Friday, May 12, 2006

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

Roger Bothwell and I share a distinction: the only surviving expatriate directors of what was once the Uganda Mission. He also writes a little daily mini-sermon that is widely read. His latest has pricked the laptop bubble, and I admire his courage.

 

He has outlawed laptops in his classroom: “I am not an old man fighting technology,.... but there are certain functions in life that cannot be enhanced by keyboards and chips. Classroom discussions are one of them. While computers are excellent at instantly finding a Bible text or a commentary reference they cannot replace the opening of the human heart to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.” He wants the students to look at him in class, not at laptops. Amen.

 

I go a step further. I’ve been concerned about pastors replacing their Bible with the laptop. The images on the monitor/screen quickly disappear for others to take their place. Our minds grasp the cold fact we retrieved from the Internet and then the monitor either goes blank or is filled with another transitory cold fact and we hurry on. More convenient, less time, than “searching the Scriptures” in an old fashioned Bible.

 

You can’t take the computer to bed for a last minute good-night devotional and if you could, the monitor images vanish. Meanwhile, what the old Bible has been saying is still there in print that doesn’t go away. And, thanks to the Holy Spirit, the words printed on the holy paper are also imprinted on our minds.

 

Yes, I am also profoundly grateful for technology but I thank the Lord supremely for the old Holy Bible that I can mark and hug to my heart as an eternal treasure.

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.

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