Teach me, O Lord, the way of Your statutes,
And I shall observe it to the end.
Give me understanding, that I may observe Your law
And keep it with all my heart.
Make me walk in the path of Your commandments,
For I delight in it.
—PSALM 119:33–35
When God speaks, He means what He says, He does what He says, and He expects us to do what He says. We must learn to treat communication from God differently than the other communications that flood our lives. We live in an age overflowing with messaging—most of which is irrelevant, meaningless, or false. By necessity, we have learned to filter and disregard most of the communication directed at us. We cannot do the same with God.
God is a strategic communicator, and His word is purposeful and powerful. In ISAIAH 55:10-11, the Lord says, “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there without watering the earth and making it bear and sprout, and furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater; So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; it will not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.” In the end, we will submit to Him and conform to His will. The only question is whether we will do so willingly or under compulsion. Will we do so as loved children or as vanquished enemies?
New communication technologies have introduced new patterns of filtering and processing information. Unfortunately, we often apply these same filters to messages from God. These patterns may be perfectly appropriate when applied to messages from other people, but they are decidedly inappropriate when applied to God’s communications to us. His messages to us are personal, authoritative, actionable, and important. They demand our full attention and response.
Over the last five hundred years, communication technologies have evolved in amazing fashion, from Gutenberg’s printing press to the telegraph, radio, television, and Internet. This evolution has had great impact on our perceptions and practices of communicating. Unquestionably, modern communication technologies have been used to accomplish wonderful things on behalf of the Kingdom of God. However, I also believe that they have had some negative consequences.
Before the printing press, most communications were personal—directed to a particular individual or group. When Paul wrote a letter to Timothy, Timothy did not have to ask, “Does this apply to me?” Of course it applied to him; it had been written specifically for him. With the advent of the printing press, communications became significantly decontextualized. The printing press resulted in a whole new class of writing, more generic and principle-based and less personal. It became necessary for readers to ask themselves, “Does this apply to me? Is this actionable or relevant to my life?” So readers started to filter communications for personal relevance, disregarding those that did not seem to apply to them.
The invention of the telegraph restored the personal nature of communication, as telegrams were usually sent to a specific individual. But it created a new filter, the filter of recency. The information transmitted was of immediate urgency, but not of long-lasting value. New facts pushed other facts out of consciousness quickly. Daily newspapers furthered the trend. Hence the saying, “Yesterday’s newspaper is good only to wrap fish.” Nonrecent news is not news and should be ignored, according to this attitude.
With radio and then television, people began to assess the value of communication based largely on its entertainment value. This tendency has penetrated the realms of religion and politics, creating a culture in which teaching and entertainment are inseparable.
Radio and TV also shortened people’s attention spans. Advertising contributed to this impact, presenting information in neatly packaged thirty-second formats. Storytelling accompanied by images and music became essential. Reasoned arguments and thoughtful analysis were put aside unless they could be packaged in an entertaining one-hour program. The result has been mental passivity and lazy thinking. We have added another filter, often asking, “Is this interesting or amusing to me?” If not, we simply ignore it.
The Internet has exacerbated this tendency, causing people to constantly filter, skim, and summarize in order to deal with data overload. We are swamped by data, often packaged in emotion-laden ways, without the time or information needed to analyze or evaluate.
Twitter has further amplified cultural patterns of brevity, leading to additional degradation of attention spans and prevalence of sound-bite culture. Facebook created greater exacerbation of image-consciousness. Image is valued over content, reputation over character, impression over reality. Communications using that application became about image management.
The profusion of data forces people to filter what they consume. By sheer necessity, we are forced to quickly disregard most of the information that comes at us. We filter it for applicability (Does this apply to me and my situation?), for recency (Is this today’s news?), for entertainment value (Do I enjoy this?), for actionability (Is there something for me to do about it?), and for authority (Do I really believe this guy?).
