Participants:
Series Code: DID
Program Code: DID210010S
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00:19 Welcome again, my friends. Digital Disconnect
00:23 episode #10. I'm your host Scott Ritsema. 00:26 This one is such a joy for me to present. 00:29 I am very happy to have a relief from the previous episodes 00:33 which are really having to dig deep into an understanding 00:36 of the mind manipulation and the propaganda, 00:39 and the social engineering, and the assault on childhood 00:42 and the demonic inspiration in the entertainment industry. 00:45 Whew! Glad to have those particular episodes behind us 00:49 as we take delight and joy in being people of the Book 00:54 in the age of the app. Let's begin with prayer. 00:57 Father, we thank you so much for the Book of Books. 01:00 We thank you for whom it tells: Jesus Christ, 01:03 our Savior, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. 01:07 We pray now as we understand the digital age 01:10 and how we can re-capture a love for the written word 01:13 and the physical printed paper volumes that we are so blessed 01:16 to have. Our prayer is that You would give us inspiration 01:19 something better than excessive media and endless media 01:24 and something to behold Jesus through. 01:26 In Jesus' name, Amen. 01:28 I want to begin with a graphic that I want to put on the screen 01:31 for you that will give us a little historical context. 01:34 Do you know what that is on the screen there? 01:36 What is that invention that happened 500 years ago? 01:41 500+ years ago. 01:42 What you're seeing there is the printing press. 01:45 The printing press... its invention altered 01:49 human society and the course of history 01:52 like almost no other invention prior to it. 01:55 It enabled people for the first time in human history 01:58 to have a copy of the Bible for themselves 02:01 in their own language. They called it Gutenberg's folly 02:05 because the powers that be didn't want the common man 02:08 having access to the Word of God for himself. 02:10 And not just the Bible... as if that's not enough... 02:14 but volumes of the written word to experience an understanding 02:18 of science and God's creation. 02:21 Of history and prophecy 02:23 and the passing out of tracts for the witnessing and the 02:26 winning of souls. The next 400 years 02:29 after the invention of the printing press 02:31 was just building upon building upon building of truth 02:35 and greater enlightenment and deeper understanding 02:38 and reforms in human society. 02:40 It brought freedom of conscience. 02:42 It brought in enlightenment with civic virtues. 02:45 We wouldn't have the foundation of the American Republic 02:47 if it weren't for Gutenberg's printing press. 02:50 And we certainly wouldn't have Martin Luther's 02:52 Protestant Reformation which we praise God for. 02:55 And we live in a time where book reading and the physical 02:59 printed page seems to be kind of going out of style. 03:01 So let's spend some time thinking about digital reading 03:05 and digital immersion vs. the opportunity to read 03:09 and for our children to read books in their hands. 03:13 Now the reading circuit involves and integrates 03:16 several different areas of the brain. 03:17 This is amazing because you don't have a dedicated 03:20 reading circuit in your brain that's given you from birth. 03:23 It comes to being through two hemispheres 03:26 across 4 lobes per hemisphere 03:29 and five different layers of the brain... 03:31 and all of that wired together in a reading circuit. 03:34 We are "fearfully and wonderfully made" by God. 03:37 Once the brain learns how to read you can just pair all that 03:40 together in a millisecond. It's incredible! 03:43 And one cognitive neuroscientist named Dr. Maryann Wolf 03:47 has spoken of the benefits of book reading 03:50 and how research has actually shown that when you are a 03:53 book reader you enhance in your abilities at critical thinking, 03:56 at creativity... So there's Biblical virtues 03:59 right there. God created us in His image 04:01 and He is the Creator. We are small c creators. 04:04 "Come now let us reason together. " 04:06 Being critical thinkers. 04:07 She also points out that research has shown 04:09 personal reflection increases the more we are book readers. 