Speedy delivery
In a previous post I alluded to the speed of the delivery system for sin being much faster now than in the first century. The speed which I mentioned is in large part thanks to:
(1) William Shockley and Jack Kilby (of Texas Instruments - I used to go past the lab where he invented it every day when I worked there), co-inventors of the transistor and
(2) Marc Andriessen, of Netscape fame. He developed Mosaic in '1993, then founded Netscape (with Jim Clark) in 1994 that made it really easy to navigate the web. On December 7, 1995 Gates gave his infamous "Pearl Harbor" address, declaring war on the world wide web. Netscape's share in terms of browsers at that point was 90%. By 2000, it was at 20%. I'm not sure there's a moral there, other than don't overestimate first mover advantage and don't underestimate Bill Gates.
In the first century if you wanted the kind of fare (sin-wise) you can today find at the click of a mouse, you may have had to go as far as Corinth and the temple there. Now it comes into our living rooms effortlessly. When I wrote that I was thinking primarily of sins of the flesh, but speed isn't limited to that - idolatry uses the web too. See the Washington Post article, Linking Ancient and Modern, a Worldwide Web of Worship.
The answer to sin is still the Gospel, and all its beautiful implications......
Signed "Not a Luddite in NoVA"
(1) William Shockley and Jack Kilby (of Texas Instruments - I used to go past the lab where he invented it every day when I worked there), co-inventors of the transistor and
(2) Marc Andriessen, of Netscape fame. He developed Mosaic in '1993, then founded Netscape (with Jim Clark) in 1994 that made it really easy to navigate the web. On December 7, 1995 Gates gave his infamous "Pearl Harbor" address, declaring war on the world wide web. Netscape's share in terms of browsers at that point was 90%. By 2000, it was at 20%. I'm not sure there's a moral there, other than don't overestimate first mover advantage and don't underestimate Bill Gates.
In the first century if you wanted the kind of fare (sin-wise) you can today find at the click of a mouse, you may have had to go as far as Corinth and the temple there. Now it comes into our living rooms effortlessly. When I wrote that I was thinking primarily of sins of the flesh, but speed isn't limited to that - idolatry uses the web too. See the Washington Post article, Linking Ancient and Modern, a Worldwide Web of Worship.
The answer to sin is still the Gospel, and all its beautiful implications......
Signed "Not a Luddite in NoVA"
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