The Information Age is an interesting, and generally exciting, time to be alive. At any moment, just about anywhere on the globe, we have access to the vast majority of information known to humanity throughout all of history at the tips of our fingers. Cellphones have become ubiquitous the world over. As I sat at a campground in rural India, I was able to use my personal cellphone to look up rules and videos of the game of cricket so that I could speak with some level of understanding about the differences between it and baseball to one of my Indian friends. The internet, with all of the tools it has made available to us, is a wonderful thing.
We put a lot of trust and, dare I say, faith into the internet, the applications we use to navigate it, and the information it provides.
Sometimes, I forget how we functioned before the internet, but I did live and learn in the technological dark ages of the time before. I remember the struggles of thumbing through hard-copy media such as magazines, newspapers, encyclopedias, and other reference books in pursuit of the information. I also remember the excitement of new computer labs complete with interactive encyclopedias on CD-ROM. Just a few discs contained numerous books of information. Then, in the fall of 1998, the world was forever changed with the launch of Google. Numerous search engines launched in and around that time, but it was Google that stood the test of time and firmly entrenched itself as the primary source of all things information.
Google is an amazing tool. I use it both early and often. I confess that during the course of composing this short article I’ve conducted numerous searches to confirm spellings, to check dates, and to assure the accuracy of my memory. According to statistics I found using Google, the average person conducts three to four searches a day. While that number strikes me as being more than a little low, it does demonstrate that Google has worked its way into quite a position of power. And, if we take a closer look at the various apps and tools we use to procure information, we realize Google isn’t alone. We put a lot of trust and, dare I say, faith into the internet, the applications we use to navigate it, and the information it provides.
The internet has become an important source of truth for our current cultural moment. I don’t necessarily believe that to be a bad thing. I do, however, believe we should use discernment in the information we accept and incorporate into faith and practice in our lives. We certainly shouldn’t allow it to be the only or final authority for our lives. The information we find should always be filtered through the truth of the divinely inspired Word of God.
There are a lot of sources of truth in our world today, but all truth is not created equal. God’s Word stands alone above all other truth.
The Bible may not contain all the information available on the internet, but it does have all we need to live a God-honoring life (2 Peter 1:3). It is the key to staying on the path, living out the plans, and fulfilling the purposes God has for us (Psalm 119:9-16). Jesus famously noted that the stability of the structure of our lives is directly related to whether or not they are built upon the foundation of His Word (Matthew 7:24-27). There are a lot of sources of truth in our world today, but all truth is not created equal. God’s Word stands alone above all other truth.
We will undoubtedly continue to utilize the host of tools and deluge of data made available to us in this Information age. It would be unwise not to make the most of all that’s available to us. As we do, however, may we do so with diligent discernment. Let us make sure that the bedrock of our understanding and implementation of new tools and information is founded upon the unchanging truth of God’s Word. How might our lives and world at large be impacted if we consulted the Word of God three, four, or more times a day? Perhaps we should make a habit of searching God’s Word with the same frequency we search the internet and see what we find.
