I love the Exodus story. Our church spent a series of months, make that years, working through the book of Exodus. As often happens when I finish preaching a sermon or series, I come across a resources that I wish I had earlier! For the book of Exodus, this is one of those resources. Carmen Joy Imes does a great job of showing “why Sinai still matters.” Many of us probably grew up thinking that the command to “not take the Lord’s name in vain” was little more than using God’s name in a curse. Dr. Imes demonstrates that this is only the tip of the iceberg. Bearing God’s name is a central theme in the Old and New Testaments. Believers are called to carry God’s name everywhere we go, in everything we do.
When you study theology, you can study it in one of two basic ways. You can study “systematic theology” which is a method of study that asks what the Bible says about a given topic (e.g. Salvation, End Times, the person of Christ, etc) or you can do “biblical theology” which considers how doctrines develop through the progressive story of the Bible. Biblical Theololgy has seen a major uptick in writings in the past few years and this trend is encouraging. This book is well researched and immensely readable. You don’t have to know Hebrew or get a Bible degree. Pick it up, read it, let me know what you think!
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A couple of weeks ago as our church, like many, was dipping our toe in the livestream waters (somewhat to my chagrin, but that's for another post). We got a notification from Facebook that Big Brother caught a song being played for which we didn't own the copyright. Turns out, it was our preservice music, and we actually did have a license to play it, but I digress. For me, it was another reminder that AI isn't just the future, it's here and it's watching, listening, learning, and predicting. It's fascinating what AI can do now, and it's somewhat horrifying what it could do when the tech turns predictive. The ethics get murky. Sometimes it doesn't seem quite as improbable that we could move towards a "precrime" type of intervention like Marvel's S.H.I.E.L.D. Tech is here to stay so it's time for Christians to catch up and think about these issues from a Biblical Worldview. Below is a primer to get us started on how to think about AI and the Christian. I appreciated this article just released from the ERLC. I particularly like the emphasis on the Imago Dei (Image of God). This is worth consideration. Jason Thacker, of the ERLC, wrote a book that was just released this year (2020) entitled, The Age of AI. This was a fascinating book written in a conversational style. Thacker does a nice job of explaining the challenges of even defining AI and shows how that differs from AGI (Artificial General Intelligence). The chapter on AI and war will give you all kinds of ethical heartburn. John Lennox is a great writer. In my humble opinion, he's one of the most well versed apologist around today. In his book, 2084, Lennox jumps into the AI and Imago Dei discussion. The title is a tip of the cap to Orwell's classic, 1984. Lennox book is less about AI than Thackers and more focussed on building a robust Anthropology (doctrine of man). I'm a little more reformed leanings than Lennox, so some of his later chapters take on an emphasis that I wouldn't completely embrace, but the book is more than worthwhile. Franklin Foer wrote the book, World Without Mind. Foer is a journalist with The Atlantic. He's not necessarily writing from a theological or biblical perspective. This book will cause you to rethink your relationship with digital tech! He profiles the big 4 in the Big Tech world (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and Google). They own us, let me demonstrate. If you are reading this, there's a strong chance you found the article on Facebook and likely an Apple device. If this book strikes your interest, you'll google it to learn more. If it seems interesting, you will buy it on Amazon. These 4 compete in some arenas (iPhone and Android) but there is plenty of turf for each giant to to their thing in controlling the masses. |