04:13 So the Bible says: "Examine yourselves 04:15 whether ye be in the faith. " II Corinthians 13:5. 04:20 Examining ourselves... personal reflection. 04:23 And empathy is the fourth thing that book readers tend to do 04:26 more. "Love your neighbor as yourself. " Right? 04:29 In fact, speaking of empathy, Stanford Research 04:31 has shown that when people are reading a narrative in a book 04:35 when they are reading it deliberately and not just 04:39 quickly reading through it for the story 04:41 that the mirror neuron activity empathizing and stepping into 04:45 the shoes of the people you're reading about 04:47 actually is enhanced when you're reading deliberately 04:50 and contemplatively and not just speeding through 04:52 like our media comes at us these days. 04:55 Now I've read in the Bible that we are to love the Lord our God 04:58 with all our heart and soul and mind and strength. 05:01 Loving God with all our mind. 05:04 Have you ever thought about what that might mean 05:06 in an age where the mind is being dumbed down? 05:09 Is media dumbing us down? 05:11 Well if you look at research dating all the way back to 05:14 the 1980's they were showing that increased TV viewing 05:18 was dumbing people down. 05:19 Beyond that you fast-forward to 2003 05:22 and that's when the digital age is starting. 05:24 You know, Internet. Not mobile devices yet. 05:26 But by 2003 a generation of TV and video games 05:30 and the beginnings of the Internet were already witnessing 05:32 two grade levels lower of performance in children 05:36 in school than they were in the 1970's. 05:39 So we dropped two full grade levels 05:41 in our academic abilities. 05:44 So how about the modern times then with mobile devices 05:47 and endless Internet and Smartphone use? 05:49 Is that taking its toll the same way that the first generation 05:53 of media took its toll? 05:54 Well, since the advent of the Smartphone 05:57 just in a decade period of time 06:00 you had a dropping in SAT scores 06:03 13 points in language and in reading in just 10 years. 06:08 Now that's pretty significant. Language and reading 06:10 13 point drop. Then you look at the largest 06:13 study on media use and child development ever done. 06:16 $300 million federally-funded study. 06:20 And they found 5th graders who were doing just two hours 06:23 of screen time per day it reduced their cognitive 06:27 and academic abilities as well, particularly in thinking 06:29 and language scores. So we can sum that up 06:32 and say the media mind is becoming dumbed down. 06:35 The mind of Christ can be intelligent in the Word of God, 06:39 intelligent in critical thought. 06:40 And most of all, we can develop the character of Christ 06:43 as we are in His Word. Now that's not to say 06:45 of course that digital devices can't be used. 06:48 We can do Internet searches and these things are a great 06:50 blessing. I like having on my phone... 06:52 I can search the Bible. I have an app for 06:56 a whole host of books, EGW writings, apps. So many great 07:00 things that we can use these devices for 07:02 for our intellectual enhancement. But going back to 07:06 the basics sometimes can bring a greater benefit 07:09 than you might think. Digital everything isn't always 07:12 superior to the analog version if you will. 07:16 Now I'm discussing intelligence and critical thinking 07:19 and loving God with all of our mind not to make 07:22 academic attainment some sort of spiritual hierarchy. 07:27 You're aware of the fact that William Tyndale, 07:29 the famous Reformer, said to the elitists 07:33 of his time: "You know if you give me the Bible 07:36 in the common tongue I will have a boy who stands 07:38 at the plow to know more of the Word of God 07:41 than you doctors of the church. " 07:43 You professional papal theologians. 07:46 So pretty confrontational words from Mr. Tyndale. 07:49 He distributed English Bibles & was burned at the stake for it. 07:52 But the idea is that anybody can come to a knowledge 07:56 of salvation through Jesus Christ no matter how smart 07:59 we think we are. So I just want to put that in as a proviso 08:02 for people. "Oh, I got C's in school. Oh no, I'm not as 08:05 good of a Christian. " No, that's not the case. 08:07 But the more we can understand the Word of God 08:10 intelligently the more we can be guarded against 08:13 potential deception 'cause the devil wants to deceive. 