The Bible Bloke

Recently we had to update my wife’s mobile phone to a newer model. Over a coffee she started down the path of setting things up. At one point she went into the WiFi settings. A very long list of available WiFi connections appeared on her screen. And a long enough list it was too! Not all of the networks in the list were free to join. They belonged to the shops surrounding us. But what if they were free? This question buzzed around in my head for a while, and what struck me was the similarity to the world we live in. Our first world problem: we are saturated by choice. I choose this one because I like that product, I like the ad, I like the look of the people who advertise it …. And on it goes. It is a case of which voice gets your attention, which voice is the most attractive to you? The Book of Proverbs begins with an exhortation: Read these words, these “proverbs,” to know wisdom and instruction in order to achieve understanding. The use of the word “wisdom” – chokmah ...

Consider for a moment that the average person in a first world country consumes 34 gigabytes of content and 100,000 words in a single day. Putting it into perspective, this massive consumption is made up of TV, video games, radio, the internet, text messages and social media. The average social media user consumes 285 pieces of information a day. 1 If you think 100,000 word is a lot, then consider that contained in these 285 pieces of social media information is around 50,000 words. Note though that this is all disparate information about a multitude of topics, and let’s face it, how much of it are we actually paying attention to? Yet, this is an astounding amount of stuff that we are taking on-board. But, if you take a moment, pause, and ask “What is all this stuff about?” then I think our perspective changes just a bit.  If I open up my Facebook page and scroll down, I have a story on how socialism ruined Brazil, someone’s photo of the northern most tip ...