes for his people.

As Reinke puts it in his book:

“In any discussion of technology, many Christians get hung up on the most powerful technologists in the world who are inventing the most threatening innovations on earth—nuclear power, killing weapons, space rockets, modified genetics—and assume that these men and women fall outside God’s governance. They don’t. Isaiah 54:16–17 shows us how God creates and governs the most powerful technologists.” (53)

Technology is no mere intruder. It not only stems from patterns and resources in God’s world, God also has a place for even the most destructive technologies in his perfect will. How that all works out is not ours to fully understand. But we know that God’s sovereignty over technology is ultimately for his glory and the good of his people. No innovation in tech will wipe out God’s people.

No technology is merely manmade or outside of God’s plan and purpose for history. Sure, some technologies can feel like “intruders” into our lives since they are subject to the curse of sin. Not all tech should be allowed a place in our lives! Often tech is not used for good. Yet, at the same time, no innovation is outside of God’s plan or will.

So, while we should have a healthy caution and intentionality about new (and some old) technologies, we can’t write them off as manmade products of human pride, as some inherently evil Babel enterprise. Even the Tower of Babel was within the sovereign will of God, and God used that situation to jumpstart the development of languages and cultures. No technology is simply neutral, yet all technologies, whether used for good or ill ultimately come from God and he is sovereign over them.

Technology may truly intrude into our lives at times. But technology is not alien to earth. All tech is earth-grown, derived from patterns in creation, and within the will of God. We must use it with wisdom for God’s glory and the good of those around us.

An Introduction to the Trinity

As Christians, we confess that God is the Trinity. We believe that the one God exists in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But what does this really mean? Is this a biblical belief or something that a bunch of dudes made up at a church council? I’ll be honest, whenever I speak or teach about the Trinity I feel like there are pitfalls on every side. There are heresies, errors, and bad analogies everywhere. I recently picked up The Trinity: An Introduction by Scott Swain to help me as I continue to reflect on what it means that the One God exists as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We can always use deeper thinking on the Trinity, and this book provides just that.

In The Trinity: An Introduction, Scott Swain seeks to set forth a biblical view of the Trinity and help us better understand the Bible’s basic “Trinitarian grammar.” Swain shows throughout the book that “Christians praise the triune God because that is how God presents himself to us in Holy Scripture: as one God in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,” (20). The theme of praise plays a major role throughout the book. Praise is our response to this doctrine and the goal of studying it. We don’t study the Trinity merely to be able to explain it, but stand in awe of who our Triune God is and embrace his revelation of himself in Scripture (63).

The Trinity is a biblical teaching. It is not something church leaders made up in the fourth century at a church council. The later creeds and confessions don’t improve what’s in the Bible. They are attempts to dig deeply into the Bible’s revelation of God as Triune (26-27). Swain highlights the baptismal formula in Matthew 28:19 as a prime example and summary of the Bible’s “Trinitarian grammar.” Christians are baptized in the one Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: God is one, and the Father, Son, and Spirit are each identified fully with the one God.

The doctrine of Divine simplicity helps us maintain the unity of God as we confess the Trinity. God is not made up of parts. What he is he is (55). So, the divine persons cannot be parts of God or instances within the category of God (59-60). Yet, while God’s works are indivisible that doesn’t mean his life is incommunicable: “The simple God is the eternal life of communication and communion that is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the blessed Trinity,” (62).

Swain notes that “the Bible’s Trinitarian discourse consistently distinguishes the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit by their mutual relations, which are ‘relations of origin’” (32). In other words, the distinctions between the three persons of the Trinity are their relations to each other, not to us. These relations are the personal properties of paternity, filiation, and spiration: “the Father eternally begets the Son (paternity), the Son is eternally begotten of the Father (filiation), and the Father and the Son eternally breathe forth the Spirit (spiration),” (68).

Swain spends a chapter on each of these distinctions. He also addresses the three errors of modalism, subordinationism, and eternal relations of authority and submission (ERAS). God’s external works are inseparable, but there remains a general shape to these external works as “God’s external actions proceed from the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit,” (110). Thus, certain external works are appropriated to Father, Son, and Spirit, as they proceed “from the Father through the Son in the Spirit” (111).