08:16 And if thinking skills and language skills are down 08:19 because the media is dumbing people down, I suppose 08:21 Satan delights in that 'cause it makes easier prey 08:24 in this generation that's coming up with these lower 08:27 basic skills that are required for Bible reading. 08:30 So we want to be intelligent learners of the Scriptures. 08:33 But you might say: "OK, what about educational technology 08:37 then? " You heard in an earlier session about the Waldorf-style 08:41 schools. And they do some things that we wouldn't believe in 08:43 New Age sort of leaning things. But they do a lot of good things 08:46 like back to the basics getting children's... 08:48 their hands in the soil and gardening and chalk/chalkboards. 08:52 Low-tech schools. That's one of the trends. 08:55 You see two divergent paths on the graphic here: 08:58 the "no-tech" school where screens are off limits 09:01 even at home and then others in the AP it was reported 09:05 US classrooms are starting to resemble arcades 09:08 where they "gamify" the process of learning 09:11 and everything becomes a process of doing it digitally 09:16 online and scoring points or whatever. 09:18 And that's all the learning interface we have left 09:20 because that's what motivates them. And so we kind of 09:22 enable that and tap into that. 09:24 And people are well intentioned but the approach of going 09:28 low tech is proving to be superior. 09:30 So the first graphic there where you saw where screens 09:34 are not part of the educational process... 09:36 Look at this graphic: 09:41 Reading into the article it says: 10:04 So the more we're using "educational technology" 10:08 the lower the performance is going. 10:10 And that was in one particular investigation by the OECD. 10:15 But a Durham University study looked across 48 studies. 10:19 This is called a meta-analysis where they study all the studies 10:22 and they're looking at, OK, tech-based interventions. 10:25 "We're going to help the struggling kids. We're going to 10:26 get them involved with computers and educational technology. " 10:29 They found that traditional methods of intervention - 10:32 a tutor sitting there caring about the person - 10:35 pencil and paper - those are superior to the 10:38 tech-based interventions. 10:39 In the meta-analysis of forty-eight studies 10:41 that's pretty definitive. 10:42 And then you have a headline that came out 10:44 in Time Magazine. This was quite a provocative headline. 10:48 Not surprising from Dr. Kardaras who we heard from earlier. 10:52 But he says: "Screens in schools are a $60 billion hoax. " 10:56 He says: "This is a massive enterprise, 10:58 a big, well-funded entity, 11:01 a monolith of high-tech educational technology 11:06 being foisted into the schools. " 11:07 He says: "It's not doing a thing. It's a hoax" 11:10 is what he called it. But basically if you want to use 11:12 more objective scientific terminology 11:14 we have decades of research showing that 11:17 educational technology is not adding any performance value, 11:21 cognitive increase or academic success for our young people. 11:25 So the verdict is coming in on that pretty well. 11:27 But we start early you know. We have the baby on the iPad 11:30 sort of thing that we've looked at in previous episodes. 11:33 But let's think about books. 11:34 What can we be doing instead of that? 11:36 How many of you delight in having the toddler on the couch 11:40 sitting on the lap? You see the graphic there. 11:42 It's called shared attention and it's a joy to read to 11:46 those little ones. They're pre-readers. 11:48 And you know what's happening when you're reading to them? 11:50 Their language development is forming. 11:53 Their literacy is forming when they're being read to. 11:56 They don't have to learn to read at age 5. 