Information Overload
When I was preparing for my M.A. exam several years ago, I had a bibliography of about 20 books I was required to read. These weren’t cute little devotional books. These were several hundred-page academic books. Anything in those books was open for me to be tested on. About a month into my reading, I started to panic because I knew there was no way I was going to be able to retain a fraction of the information I was taking in. I got in touch with my advisor and she let me know that all I really needed to do was read the introduction and then the first and last paragraph of each chapter and if I did that I would be good. She said by doing that I would be able to get the summary of the author’s argument. I guess it worked because I passed. I can’t tell you most of what I read, but I did get a piece of paper in a nice frame saying I read a lot of books by a bunch of dead people.
We live in a time when our information intake is on steroids. Believe it or not, I am young enough to remember life pre-internet. I remember having to go to the library to get information for a research paper. I didn’t have a computer during my first few years of college. I had to go to the computer lab! Oh, how I often long for those simpler times. Not really. I couldn’t get home most days if it wasn’t for Google Maps.
I am thankful that we have access to so much information. But I also think it has a shadow side, especially when it comes to following Jesus. Western Christians love to gain more and more information about God. We have bookstores just for us! We have an entire publishing industry just for us. I am pretty sure just about every church has a podcast. During the pandemic I wasn’t a pastor, I was a content creator.
In my experience, most content we consume about God is like my experience when I was studying for my M.A. We skim the surface and take in a lot of information quickly, but it really doesn’t stick. Sure, we take in a lot of information, but has that information led to any transformation?
Now, hear me… I am not saying we don’t need to use our minds and intellect when it comes to the things of God. But I wonder if we have replaced actually knowing God with knowing things about God. I know I often fall into this trap.
I have the desire to know God more. One way of doing that is by praying. But I know I am not very good at prayer. So, I grab a book about prayer or listen to a podcast about prayer. Why didn’t I just start praying? Jesus says that we will experience him when we love the least of these. So to better understand how to love the marginalized, I will often listen to a podcast about it in my car while I drive by the homeless family in the Target parking lot. You get the point.
What if all these books and podcasts and blogs (like the one you are reading or listening to right now!) can actually become distractions that are keeping us from actually entering into a relationship with the living triune God?
This Sunday I am preaching through Ephesians 1:15-23. It is a complex passage because in Greek it is one long sentence. So, naturally, I read about 100 pages about these 9 verses. And you know what? I learned a lot. I learned more about the Greek language. I learned more about some interesting nuanced theological points. I enjoyed all my studies. And it was important. But after a full day of study and writing, I had produced a midterm paper that would have earned a solid B+ in a seminary class.
After a full day of reading and writing, I was exhausted. I shut my computer and went home, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I hadn’t actually done justice to the text, at least not in the way that I believe Paul would have wanted the people in Ephesus to receive it.
These 9 verses are part of a prayer! Paul was praying for the people he was writing to. While his prayer was theologically loaded, I am convinced that he was simply praying this…
I pray that you keep growing in knowing Jesus.
That simple. And then I can’t help but believe that Paul trusted that the Holy Spirit would actually work in the lives of that early church he was praying for. That early church didn’t have the Bible we have today. They didn’t have the podcasts we have today. They didn’t have the libraries we have today. Yet Paul prayed these words because of them,
For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers…
These people knew Jesus. And for that, Paul thanked God. So, I pray that I can let go of my need for more information and simply get to know Jesus. To spend time with him. To enjoy him and live faithfully in response to his love for me. Yes, I will keep reading books and listening to podcasts, and I hope you do too. But I am trying to remind myself that knowing things about Jesus is not the same as knowing Jesus. So, as we end our time together let me pray Paul’s words over us today,
Ephesians 1:15–23
For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
Grace and peace ‘til we rise in glory.