The end-goal of the Triune God’s work in the world is himself. He is our supreme good (124). Through the means of grace (the preaching of the Word and the sacraments) the Father calls us to receive the Son by faith through the working of the Spirit in us. We were made to know, love, and praise the one God who is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Throughout the book, Swain captures historic Christian Trinitarian theology. The book is definitely a more technical and academic read than other books on the Trinity like Michael Reeves’ Delighting in the Trinity, but that is part of the purpose of the book. It belongs to a series of short studies in systematic theology, not a popular-level introduction to the Christian faith.

That being said, Swain emphasizes throughout the book that the reason we study the Trinity is not to dissect the doctrine somehow but to stand in awe before God as we see him revealed in Scripture. Even if a book like this takes more work to read, the work is for end of the praise and worship and love of our God and that is a worthy endeavor.

The book also devotes a whole chapter to divine simplicity, a doctrine that is neglected in many Christian circles and churches today. This neglect leads to problems. We can tend to view God as simply the balance of his attributes or think that one attribute in God somehow dominates another instead of viewing him as the God who is who he is and isn’t made up of parts. He isn’t the sum of his attributes or divided in any way. This is a key doctrine for understanding the unity of the Trinity and the unity in all that God does.

Swain also focuses on the mutual relations of the Father, Son, and Spirit as what distinguishes the persons of the Trinity. The distinctions between the persons are not primarily located in their relationship to us—the Father is not the Father because he is our Father, but because he is the eternal Father of the eternal Son. This distinction is crucial for orthodox (biblical) Trinitarian theology. Distinguishing the persons of the Trinity by their relationship to us quickly leads to errors like modalism (the persons are simply different expressions or modes in which God acts towards us).

Those who are looking to strengthen their understanding of the Trinity and grow in their worship of our Triune God will benefit from reading this book. It’s a short, but meaty book that demands a slow, careful reading. My understanding of the Trinity has been strengthened and, I pray, my worship of God deepened.

Godliness in a Digital Age: Wisdom from a 17th-Century Pastor

Often some of the most relevant wisdom we find (outside the Bible) for living in our digital age comes from old works of timeless truth. I found this to be true as I recently finished reading The Godly Man’s Picture by 17th-century English pastor, Thomas Watson. In the book, Watson seeks to describe what a godly believer looks like and encourages and challenges those who desire to live godly lives in Christ.

In one section near the end of the book, Watson lays out eight ways believers should pursue godliness, answering the question, “What shall we do that we may be godly?” (chapter 7, pp. 223–27 in the Puritan Paperback edition). As I was reading this chapter, I was struck by how relevant Watson’s words are for believers today.

Here are five of Watson’s answers to the question about pursuing godliness, applied to how we can pursue godliness in our digital age:

1. “Accustom yourselves to holy thoughts.”

Watson writes: “If men would step aside a little out of the noise and hurry of business, and spend only half-an-hour every day thinking about their souls and eternity, it would produce a wonderful alteration in them and tend very much to a real and blessed conversion,” (p. 224).

Pursuing godliness will require deep work, “serious meditation” on God’s Word, our own souls, and the eternal age to come. And yet deep work is often what our digital devices war against. Digital technology thrives in the shallows. It promotes distraction and shapes us to value entertainment and quick content consumption.

The problems of distraction and shallow living are not new. People through the ages have tended to busy themselves with anything but serious reflection on our mortality and the eternal age to come. We struggle to spend thirty minutes a day simply thinking deeply about the things of God.

In our digital age, especially, we need to slow down and do the deep work of meditating on God’s Word and things of eternal significance. Our social media feeds promote entertainment and distraction and controversy. We need to break away from that daily, turn on “Do Not Disturb”, and think deeply about the things that really matter. We will struggle in our pursuit of godliness if we are constantly wading in the shallows and neglect to do the deep, hard work of diving into eternal truths everyday.

2. “Watch your hearts.”

Our hearts, according to the prophet Jeremiah, are more deceitful than anything else (Jer 17:9). If we are not watchful, our hearts will lead us into sinful thoughts and actions. But “watchfulness maintains godliness,” (p. 224). The New Testament is filled with the exhortation to believers: Be watchful (e.g., Mark 13:32-37; Luke 21:34-36; 1 Cor 16:13; Heb 2:1; 1 Pet 5:8).

