Adapt

Today as I came from church, an elderly stopped me in my tracks and asked me whence I came. She then asked, ‘Where’s your Bible?’. I pointed at my phone. She was disgruntled. She then narrated a short story, ‘I was listening to radio. A preacher was narrating how another preacher was using his laptop while preaching. The Holy Spirit came upon him immensely. He jumped up and the laptop broke.’ She then turned away with her encyclopedia-sized Bible and sped to her church.

I wondered whether the story she told was to help save my phone from falling when the ‘Holy Spirit descends immensely’, or to tell that the Holy Spirit hates us using gadgets while in church and so He will cause them to break. I am quite convinced she meant the latter.

That is where religion gets it wrong. The majority of youth attending church today will find it hard carrying a physical bible to church. The bible apps today have over ten versions, and yet the weight of the phone changes not. I will not discuss those who use the excuse of looking at the Bible and yet they trek other android paths while the word is being preached.

One thing I learnt from what God’s word has done from time immemorial was to adapt—to evolve. The first inscription was on stone. Those things were HEAVY! Do you know how much it took carving? There was also the challenge of mobility, even when the Word went on to be written on papyrus or parchment scrolls, some of them were as long as a kilometer. Not good at all. God had to evolve. Paper came in the 1600s. Still, though we had arrived somewhere, paper was still scarce!

One copy of the Bible would be CHAINED on an altar in a church in the Middle Ages. If one desired to read it, to the tabernacle they came. If one dared to steal it, the chain was too long and heavy, to be endured far enough. God was still ‘chained’ somehow, and yet He yearned to be all over the place. Centuries later, paper became commonplace.

When technology advanced, God didn’t say, ‘Oh that is so unholy. I shall not be part of it.’ He gave us brains for something! When technology advances, He advances too. Yea yea, evil might increase, and sin, but the darkness can not comprehend the light… And of the increase of his government there shall be no end.

So, He adapted.

He said ‘Let me be on paper, but let me be on these gadgets too. On an app… Let me be everywhere, reaching the Jew and Gentile, the baby boomer and the GenZ.

Let me make a meal for the vegan, the vegetarian, and the meat lover.’ He isn’t exclusive. And so, as you feel justified and more holy than the rest because you carried a hardcopy bible, think again.

Remember He said ‘I’ll write my law in their hearts.’ The real question therefore is, ‘Is His Word written in your heart?’ It is not whether you prefer the soft or hardcopy. As the Word has adapted over thousands of years, I ask, ‘have you?’ Has your business obtained online platforms? Has your ministry done the same?

Even if Biggie’s Gospel Show was breaking records on Facebook, a few people confessed not being there. YouTube was a stretch for me, but two Januarys ago, I opened a channel there, for the ones without facebook accounts…Just like I just demonstrated how God adapted, I did too. It wasn’t comfortable, but I’m now reaching more people than before.

May God help you in whatever places you need to adjust and adapt to, for as given, it’ll enable you reach a wider audience (or market) and (not to scare you,) but notice the old ways—such as writing on stone—are no longer of effect today!

Don’t be the man or woman who stays ‘out of time’… Adapt.

Thanks for reading!