11:58 That gives them no advantage over a kid who learns to read 12:01 at age 7. In fact, all other things being equal 12:04 the kid who learns to read a little later actually 12:06 out performs it when we force it too early 12:08 and it's this unpleasant thing. But what they DO learn 12:11 at 3 and 4 and 5 and 2 12:14 is they're learning phonics sounds and they can distinguish 12:17 those phonics sounds better by age 5 12:19 than kids who aren't read to. 12:21 And that exceeds their literary capabilities later in life. 12:25 What a blessing that is to have that foundation laid 12:27 so they can be people of the book in the age of the app. 12:30 And also, by the way, they're hearing sentence structure. 12:33 They're hearing verbiage; they're hearing different types 12:35 of ways of speaking that you wouldn't necessarily speak 12:38 as parents in the home. But when they hear it read to them 12:42 then they're starting to be able to comprehend 12:44 literary types of language and how we speak in literary form. 12:49 Maybe I should say how we used to speak because 12:51 today we give the toddlers apps. 12:53 Well, I like what Dr. Dimitri Christakis said: 12:56 "Toddlers need laps not apps. " 12:59 That's a clever way of putting it, but you might say: 13:02 "What is the big difference if our young people are reading 13:04 a book on a screen vs. reading it in a paper book? " 13:07 I've already revealed a little bit of a bias in favor of 13:10 the parchment... you know, the printed page... 13:13 the physically-bound book. 13:15 A lot of people like you know digital reading. 13:17 No sin in that, of course. 13:19 But when they looked at and in- vestigated reading comprehension 13:23 when you have books vs. like enhanced e-readers 13:27 where the kids in school they read this and there's a 13:29 little pop-up or you know little bells and whistles. 13:31 They actually found that reading comprehension is better 13:34 in physically printed books than in the enhanced 13:37 eBooks. And this was studied way back in the 1980's. 13:40 Do you remember the Apple computer that came out? 13:44 I remember my friend got one and it had the mouse. 13:46 Oh yeah, you see the image there. 13:48 My friend goes: "I got a computer! " 13:51 I'm like: "Oh, yeah, we have one of those. 13:53 It's a Tandy 1000. You have to type everything away. " 13:56 He goes: "No... ours has a mouse. " 13:58 I'm like: "A mouse? Why would you want a mouse? " 14:01 "No, you've gotta see this. " And he's moving it around 14:03 and it's moving on the screen. I'm like: "Whoa! That's neat. " 14:06 Well anyway, they studied that in that age of hyperlinks 14:09 and clicking on the hyperlinks 14:10 in the late 80's they found that reading comprehension was lower 14:14 when there's an option to click on a link 14:16 than when it's the same text in a book and there's no link. 14:19 Because the brain is divided. It's thinking: "Should I click 14:22 on this or not? " So a little different. I like links. 14:24 There's no obviously sin in using Internet research. 14:27 I've done a lot of Internet research for these seminars 14:29 as you've noticed... a lot of online screen shots 14:32 but never wanting to just surrender and sacrifice 14:36 and say good-bye to the physical paper books. 14:38 'Cause then the real test came. They said: "Now let's 14:41 compare physical paper books vs. non-enhanced e-readers. " 14:45 So it's on a screen but there's no bells and whistles. 14:48 There's no things to click and links to distract you. 14:50 It's just the paper vs. the screen. 14:53 And they found even then the paper comprehension was 14:55 better when you're reading it in a physical paper book. 14:59 And so they kind of came down to it at a meta-analysis. 15:02 Dartmouth University looked across the board at all the 15:04 studies on that and found reading comprehension 15:07 is better in physical paper books. 15:10 Now listen to the one from the Washington Post here: 15:36 So the verdict is in. The media mind is more scattered 15:39 and distracted. You know we talked about the stress 15:41 and the multi-tasking in a previous episode. 15:44 The mind of Christ we can become more focused. 15:47 And the focused attention is something that we are lacking. 