For example, I recently received a recorded message on my cell phone, saying (in a slightly foreign accent): “This is the Social Security Administration. Please contact us immediately before we start legal proceedings.” I don’t know what the recording said after that, because I hung up, deleted the message, and blocked the number. Why? Because within a few seconds I decided that this was not really the Social Security Administration (real government offices will usually write letters, to preserve a paper trail), and I know lots of people are “phishing” for my personal account information. Twenty years ago I would not have done that. I would have listened to the whole message. But the proliferation of people trying to sell me something, steal my information, or get me to look at their Twitter feed has forced me to quickly filter incoming information and disregard most of it.
But as we filter, we naturally tend to pay attention to information that confirms our previously held biases. This tendency leads to multiple, sharply defined audiences, each of which exists in a self-reinforcing echo chamber. This has, in turn, resulted in massive fragmentation rather than the previously described unifying function of communications.
The upshot is that we receive more and more information and listen (in the biblical sense of “hear and obey”) to less and less. News has transitioned from being functional and actionable to a collection of decontextualized facts. The ratio of information to action has been steadily declining. (Ask yourself how much of TV news is designed to entertain and how little of it has a direct, practical impact on your life.)
These trends are reaching their logical conclusion with big data and artificial intelligence. With these, we delegate responsibility for evaluation and decision making to a computer algorithm, based on predetermined general principles. The impact on thinking patterns, analytical ability, ethics, and other areas of life will be profound. Not that I oppose big data or artificial intelligence; they offer great potential benefits. But we must pay attention to what we can lose along the way.
We are creating a world in which we place our decision-making confidence in data and statistics. Even assuming that the data are accurate and appropriate, and assuming that we interpret the data correctly, a bigger problem remains, for we live in an upside-down Kingdom where the “smart” decision is frequently not the right decision. Think of Joshua marching around Jericho with trumpets blaring (JOSHUA 6), or Gideon sending away the majority of his soldiers (JUDGES 7). Making data-driven decisions could teach us to trust our data rather than God. With so many decisions being premade based on the data, we will not feel our need for God so keenly and will be tempted to listen to God less. Will we trust our software more and listen to God less? Will we begin to outsource or predetermine too many of our decisions?
I am not discounting the value of data or research. God can use research to guide us. In the 1990s, I advised a number of leaders of the Chinese house-church movement in order to help them develop a missions strategy. Senior leaders in the movement were dismissive of missions research. They would point out that pride drove David to take a census (2 SAMUEL 24:1–25; 1 CHRONICLES 21:1–30). I would respond by pointing out occasions when God approved of censuses (EXODUS 30:11–16; NUMBERS 1:1–46; 4:1–49; 26:1–65; 2 CHRONICLES 2:17–18; 25:5; NEHEMIAH 7:1–68). Then I would argue that the most important function of missions research is to discover where work is not happening.
My goal was to get the Chinese leaders to learn about the many unreached people groups in China. Their traditional approach to mission strategy was to seek God’s leading, then go where God told them they should go. But there was a problem. They were unaware of the very existence of most of these unreached people groups. It is difficult to go to a place you don’t know exists. Once they became aware of these unreached groups, they began to sense God’s call to go to them. The data helped them hear God more fully.
The question is not whether we should make decisions based on what we hear from God. Of course we should. But God communicates through many means, including research and intelligent planning. Just as He gives greater knowledge to those who study His Word diligently, He communicates wisdom to those who devote both prayer and careful research to their decisions. Planning is not a bad thing. The question is whether we will plan our trust or trust our plan. We trust in God, not in our planning.
We live in a time that drives us to quickly filter out and disregard most of the communications directed at us. When I go through my mail, I toss most of it in the trash without opening it, based on a quick perusal of the outside of the envelope. I do the same with my email, deleting most of it based on a scan of the sender and subject line. I just don’t have time to read it all. That is good, even necessary. But I must fight against the tendency to treat God’s communications in the same way. When God speaks—whether in the Bible or through the personal promptings of His Spirit—I need to turn off the filters and carefully attend to all He says. I need to slow down, stop multitasking, and give Him my undivided focus.