We must watch both our inputs and outputs—what is coming into our hearts and what is coming out. What we take in through our eyes and ears affects our hearts. What we think about and dwell upon can direct our hearts to Jesus or to our sinful desires. At the same time, what spills forth in our words and actions reveals the state of our hearts. “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks,” (Matt 12:34).

In our digital age, we should be especially alert to the content we view and listen to. We have unprecedented access to an unprecedented amount of inputs. We will never run out of YouTube videos to watch. There will always be new apps to download and podcasts to listen to. We are overloaded with inputs. But if we want to pursue godliness, we must remain watchful and alert to what we our setting our eyes upon and turning our ears to.

We should also ask ourselves: What is spilling out of my heart in how I engage with others online? Why am I posting what I am posting? What we post and how we engage with others online can be a window into our hearts. We must be watchful if we would be godly.

3. “Make spending your time a matter of conscience.”

Wasting time has always been a problem. Watson writes,

“Many people fool away their time, some in idle visits, others in recreations and pleasures which secretly bewitch the heart and take it away from better things. What are our golden hours for but to attend to our souls? Time misspent is not time lived but time lost. Time is a precious commodity.” (p. 224)

It has never been easier to pursue distraction and give in to procrastination. Our digital devices are designed to attract our eyeballs for hours a day. What social platforms, apps, video games, and streaming services want is our attention, and, thus, our time. That’s one reason why a former Netflix CEO once said the greatest enemy to their streaming platform was sleep.

These companies understand that our time is valuable. The question is: do we? Do we actually view our time as a “precious commodity”? Our time is one of the most valuable, limited things we have. What are we using our “golden hours” to pursue? How we spend our time reveals what we really value. So, what does your screen time say about what you value?

Let’s learn this lesson of godliness: we must pay attention to how we use our time. As Paul wrote in Ephesians, “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil,” (Eph 5:15-16).

4. “Make this maxim your own: godliness is the purpose of your creation.”

We were made to live for God and his glory. Our purpose as creation is to bring glory to the Creator. True godliness, at its core, is living for God’s glory in every area of our lives. To be godly is to live for God’s glory in Christ as those filled with the Spirit.

Yet, as Chris Martin puts it in his book The Wolf in Their Pockets, “Our relationship with social media is a powerful factor in distorting our understanding of purpose,” (41). Social media especially puts forth a vision that our purpose is to gain the approval (likes) of others, to post and view content that is valuable according to the world’s standards. Our purpose according to the wisdom of our age is to make our own purpose, and nowhere is that promise held forth more than online where it seems like we can fashion ourselves in anyway we want (Martin, 43).

This maxim must become our own in this digital age: our purpose, the reason why we are here, is to live for the glory of God. We were made for godliness, bringing glory to him and enjoying him forever. We were not made to define our own purpose or to pursue the praise of the crowd. You will not find real purpose and meaning in worldliness or trendiness. You will find your true purpose in godliness. Don’t let our digital age distract you from your true purpose.

5. “Be often among the godly.”

We were made for community. As believers, we need each other. Watson quotes Proverbs 13:20, which says, “Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.” If we want to grow in godliness, we must spend time with those who are farther down the road of godliness than we are.

And this means real, face-to-face community. To be often among the godly means in-person community first and foremost, before online feeds, groups, and forums, etc. Godliness is not something that is really picked up all that well from tweets or YouTube sermon clips. Godliness is learned in community as we do life together and walk together through the ups and downs of life.

Being among the godly, then, means being a part of a true Jesus-exalting, Bible-believing-and-doing church. Livestreams, podcasts, blogs, and Instagram reels are great, but they are nothing compared to the force for godliness that is genuine, gospel-centered community, which should generally be found in the context of the local church. If we wish to be godly, we should seek godly community.

These timeless principles for godliness may seem somewhat basic. But in our digital age, as in all previous generations, we must be intentional about pursuing the end for which we were created: living for the glory of God as we find our joy in him and believe and obey his Word.

What Is Technology? Seeking a Biblical Definition

Technology is all around us. I’m using it to write this. You’re using it to read this. It’s presence is so ubiquitous that we often don’t even think about it. The question, “what is technology?” seems so obvious that we might think that it’s not even worth asking.

Of course we know what technology is! We use it all the time. Our generation has seen incredible technological advances at incredible speeds. Why would we need to ask such a basic question?