15:50 In this age of being inundated with so many images 15:54 and messages and notifications and distractions 15:57 the idea of focused intensity - 15:59 the way that we have learned as a human race over the past 16:03 particularly 500 years to think logically and linearly 16:07 and in a systematic way - 16:09 is being moved aside in favor of this new digital onslaught 16:14 of information. And if you think about what real literacy 16:18 is about, you know, as readers of the Word of God 16:20 and of history books real literacy includes things 16:24 like metaphors and things like logical narratives 16:27 and a conceptual framework that can form your thinking 16:31 around contrasting ideas. Like: the media mind is, 16:34 the mind of Christ is. 16:36 There's a logical conceptual framework there that we've been 16:38 going through. Critical thinking; long attention spans 16:42 for deep analysis is being lost in the "insta culture. " 16:47 We are living in the insta everything time: 16:50 the world of the sound bite; the here-and-now moment; 16:53 the frozen moment in the social media impulse 16:56 that I receive and the impression I get 16:58 at an emotional level almost exclusively 17:01 when we are living in the digital world 17:04 instead of being people who are thinkers and contemplate things, 17:08 evaluate things. And we have security in Christ 17:11 to know we don't need to be swayed this way and that 17:14 by the trends and the course of the culture around us. 17:17 We've lost the concept of long-term consequences 17:21 in the "insta culture. " 17:22 The here-and-now present moment is divorced 17:25 from the concept of cause and effect. 17:28 So the media mind, frankly, just becomes more shallow. 17:32 But the mind of Christ deep: deep in the Scriptures, 17:36 deep in the things of God. 17:37 Now there was a very alarming publication, a very alarming 17:41 report that was put out in the UK. This would be 17:43 similar across the Western world. 17:45 And they were looking at how do college admissions officers 17:49 say the young people are doing who are coming into college age. 17:53 They've come through this digital revolution. 17:55 How are they doing with their abilities in terms of 17:58 the memory and other facets? Take a look at the graphic. 18:20 "All I've gotta do is 'Google' it... I don't need to 18:22 have a memory. 18:24 We've outsourced our memory to Google! 18:26 Google is the external hard drive of what used to be 18:29 the human brain and memory 18:31 and we just access that when needed. 18:33 Why do I need to have facts swimming around in my head? " 18:35 Well: to assimilate them with previous knowledge 18:38 with understanding of beliefs and convictions. 18:40 The human brain God gave us is there for a reason. 18:44 But we outsource our collec- tion of information to Google. 18:47 We outsource our storing of facts to Google. 18:50 Well, is Google going to start doing our thinking for us 18:53 then? "I don't know. Google it. " 18:55 "I don't know. Google it. " Well the founder or the CEO 18:58 rather of Google's parent com- pany, his name is Eric Schmidt, 19:02 he admitted in an interview with Charlie Rose 19:05 he said, quote: "We are altering cognition 19:08 and affecting deeper thinking. " 19:11 Now that's a mild way of putting it. 19:14 "We are altering people's ability to think deeply. " 19:18 Altering it? Yeah. Reducing it; diminishing it 19:21 in a way that is problematic and harmful 19:24 for peoples' ability to be individuals 19:26 and to love God with all their mind, frankly, 19:29 and ward off against the deceptions. And a corporation 19:32 that I may not trust very well 19:33 is going to be doing our thinking for us 19:36 'cause they admit they are altering cognition and affecting 19:38 deeper thinking. And the memory... oh the memory 19:42 is going. Some people think their memory is going 19:45 since they're getting old, and that might be the case. 19:47 My mom sometimes says that. "Oh, I must be getting old. " 19:50 But I've noticed sometimes my memory isn't what it just was 19:53 and I'm not old. So is it possible that 19:57 all of our memories are suffering in the digital age 19:59 to the extent that we are inundated with so much 20:01 of the media and all the distractions and stress 20:03 and everything. Prefrontal cortex reducing 20:05 as we looked at. Well they've studied this. 20:07 Having your Smartphone nearby 20:10 takes a toll on your thinking the headline says. 20:12 Then there was Lloyd's Insurance. Have you heard of 20:14 this Lloyd's Insurance Group? They actually 20:16 wanted to take a look at household accidents 20:19 and the propensity for people to leave a boiling pot 20:22 going and it causes problems or a bathtub is not, you know, 20:26 is left on and it's plugged and there's no release 20:28 and it ruins the house or lost keys & things like that. 20:31 So they looked at that: how forgetful people are 20:34 with things like that. And they found in just 10 years' 20:37 time they estimated a 50% drop in the memory span 20:43 of the industrialized world's human brain. 