By Caleb Keith


Our technological world is an increasingly fast one. As technology continues to improve, almost everything we need or want in life is readably accessible to us at lightning speed. Our necessity for things to be done faster is often referred to as “fast food culture”. However, the idea of ordering a meal at the window, and eating less than a minuet later, is only the tip of the fast-paced iceberg. What is truly amazing, or even terrifying, is how quickly our culture can receive and spread information. What used to take a lifetime to master, or at least a day buried in the library, is now available in seconds. Should the speed of our modern culture really be a surprise? No. Instead it should look more like a short sighted solution to a problem nearly as old as time itself.

Our cultural “need-for-speed” is a direct result of the events recorded in Genesis 3. The day Adam and Eve turned against God, and brought sin into the world. They effectively put a timer above the head of every man and woman on earth. That timer ominously counts down, granting death once it hits zero. Humanity’s history is full of strategies, ideas, and inventions designed to evade or elongate that timer, but not even modern technology with all its flash and might can remove the timer completely. Technology can’t save us from death, so instead it tries to give us the ability to gather more than a lifetime’s worth of knowledge and experience. Even at its fastest and most efficient all the knowledge and experience technology offers can never satisfy our longing to get rid of the sinful timer and evade our inevitable death.


If we as people only look to the pragmatic solutions of technology, all hope is lost. However, if we look outside of human inventions and back to the God, whom Adam and Eve turned against, a shining light of hope is revealed to us. You see while humanity may have turned away from God, God never turned away from His creation. When sin brought a death clock to humanity, God promised to eradicate the power of sin and the permanence of its timer. The promise of God is fulfilled in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. On the cross the timer struck zero and Christ paid the penalty. Yet the almighty God could not be held by sin’s curse, and on the third day Jesus rose from the dead securing life for all who believe and are baptized.

God could have quickly and efficiently eradicated sin by destroying us and all of creation. However God was patient and rather than destroying humanity, like was deserved, He graciously brought life back into the world. 2 Peter 3:9 reminds us that, “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” Thanks be to God that even when we refuse to slow down, God remains lovingly patient.