In discipleship, we need to remediate the cultural patterns of filtering incoming information. We must restore ways of thinking and communicating that prepare us to hear from God as He speaks to us in personal, timely, authoritative, and impactful ways. We can do that by establishing patterns of interacting with Scripture, with one another, and in prayer that highlight these aspects of God’s communications. The remainder of this book contains suggestions regarding small groups, personal discipleship, and personal devotional habits to help us accomplish that goal.
But when evangelizing, we need to communicate in a way that com-municates effectively in the culture that exists. We need to accommodate in evangelism and remediate in disciple making. We need to evangelize in a way that is understandable to the people we are talking to—suited to their age group and culture. We cannot communicate to people in ways they are not able or willing to receive. The underlying message does not change, but the means of communicating it must be constantly adapted to the contemporary culture. This is what the Incarnation was all about.
Acts 17 provides an example, as Paul preaches two different evangelistic sermons. The first (ACTS 17:1–4) is addressed to Jews in Thessalonica. In this message he argues that Jesus fulfills the Old Testament promises concerning the Messiah. In his second gospel message (ACTS 17:22–32), Paul is speaking to a gathering of Greek philosophers. There he does not mention the Messiah or the Old Testament. Instead, he begins by talking about an altar he had observed in Athens—an altar to an unknown God. Then he quotes a Greek poet to argue that there is one God, creator of all, on whom we all depend. He concludes with the coming judgment before Jesus, who rose from the dead.
Paul gives two different gospel messages because he is speaking to two different audiences. He adapts his message to fit the culture in which he is communicating. In presenting the gospel, we must do the same. Essentially, we must communicate the gospel in the style of the culture.
However, once people have entered the Kingdom as disciples, we need to remediate them. We need to train them to respond to God’s communications, not as the culture dictates but in the style in which God chooses to communicate. We need to train them in new patterns of listening so that they can receive God’s communications in the way He intends: as personal, authoritative, and calling for a response of obedient action. In the following chapters we will talk about how to do that—how to train and disciple in a way that is designed to encourage people to learn, do, and share God’s Word.
Because people are used to filtering and ignoring the bulk of communications directed at them, it is almost impossible to disciple someone who has not acknowledged the Lordship of Christ. We teach them something from God’s Word, and they pick and choose what they will apply. This is not biblical discipleship.
They need to have the connection restored between information and action. They need to learn to do what God says. They need to understand the personal and relational and authoritative nature of God’s communications. They need to stop thinking of their own communications as a way to manage their personal image and focus, and instead think about how they can bring honor and glory to God. None of this can happen without a prior decision that Jesus is Lord and deserves our obedience.
John Dewey, the famous educator, said, “The content of a lesson is the least important thing about learning.” In other words, how one learns is important. Technology impacts ideology and philosophy and behavior. We will learn more about tools to help us make these essential adaptations in later chapters.
Lord, you deserve my immediate, complete, and wholehearted obedience. Your Word is my command. Help me to live that way. I am so used to filtering, evaluating, ignoring, and dismissing incoming communications. Help me to never do that with You. Give me wisdom to understand the culture I live in. Show me how to communicate Your gospel in a way that is true, understandable, and persuasive. Then, help me to train disciples who treat Your Word as they ought.
Read the following questions, then pray and ask God what He wants you to learn and do. Listen quietly.
Review your journal. Are there any past commitments you have not completed? If needed, schedule revised completion dates.
1. How do I respond to God’s communication—whether written Scripture or personal promptings? Do I filter, evaluate, and choose what to apply, or do I obey immediately, completely, and wholeheartedly?
2. Do I help other followers of Jesus remediate their culturally learned patterns of filtering communications from God?
3. Do I accommodate people’s preferred communication patterns in evangelism?
4. How can I improve in those two areas?
5. What specific actions does God want me to take in response to this chapter? (Note them in your journal and schedule them in your calendar.)
6. With whom (at least one name) does God want me to share what I have learned?
Ask the Lord to enable you to follow through on these commitments and to prepare the hearts of those with whom you intend to share insights.