20:45 So in other words, the 12-minute memory span that previously 20:49 existed is reduced to lower than six minutes 20:52 of remembering what I was doing. "Oh yeah, what am I doing 20:55 again? " So we're struggling with the media mind becoming 20:58 more forgetful. And this isn't the most important spiritual 21:01 virtue but it shows what's going on in our brains 21:04 that we are suffering a bit. The mind of Christ: we want it 21:06 to be retentive when I hear a sermon, when I memorize 21:09 Scripture. When I know what I'm tasked to do. 21:12 I'm not getting off task; I'm not forgetting. 21:14 And just the bottom-line question that I ask myself 21:17 in this digital age is: if we are just simply 21:21 receiving passively and going along with the current 21:24 that big tech is declaring unto us, inviting us into, 21:27 is it kind of like row, row, row your boat 21:30 and the stream of culture takes us where... "Oh, wait! 21:33 Where is it taking us? " 21:34 It could take us right off of the Niagara Falls 21:37 if we're not careful. We need to just pause 21:39 and ask ourselves: "Is the status quo that I have 21:44 unknowingly entered into here 21:47 what I want? What God wants for my brain? " 21:50 "For my children's development? " 21:51 Using technology is a blessing. Absolutely! 21:56 And it's a double-edged sword, is it not? 21:58 Where are the lines? How can we find some boundaries 22:01 where it's not digital everything taking over 22:04 our relationships as we've looked at in the past 22:07 and our study in this particular session? 22:09 Reading books. I like the concept of books 22:12 because it was the Dark Ages that sought to eliminate 22:15 people from reading the Bible in their common language. 22:20 But then something was prompted in my thinking about this 22:24 as just a history guy and thinking about the trends 22:26 of history I've read in the Bible prophecy 22:30 that the persecution and the ideology of the Dark Ages 22:34 is going to be repeated in the last days. 22:36 So is there going to be some kind of revival of a Dark Ages 22:40 human society mind? 22:43 I know the persecution is coming. That's clear. 22:46 What precedes and facilitates that persecution? 22:49 Is it a societal passiveness? 22:53 An inability to question and identify truth 22:55 for ourselves? Are we possibly entering into 22:58 a new Dark Age in terms of the minds of people? 23:02 Not just dumbing down in an intellectual capacity 23:04 but the ability to even think? 23:07 The ability to critically think and evaluate. 23:10 If that is the case then Revelation 13 would 23:13 make a lot more sense in light of people just 23:16 "wondering after the beast wherever he shall lead them. " 23:18 And we know media manipulation is happening. 23:20 The worldly schooling system is creating automatons. 23:23 Is the dumbing down and the inability to read 23:26 along the same lines? There was a scholar named Maggie Jackson 23:30 who defined the Dark Age philosophically as 23:32 "an abyss of forgetfulness. " 23:36 Are we remembering history? We're the "insta culture. " 23:38 "Who cares what is in the past? 23:42 Boring old history people. " 23:44 "Prophecy? Oh that's the future. 23:45 All that matters now is my instant pleasure seeking 23:48 or to-do list right now. " 23:50 But as people of the Book history and prophecy 23:54 are critical to our understanding of the present 23:56 and how we live in the present. 23:58 So it challenges us to go deeper and pan out 24:00 and be bigger picture thinkers. 24:03 So what is the goal here as far as the literacy and the 24:05 book reading stuff? Are we trying to totally do with... 24:07 do away with online reading? Are we saying: "No, 24:10 we ought to not have the Internet? 