Series: Technology and Ethics: A Biblical Worldview for the Digital Age
Scripture Focus: Exodus 20:3
Theme: Fall
Screens, Scrolls, and the Shrinking Soul
The meltdown started when the tablet disappeared. Four-year-old Levi had been watching cartoons while his family finished dinner. When his mom gently asked for the device back, he screamed. Not just fussed—screamed. Red-faced, breathless, inconsolable.
His father, a local pastor, looked on in disbelief. “We’re raising him in the faith,” he said later, “but I think he’s more attached to Paw Patrol than Proverbs.”
Then he paused, voice quieter: “And honestly? I’m not much better. I check Twitter like it’s a devotional.”
That’s the tension: what we turn to in boredom, anxiety, or fatigue reveals what we truly trust.
Digital addiction is not just a habit. It’s a form of worship.
And more often than we realize, it’s idolatry—glowing, buzzing, and sitting quietly in our pockets.
The Golden Calf Goes Wireless
“You shall have no other gods before Me.” (Exodus 20:3, LSB)
Idolatry isn’t always carved in wood or molded in metal. Sometimes, it’s engineered in California and comes with push notifications.
When the Israelites grew impatient waiting for Moses, they begged Aaron, “Make us a god who will go before us” (Exodus 32:1). So he took their gold, fashioned a calf, and gave the people what they thought they needed—something they could see.
It wasn’t that they hated Yahweh. They just preferred something faster, visible, and controllable.
John Calvin once wrote that “the human heart is a perpetual factory of idols” (Calvin, 2008, p. 108). Augustine agreed, describing the root of sin as disordered love—when our hearts attach to good things in the wrong order or measure (Augustine, 1991, Book I).
Technology is a good thing. But when it becomes a god thing—something we depend on, delight in, or default to—it stops being a tool and starts becoming a golden calf.
And unlike statues in the desert, today’s idols follow us everywhere.
You Become What You Behold
“They have mouths, but they do not speak… Those who make them will become like them…” (Psalm 115:5, 8)
A recent Barna survey showed that most Christians spend more time consuming media than engaging in Scripture by a margin of nearly 5 to 1. And it’s not neutral media. It’s curated, calculated, and customized by algorithms that know your cravings better than your conscience.
This is the power of AI-driven addiction. Your newsfeed learns what makes you anxious. Your streaming app queues up what makes you linger. Your social platforms track where your eyes pause.
As James K.A. Smith warns, we are “desiring creatures” more than thinking ones—and “our loves are shaped and aimed by formative practices, rituals, and routines” (Smith, 2016, p. 19). In other words: tech disciples us.
Each click is a liturgy.
Each swipe shapes desire.
We become what we behold (2 Cor. 3:18). And if we behold glowing rectangles more than the glory of Christ, our affections will slowly bend toward the trivial and away from the eternal.
This isn’t just about distraction. It’s about deformation.
The Scroll That Doesn’t Satisfy
Let me tell you about Rachel.
She’s a young adult in your church. Faithful. Involved. Teachable. But quietly, she’s drifting. Her morning quiet times grew shorter… then disappeared. Anxiety creeps in during stillness. Prayer feels hollow. Worship feels forced.
When asked what changed, she admitted something surprising: “Nothing dramatic. I just started waking up and checking my phone first thing. Emails, reels, news. I didn’t mean to stop spending time with God… I just ran out of room.”
That’s how addiction hides—it doesn’t announce itself. It replaces.
Replaces awe with amusement.
Replaces prayer with pixels.
Replaces communion with content.
Paul warned: “For by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved” (2 Peter 2:19, LSB). What began as a convenience had quietly become a cage.
Rachel isn’t alone. She’s a case study for an entire generation raised to swipe before they speak.
Resisting the Liturgies of the Machine
The solution isn’t guilt. It’s grace-formed resistance.
Not just time management, but spiritual warfare.
Not just screen limits, but soul liberation.
Here are five holy habits for reclaiming your affections:
- Sabbath disconnection: One day a week—no screens. Let your soul breathe. Relearn wonder. Listen to creation.
- Scripture before scroll: Make your first glance in the morning toward God’s voice, not the algorithm’s.
- Tech-free table: Guard meals as sacred space—conversations over content.
- Analog anchors: Read a paper Bible. Journal by hand. Light a candle. Recover the tactile and timeless.
- Confession in community: Say it out loud. Invite others in. Ask for accountability and speak freedom over one another.
These aren’t just lifestyle hacks. They’re liturgies of resistance.
They train our hearts to see Christ again, not just as one more tab on the screen, but as the center of our affections.
From Scroll to Scripture: Daniel’s Awakening
Daniel sat in bed, phone buzzing on the nightstand.
He’d scrolled for over an hour. He wasn’t even sure what he’d watched. It all blurred—clips, highlights, arguments, jokes. And still… he felt empty.
Then a verse came back to him, faint, but clear:
“Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10).
He turned off the phone. Opened the Bible.
And for the first time in weeks, he prayed. Really prayed. Not as a task, but a return. Not as a burden, but as a rescue.
The silence wasn’t frightening anymore. It was sacred.
And in that stillness, Daniel remembered: God doesn’t compete for our attention. He waits. Faithfully. Quietly. Jealously.
And unlike the algorithm, He never forgets who you are.
Series Navigation
← Previous: AI and the Image of God
→ Next: Social Media and the Gospel: Redeeming the Digital Space
View All: Technology and Ethics Series Page
Key Takeaways
- Digital addiction is a modern form of idolatry, disguised as entertainment or efficiency.
- What we repeatedly turn to reveals what we truly trust and love.
- Freedom begins not with guilt but with grace: rhythms of resistance that re-center our hearts on Christ.
Live it out. Share the truth. Walk with courage.
References
Augustine. (1991). Confessions (H. Chadwick, Trans.). Oxford University Press.
Calvin, J. (2008). Institutes of the Christian Religion (H. Beveridge, Trans.). Hendrickson.
Heiser, M. S. (2015). The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible. Lexham Press.
Reinke, T. (2022). God, Technology, and the Christian Life. Crossway.
Smith, J. K. A. (2016). You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit. Brazos Press.
Twenge, J. M. (2017). iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy—and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood. Atria Books.
