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Ask Pastor John

When Should I Get Rid of My Smartphone?

Ask Pastor John

Desiring God

John Piper, Unknown, 163859, Pastor, Ask, Theology, Desiring God, Religion & Spirituality/christianity, Christianity, Religion & Spirituality, Questions

4.83.8K Ratings

🗓️ 25 August 2015

⏱️ 10 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Our smartphone will not destroy us. But our love for it can. Ask the Lord to make it plain when the time has come to get rid of your smartphone.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

This is Scott Anderson, CEO for Desiring God.

0:03.4

You and other friends of Desiring God make possible the work of this ministry, including this podcast.

0:10.0

Thanks for your part in helping us freely share the truth that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.

0:18.0

Well, we ask for your questions on technology and you have responded. We have a lot of them and they keep coming in and please keep sending them into us.

0:32.0

Josh in South Carolina wants to know when is it time to give up our smartphones and revert to a dumb phone?

0:39.0

And Arlene from North Florida asks, Pastor John, I have heard Matt Chandler say on numerous accounts how our love and addiction to technology is making us angry and impatient.

0:50.0

I've seen it in my marriage and in my mothering. Could my iPhone be the reason I don't persevere in the faith? And if so, how do I keep that from happening?

1:00.0

It's a Pastor John, two important questions on the table.

1:04.0

Well, first in response to Arlene, could my iPhone be the reason I don't persevere? Here's a text from the Bible that comes to my mind immediately.

1:17.0

Second Corinthians 4.9, Demas in love with this present world has deserted me, Paul says, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica.

1:29.0

And what's striking about this is that Demas is mentioned twice more in Paul's writings.

1:37.0

Before this, it says in Philemon 123,

1:41.0

my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus sends greetings to you and so do Mark, Aristarchus, and Demas, and Luke, my fellow workers.

1:54.0

So Demas is a fellow worker with Paul in the ministry and then Colossians 4.14 says,

2:03.0

and Luke, the beloved physician, greets you as does Demas.

2:08.0

So Demas is there in three epistles and in two of them, he's a fellow worker and in one of them, he has left.

2:17.0

He has deserted. Demas in love with this present world has deserted me.

2:24.0

Now I don't know, we don't know if Demas repented, maybe he did.

2:29.0

But as far as we know, Demas did not persevere in faith and he looks like he proved to be an inauthentic Christian.

2:41.0

And that happens, we've seen that in real life and in our own day.

2:48.0

In the reason he left and made shipwreck, it looks like is because he loved the world.

2:56.0

Now how does that relate to Arlene's question?

...

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