If you’ve been keeping your eye on the proliferation of technology in our generation, you would have noticed a marked increase in technological development within the last 5 years. One of the latest of such developments is the subcutaneous implantation of a computer chip that helps to read brain wave pattern changes helping paralyzed patients with sending texts, surfing the web, and activating computer devices by simply thinking about the action. It’s being hailed as the upcoming salvation for the thousands of people who suffer from debilitating diseases such as ALS. Then on the other hand, technology can be used to plunder and steal, as in the recent 10 Toronto arrests in what has been called the “SIM swap scam”. They steal your information, then convince your cellphone provider and financial institutions to hand over your identity while they empty your bank accounts, all from sitting in front of a computer screen. Scary? Don’t be scared. Be aware. I was speaking to a friend who retired after 30 years as a physician. He had become a doctor after years of experience as an electronics technician because a kind professor took hold of his arm and said sternly to him, “You’re an amazing technician. Go study medicine. You will find in 20 years that medicine and technology are indistinguishable.” “It’s true,” he told me. “70% of what surrounds me in a hospital setting cannot run except on technology.”
It struck me as I considered these things that the tools that we have been granted are increasing at an astronomical pace, for better or for worse. Wars are conducted by drones penetrating airspace; work is being assumed by artificial intelligence, robots, scanners, and automated camera systems. When was the last time we pulled out a map book in our car to find a location in the city? Isn’t it easier to speak into your phone to find the nearest store or an address you’re hoping to arrive at? Even this very article is arriving, for most of us, at your inbox the moment I click “send” on my computer. It simultaneously occurred to me that regardless of the advancements around us, the human soul is still infected by ancient needs. Greed, pride, idolatry, sensuality, malice, anger…the list goes infinitely beyond the “seven deadly sins” as a record of humanity since the Fall in the Garden of Eden. The writer of Ecclesiastes likens it to the rush of waters in a river weaving through great mountains to the waiting Sea. We think we’re living “at the pace of life” and we discover that unless you “remember your Creator in the days of your youth”, life is by vanity, a chasing after the wind (read Ecclesiastes 1 to 12). To live in the present world is to understand the pace of life but to be anchored in our faith in God. Don’t go chasing after the wind. Don’t be afraid of the dark. Don’t be charmed by the world. Rather, seek God and what is right in Him. And all these things shall be added to you as well (Matthew 6:33).
Just Church
Technology only serves to remind us of the unreliability of humanity in the face of change. The church’s One Foundation, Jesus, never changes. That’s our message! “The vision of Just Church is to establish a church in just the way Christ called the church to be – true to His Word, loving Him, loving one another, and loving the lost.”
