Still More of What I’ve Learned from Email
Every now and then, I will receive something via email that has absolutely no spiritual lesson. It may be funny or it may be just interesting. Some of these are kept in my "Keepers" folder (if they are worth keeping), but most are simply discarded to the electronic Recycle Bin to await my emptying the trash at some future time.
The "lesson" for today came from my daughter, and when I read it a spiritual lesson came thundering in. I hope you will like it, and the "moral of the story" that follows:
Life Before the Computer
Slightly Edited
An application was for employment
A program was a TV show
A cursor used profanity
A keyboard was a piano!
Memory was something that you lost with age
A CD was a bank account
Compress was something you did to garbage, not something you did to a file.
If you unzipped anything in public, you'd be in jail for awhile.
Log on was adding wood to a fire
Hard drive was a long trip on the road
A mouse pad was where a mouse lived (in beatnik talk)
A backup happened to your toilet!
Cut - you did with a pocket knife
Paste - you did with glue
A web was a spider's home
A virus was the flu!
What will the new millennium bring to our lives?
Royce’s "Moral of the Story"
I suppose it would be simplest just to say that the moral of the story is that times change. Technology improves. But, there is a larger, better application for a preacher who wants to call it like he sees it.
The fact is, technology is not the only thing that is changing. While God is immutable (not subject to change) and Jesus is "the same yesterday and today and forever" (Hebrews 13:8), this old spiritual world is changing so fast I can hardly keep up!
One of the grandest slogans of the collective heirs of the Campbell-Stone (or Restoration) movement is, "We speak where the Bible speaks, and are silent where the Bible is silent." Unless you are over 40 years old, I suspect you have never heard that! But, it’s a good slogan, nonetheless.
We used to "get onto" the denominational folks for all of their terms and phrases that are without scriptural precedent and support. Along the way, some of them listened and agreeing, came in obedience the gospel. Nowadays, however, "our" language is no better than "their" language. We call things, not by Bible names, but by the descriptive names of human origin.
I cannot tell you how many times members of the church have introduced me to their friends as "our Pastor" or "my Minister." Truth be known, if I am anybody’s minister, I am the minister of Christ and only secondarily the minister of men. Furthermore, I am nobody’s "Pastor" for the Spirit has not appointed me to the work (Acts 20:28).
About 3000 years ago, Nehemiah told about the children of God and the effect of their pagan and foreign spouses upon them and their children. He said, "As for their children, half spoke in the language of Ashdod, and none of them was able to speak the language of Judah, but the language of his own people" (Nehemiah 13:24). When the people of God are constantly and relentlessly subjected to the language of Ashdod, that is the language they are going to speak!
It’s time we stopped currying the favor of denominational apologists and seminary-trained preachers. If we are ever going to turn the tide of language back to the words of Divine origin, we are going to have to start (once again) "calling Bible things by Bible names." Paul said,
"There are, perhaps, a great many kinds of languages in the world, and no kind is without meaning. If then I do not know the meaning of the language, I will be to the one who speaks a barbarian, and the one who speaks will be a barbarian to me" (1 Corinthians 14:10-11).
We don’t sound like "Barbarians" anymore, because we are speaking their language (they have never abandoned their language in favor of God’s, so if any movement has taken place, it has been on our part).
It may be true that technology is changing, but it is not possible that the Word of God will do so. He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself. He is immutable; He does not change. If we belong to Him, we won’t be changing, either!
Point: What do you think we called things before men devised their own language for spiritual things?
