Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” "Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:40-42)
When Marshall McLuhan early pioneer of electronic media, pronounced in the early sixties, that “the media is the message,” he was predicting that the means of communication would be more important than the message it carried. For his time, the primary media was television; more and more in our world it is computers, and in the resulting forms of digital communication: desktop publishing, the internet, small screen, and social media communications.
Though it is easy to get caught up in the complexity and power of digital communications, as Christians we must constantly remind ourselves that these incredible innovations, and any that are to come, are only tools. The power doesn’t come from the tool or media—the power comes from the message.
As the apostle Paul said , “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes” (Rom 1:16). The world “power” used in this verse comes form the Greek word, dunamis. It’s the same root for our world dynamite and it means a “miraculous, mighty, wonderful power.”
Our message, not our media, is the source of true power. It was the same for the early disciples writing with pens on parchment, it will be the same for us if we are creating virtual reality holograms to illustrate Bible stories in the years to come.
We live in an age where the pace of change is incredible. Many of you started out communicating with pencils, progressed to typewriters, and now operate computers on your desk more powerful than the ones used to put a man on the moon. This pace will not slow down.
We need to always remember that no matter how powerful, overwhelming or impressive the technology, there remains, “only one thing that is needful”—sharing the good news salvation found in Jesus.
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This is an excerpt from Yvon Prehn's book, Devotions for Church Communicators, available as an ebook, or in print.
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