Page 13 - December 2025 - Truth & Tidings

how digital habits can influence our daily natural stopping points, fostering the
spiritual lives. These are not the words of habit of “doom scrolling.” Christ, how-
one who is resistant to innovation or the ever, read with intention, and when His
value of technology but one who has a purpose was complete He “closed the
genuine concern about how our current book” (v20). His example contrasts sharply
scrolling habits might hinder our engage- with our tendency towards mindless,
ment with the Word of God, whether in open-ended consumption of content.
digital or physical form. When our Saviour This raises important questions: What
read and handled the Scriptures, He did do we feed on when we scroll? Are our
so with care, and we should follow His hearts nourished by Scripture or dulled
example. by triviality, comparison or despair?
Secondly, Christ handled the scroll with Much of our scrolling is driven by FOMO
seriousness. This was a public gathering – the fear of missing out. Psychologists
of Jews where the Scriptures were para- note that such habits are underpinned
mount. That same attitude should prevail by dopamine-driven reward loops, not
with believers today. When Jesus read unlike gambling, where each notification
in Nazareth, the scroll was not left lying or new feed provides a fleeting sense of
open but was carefully handed back to satisfaction. The result is addiction, not
the attendant (Luk 4:20). That reverence edification. For believers, this compulsion
should challenge us: do we treat the Word must be challenged by higher priorities.
of God with the same seriousness? Or has Rather than fearing missing out on con-
scrolling trained us to flit casually between tent, we should fear losing out on eternal
content, leaving the Bible to compete with reward. Paul commended the household
a feed of distractions? That is why Paul’s of Stephanas who “addicted themselves to
charge to Timothy remains vital: “Till the ministry of the saints” (1Co 16:15). The
I come, give attendance to reading, to question is not simply whether we scroll,
exhortation, to doctrine” (1Ti 4:13). The but what we seek while scrolling. The Lord
1
believer must cultivate habits of careful found the place where God’s Word spoke
reading in both private and public. In our of Him. Do we find the place where His
gatherings, the public reading of Scripture Word addresses us, or do we simply seek
dignifies the text and guards against the the next update?
temptation to treat it casually.
The Detail that Could Be
The Desire for More Content Missed
“He found the place” (Luk 4:17). The
second principle emerges when Jesus de- “This day is this scripture fulfilled”
liberately located the passage in Isaiah 61. (Luk 4:21). The third principle lies in the
He ensured that the people were fed with precision of Christ’s reading. From Isaiah
the Word of God. By contrast, our digital 61 He declared, “The Spirit of the Lord
“feeds” are often designed not to nourish is upon me,” but He omitted the phrase
but to keep us endlessly consuming. So- “and the day of vengeance of our God.”
cial media platforms deliberately remove That omission was deliberate, for the day
of vengeance was yet future. The Lord
1 Bible quotations in this article are from the not only found the right place but knew
KJV. the right place to stop. His example re-
Continued on p. 373
365
TruthandTidings.com I December 2025 365