“O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!” (Romans 11:33)
Before I get going again on my regular rant against modern technology, let me readily admit in full color glory my colossal ignorance. I wish I could catch up to the world, but it left me behind in the dust several years ago and I am in mad scramble mode trying to find my place. It is not for lack of ability. I am a smart guy. My IQ is well above the average, which might be part of the problem. I cannot accept things as they are without trying to take it all apart and understand every detail. But the other part of it is that I just can’t seem in many ways to get the point. So much of our modern life’s experiences have been driven by technology that is designed to “connect” us with every one of the other 7 billion humanoids, and in the process, it drowns us in a tidal wave of marshmallow fluff. There is no way you can “connect” with everyone. Those who study the social habits of people claim that no one can really handle more than about 100 friends, yet Facebook allows us to have as many as 5,000 before they cap it.
Of course, anyone who is not living under a rock is familiar with Twitter. I know about Twitter because I hear about all the famous tweets from all the famous twits every day. I don’t have a Twitter account (that’s a shocker) and probably never will. As a preacher, it would be next to impossible to limit myself to 140 characters. That is why 99.44% of all tweets are absolute meaningless drivel with the “nutritional” value of half a cheese puff. There is very little you can express in only 140 characters, yet this “new” fad perfectly illustrates the crazy society we live in. There is no real depth in relationships any longer. We get married and move on to another one before the wedding cake top is defrosted. We won’t let our children pay attention for longer than 140 characters and then we wonder why they are loaded up on drugs for their ADHD. If we sit in the drive through lane for more than 60 seconds, we will get so impatient that we will drive to the next fast food joint to sit in their drive through lane. Today’s “must have” item is in the trash can tomorrow. Consistency, persistence, and dedication to a task are unknown.
The purpose of Twitter is for instant communication in “sound byte” form. God gave us “instant communication” in a book. It is not mindless inane drivel. The Bible consists of 66 books, 1189 chapters, about 31,000 verses, over 800,000 words, and over 3.5 million characters (letters). Run the numbers on that. If you were to begin tweeting the Bible at 140 characters at a time, and sent out one Bible tweet a day beginning on the day you were born, you would tweet the final “Even so, come Lord Jesus” about your 70th birthday. I know the Bible is a pretty big book, but if it takes you 70 years to get through it, you are not going to get much. Unfortunately, most of God’s people treat the Bible like Twitter. They look for a “verse of the day” (about once a week), and wonder why they can’t seem to really get anything out of it.
Paul praised the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God in the above verse. The Bible is inexhaustible. No matter how many times you read a verse, there are always some things you see new and fresh each time. It is like a never ending “bloomin’ onion” that just keeps giving and giving. Every time you peel back another layer of the word of God, another deep truth appears. But the Bible can never be grasped in sound byte form. God broke it up in verses so that we could find things and take it in pieces when needed, but it requires a consistent daily full and balanced diet of its precious truths to feed the hungry soul. I know we eat our meals one “byte” at a time (pun intended), but if all you ever did was take one small bite of food three times a day, you would not survive. Go ahead and experience life in this new fast lane with all of your thousands of “twits”, but get deep with God in his amazing book. It is the only source of real life that can keep you grounded in this insane asylum run by the inmates.
