The Apostles and Technology (Part 2 of Tech & the PCA)
Building on what I wrote in my last post. I’ve decided to spend sometime looking at how the Apostles and the early church utilized technology. I will focus on three technologies: Roman ships. Roads that invention of the codex (book).
1. Roman Ships. With a simply glance at a bible map it is obvious that the expansion of the Gospel in the first few years of the church took place by means of sea transportation. The thing that is striking about the use of this technology is that it must have been apparent to the disciples that Christianity was being transported in a similar manor to other religious sects of the Roman world. In the Roman world, religions and philosophies of the day in large part moved around the empire from port to port, carried by passengers or crew on trading vessels. What this points to is the fact that the early church utilized methods that were very similar to the rest of the empire. It seems that when given the choice between appearing to be similar to other religious/philosophical movements OR the most effective expansion of the their message, the disciples choose the latter.
2. Roman Roads. Like the use of the employing ships for transportation, Roman roads allowed the Christians to quickly travel from city to city in the empire. While most people in the Presbyterian Church in America would agree that God expanded his church, “in the fullness of time” I wonder how many of them have realized that the Roman roads are not entirely unlike many modern technologies which folks in the PCA are not anxious to utilize. I can think of things such as email lists, the internet, and even social networking, which might be seen as similar to in their usefulness.
3. Letters & Books. Finally stepping a century in the future. The church was in fact a strong adopter of the earliest form the of book. Christians were able to transport, and therefore share larger amounts of information because of the more compact nature of books compared to the more clunky scroll. What this reveals is that the church decided to implement and even become an early adopter of a new technology for the advancement of Christianity.
Though I’ve included a few modern comparisons, I am not trying to argue that the PCA must use specific technologies. I am arguing that we should be considering how we can follow the example set before us in using every means possible to minster to as many people as possible.
Early Christians realize that the same roads and ships that they used, were used at other times, for sinful purposes. How could Paul not understand that the roads which he walked to share the gospel, were built to quickly move violent military units through out the empire, and yet he choose to redeem what was available to him.
At New Covenant there was discussion of putting Jack’s sermons on the radio. One of the elders just threw that out there as an idea. I mentioned to him and others to consider using podcasts instead. In sharing this with a dear friend, their response was “what about us older people?” It is true that the older generation does not know that much about technology – specifically computers and ipods. We need to minister to both the analog and digital generations. Use Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, etc, but also focus on other media.
It would be a good endeavor to put blog postings in a newsletter format, a monthly periodical, and sermons in a cd ministry. Put both together and you have an all encompassing “media ministry.” Websites must be top of the line. We do not look at Yellow Pages anymore for church listings, we use google. It is a first impression.