24:11 We're going to try to uninvent the Internet. " 24:13 No, not so... but maybe we can try to foster 24:16 what some scholars have called a "biliterate brain. " 24:20 'Cause reading online is different than reading in books. 24:22 We ARE better fact chasers online by the way. 24:25 So there's an advantage. You're quick finding a fact; 24:28 you can find it in online text faster than you can find it 24:30 in a book. Why? I don't know. 24:32 But it's not control F. Ooh, I like that function 24:35 to find a word on the page. I'm a big fan 24:37 of using the Internet but I also want to retain 24:40 my ability to read. REAL literacy. 24:42 Deeply... comprehension going deep. 24:45 Linear logical thought patterns 24:46 and then re-train the brain on how we read online 24:50 so we're not jumping from this to this and we have 24:53 no attention span. So re-train for online reading 24:56 that goes deeper. We don't lose our critical thinking capacity 24:59 and retain our book reading. 25:01 'Cause we're not retaining book reading at this point. 25:03 The sad reality is 1/3 of teens have not read a single book 25:07 in the past year. Now in the 1950's 25:09 nearly all 12th graders had read a book in the previous week 25:12 'cause they had to for school. 25:14 In 1976 that had come down to 60% of 12th graders 25:19 would say in a survey that they read a book or a periodical 25:23 most days of the week. 25:25 So 40% drop from the 1950's to the 1970's 25:28 when you see... you know... the inundation of TV. 25:32 But by 2016 only 15% 25:35 of 12th graders today in a survey say that they read 25:39 a book or periodical on a weekly basis. 25:42 Now the Bible does say knowledge will increase in the last days 25:45 so how would you fit that in to the equation here? 25:48 'Cause it seems like in the information age 25:50 we're inundated with information 25:52 and so you know what's the problem with that? 25:56 Well, we're becoming dumbed down and it's being outsourced! 25:58 So if knowledge is increasing, what kind of knowledge? 26:01 Is there a difference between information and knowledge? 26:04 Information you can access at the click of a mouse 26:07 or the tap of a mobile device 26:09 may be different than knowledge. 26:10 When the Bible talks in Daniel about knowledge increasing 26:13 it is speaking about spiritual knowledge, knowledge of the 26:15 prophecies. And THAT is one thing we do not want to neglect 26:19 in these last days: the knowledge of the Word of God. 26:22 So you might ask the question: "We're in the information age. 26:25 In the last 25 years has humanity increased and had 26:28 a deeper experience with the Word of God? " 26:31 We can look it up on the app on the phone. 26:33 We have so many tools for Bible study. 26:36 I would venture to say the benefits of these technologies 26:39 have been overshadowed largely by the dangers. 26:42 TS Elliot the famous poet said: 26:50 There is a difference, isn't it? 26:51 A computer can do knowledge or can do information rather. 26:55 You remember when the computer won in Jeopardy? 26:58 His name was Watson... the computer was called Watson. 27:00 He won Jeopardy 'cause he's got all the facts 27:02 you know. Information and facts is not the same thing 27:05 as knowledge of the divine. 27:07 We've gotta go into our Bibles. 27:09 Reflection on our lives and on our relationships. 27:13 Prayer. These are the ways we go deep 27:16 with Jesus and have the knowledge increase. 27:19 But books will not die. I believe that the canvasser 27:22 will have work to do until the very close of time, 27:25 till the very close of probation. 27:27 And we know there's books in heaven: the Book of Life, 27:30 the Book of Remembrance, 27:31 the Book of Records. And we have our names written 27:35 in that Book of Life. We are people of the Book. 27:37 And how do we make sure our names remain 27:39 in that Book of Life and our sins are blotted out... 27:42 not our names... 27:43 is we make sure to be in the Book of Books. 27:46 Are we studying the Word of God? 27:47 In a subsequent session we'll look at boredom in the Bible 27:50 and how the digital age is creating a distaste 27:52 for the Word of God in many people. 27:54 But we can revive that and have the hope and promise 27:57 that Jesus will give us His presence and His salvation. |
Revised 2021-07-12