Sycamore

I have a very tenuous relationship with blogging.  Historically, I was an “early adopter” of blogging (this is geek-speak for someone who jump on the bandwagon early so that they can later whine about all the people that jumped on the bandwagon after them).  My old boss at Bel Air Presbyterian knew a guy who wrote a book on how blogs would change the world, so one day I got an email telling me I had a web page where I should write stuff down.

So I did.  It felt nice.  It was like stuff I was already thinking about had a payoff.  I even started thinking up new stuff just so I could write it down and someone could read it.  Pretty soon, anytime I had a half-way decent thought I found myself automatically phrasing it like a blog post.  It added an (albeit superficial) element of satisfaction - the thought felt more worthwhile when I thought about the idea that it would be published.  It became “official.”

It didn’t take long for me to realize how bad it is that all of my good thoughts became “official” when they became a part of my blog instead of when they became a part of my life.

Including sermon listening, Bible reading, theological knowledge, etc., we are constantly looking for ways to feel like we’ve accomplished something without actually changing our lives.  Technology has made this temptation a lot harder.  Podcasts mean you can now listen to ten sermons a week, and pride yourself on the fact that they are the best teachers around.   Wikipedia means you can skim off the top of all sorts of “knowledge” - someone else does the work, and you read the cliff notes.  Want to know all about justification by faith?  You can google it.

These tools can be really helpful, or they can be ways to avoid actually doing something.  I think we all could use a healthy dose of caution.  Today, it’s a lot easier to be a hearer of the word (or a blogger of the word, student of the word, connoisseur of the word) and not a doer.

(And yes, I do see the irony.)