Yet, failure to ask such a basic question is part of what lies at the heart of many of our struggles with technology. This kind of attitude leads us to adopt new technologies without giving any thought to potential consequences or the ways technology shapes us.

As Christians who (hopefully!) want to think biblically about technology, we need to ask this question. We need to go back to basics, dive back into Scripture and mine its depths to discern a biblical view of what technology is.

So, what is technology?

1. Technology is an expression of the image of God.

As we read in Genesis 1, God made all things out of nothing by speaking them into existence. God is the Creator. We are creation. Genesis 1:26-28 further teaches us that God created human beings in his image. God made us to show the world what he is like. And part of that is the propensity God wired in us to make stuff.

We image God by taking his creation and becoming sub-creators (to borrow a term from Tolkien) by designing something good from it. The image comes with what is often called the creation mandate: Adam and Eve were called to be fruitful and multiply, subdue the earth and rule and steward it well for God’s glory (Gen 1:28). Human beings have a mandate from God to use the natural resources he has given to make and create things for his glory and the good of others: which means that human beings have a mandate to make technology.

Tim Challies, building on these biblical principles, defines technology as: “the creative activity of using tools to shape God’s creation for practical purposes,” (The Next Story, p. 27). Technology is what happens when image-bearers take the stuff of God’s creation and shape it into something useful. When we make things that promote human flourishing it glorifies God. Technology used well points to the Creator and honors him. This is God’s design for technology, including the digital technology that marks our age.

Yet, when we come to Genesis 3, it all goes wrong. Adam and Eve disobey God. They fail to keep the mandate they have been given, and the curse of sin and death enter the world. So, the next question we have to answer is: how does technology function in light of the fall?

2. Technology is a gift from God to help us endure the effects of the Fall.

Though we are fallen human beings, sinners by nature and rebels against God, we still bear the image of God, even if that image has been distorted by sin. We still have the capacity to make and create. And even if we now use that capacity for sinful purposes, the capacity to make good things remains.

Tony Reinke writes:

God placed this universe, and our own bodies, under a curse so that we would live in hope of the resurrection. By his grace, he also left us with innovative possibilities as a merciful gift to resist some of these effects, to heal some of the creation that is broken, and to give us new ways to manage the pain of life in a fallen universe.

God, Technology, and the Christian Life, p. 133

We can design tools, techniques, and technologies that make farming easier. We develop medicine to treat disease and stave off death. We create communication technologies to alert people of dangerous weather or dangerous situations. We create weapons to defend ourselves from hostile animals and even people. So, even after the Fall, technologies that promote human flourishing are a mercy from God, a gift of his abundant grace to all humanity.

3. Yet, technology is still subject to the Fall.

Nothing in this world is untouched by the curse, including technology. Technology is not morally neutral. All technology can be used for good or evil, and some may even tend toward one or the other.

Technology can be used to hurt and harm others. While God designed our capacity to make tech to be used for his glory and the good of others, we can use technology to dishonor him, feed our sin, and physically and emotionally harm others.

Technology can become an idol we worship and enable other idols. We can look to technology for a kind of deliverance or meaning that only God can provide. Technology, as Challies notes, also enables other idols in our lives (36). Social media feeds the idol of the praise of man. My new iPhone enables the idol of status and image.

Every technology includes elements of risk and danger, as well as benefits (Challies, 41). With the benefits of technology there is a cost, and the most powerful technologies often come with the potential for the greatest cost. With all the benefits communication technologies bring, for example, come dangers and risk related to how we communicate with and view one another.

All technologies fade. None last forever. I may wish that my iPhone or Toyota or refrigerator will last forever. But they won’t. In a few years, my smartphone will be outdated and my car will be scrapped. Human technology, like all material things in this world, fades and decays. Technology too is subject to the Fall.

We see from the first three chapters of Genesis that technology is an expression of the image of God as we make and create things for practical purposes. It is at times a gracious gift from God that helps us endure life in this hard world corrupted by sin. Yet, technology is likewise subject to that same corruption. It is often used for evil, and it will fade.

These points are a crucial starting point for helping us understand technology. They help us avoid the extremes of viewing technology as a purely evil human endeavor or viewing it as the pathway to utopia. These principles help us approach new technologies with both positivity and caution, and they form the foundation for how we live in this digital age as followers of Jesus.