Neal Pollard
I began preaching full-time in 1992 in a small west Alabama town near the Mississippi border. It was one year before Tim Berners-Lee released the code that became the world wide web, allowing images, video, and audio to be transmitted from servers to computers using existing phone lines. This was more commonly called “dial up.” For the first three years of my preaching, I typed up Bible classes and sermons (if I didn’t hand write them) on a Brother word processor (it was a typewriter/keyboard attached to a computer monitor).
Let’s just say that the past 30 years have brought a lot of change in the world of technology. During the ’90s and ’00s, email was king and texting was a complicated, time-consuming, and less desirable alternative. In those days, AOL was the emperor of email. Using a modem (Google it), your computer would connect through the phone and AOL would greet you with, “You’ve got mail” (if you had email). A 1990s movie by that title will give more context to what it was like.
Did you know that dial up internet access is still available? About 160,000 households in America still use it. But on September 30, it will cease. A critical chapter of internet history will be relegated to the museum of technology’s past, like the rotary phone (Google that, too).
I appreciate a few ways this illustrates the work of the church today. First, some changes are desirable and necessary. We can embrace new ways of doing things God preserved in Scripture (Matt. 9:17). As our elders are fond of saying, “We will think outside the box, but inside the Book.” Most of us embraced fiber-optics and satellite, then found dial-up tedious and time-consuming. Old truths can wear new clothes, so long as the truths are not altered (cf. Rev. 22:18-19). See Power Point, newly-written, Scriptural songs and hymns, live-streaming, etc.
Second, while what man creates, invents, and innovates is ever-changing, God’s Word is all-sufficient, timeless, and essential (2 Tim. 3:16-17; Matt. 24:35). No discovery will make it obsolete or irrelevant. It shall stand forever, a rock that cannot be broken or weathered by time or trends (John 10:35). See women’s role (1 Tim. 2:11-15), baptism’s role in salvation (Matt. 28:18-20), the nature of marriage (Eph. 5:31), marriage, divorce, and remarriage (Matt. 19:4-9), etc.
Third, we should tenaciously defend and fight for truth (Jude 3), but we should take a different tack with tradition. We certainly should not elevate it to be on a par with truth. We must not put it above the truth (Mark 7:6-9). We should not strain relationships and fellowship over matters not “tied down” in Scripture (Romans 14). See Bible translations, modest, but less formal, worship attire, order of worship, etc.
160,000 households are clinging to dial up until the last possible minute, but then it will be gone. Let’s avoid that spirit when it comes to God’s Word and His work. Where change does not violate God’s will, let us hold it as a matter of indifference. Where the change does violence to it, may we be found nowhere near it!
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