Technology should not dictate our values or our methods. Rather, we must use technology out of our convictions and values.

Rather than taking our cues about technology from the Scriptures and the outline of God’s plan for humanity, we seem to be locked in a cycle of questioning the really, really new but accepting the just barely old.

In 2 John 12, the apostle wrote: Though I have much to write to you, I would rather not use paper and ink. Instead I hope to come to you and talk face to face, so that our joy may be complete.

Socrates expressed concern about the technology of writing. He believed that learning in dialogue was the key to helping people grow in wisdom, and he worried that writing would make people knowledgeable, but it would fail to make them wise. Socrates was so worried about the damage that writing could cause that he never wrote any of his own ideas down.11

John makes a calculated choice to use a disembodied form of communication in service of the embodied life of the church, and in doing so he honors our Lord and builds up his Body.

every single commercial we watch or hear has the basic plot structure of beginning (our current limited existence), middle (acquiring a shiny new tool), and end (a better world only available to those with the tool).

Technology, then, is the means by which we transform the world as it is into the world that we desire. What we often fail to notice is that it is not only the world that gets transformed by technology. We, too, are transformed.

Marathon runners usually cannot lift six hundred pounds with their legs, and those that can perform such a feat usually cannot run marathons. One tool transforms us in one area, while a different tool changes us into something else.

Those who have developed the ability to consume complex arguments in books tend to feel overwhelmed by the rush of data online, so it is with cell phones, email, video chat, and all of the communication tools we use today. They both connect us and put something between us.

If it is true that technology has the capacity to shape the world that God made, as well as shape our bodies, minds, and souls, then it seems we should care deeply about our tools.

the cell phone is not just a tool but an integral part of the person’s identity, who they define themselves to be.

Language is our first example of how humans create within the creation of God, imbuing each creation with value and meaning.

technology now has at least four different meanings: (1) the skill of making things, (2) the study of the skill of making things, (3) the tools used to make things, and (4) the things made with these tools.

We are therefore able to create a simple, encompassing definition of technology: “the human activity of using tools to transform God’s creation for practical purposes.”

God takes a look at Adam and Eve’s garments, and instead of condemning the misuse of their creative powers and their attempt to solve their problems without him, God responds by doing something amazingly gracious—he gives out the world’s first free technology upgrade. He replaces their rough, uncomfortable, and relatively small fig leaves with brand-new state-of-the-art animal skins.

In some sense, all of our technology can be understood as an attempt to overcome the effects of the fall.