The need to communicate and the ability to communicate freely may be the most telling characteristics of our our generation. Technology has given us the ability to communicate with almost anyone, anywhere and at anytime. For our generation, communication itself, regardless of the content, has a virtue of its own. We love the media (television, phones, the Internet) because they inform us, they amuse us and they meet our needs.
Our world is experiencing a new sense of 'connectedness.' We don't talk about living in our world; we talk about interacting with our world. We don't speak and listen, these are individual actions; we dialogue. Dialogue is the great leveler, making us all peers, making us all equal participants in conversation with one another.
And ... herein lies the problem. For believers, born again by the Word of God, communication not a right, it is an act of grace. The Creator reveals himself to the world. He reveals the truth (an unpopular word) about Himself, about ourselves, and about our condition. In the premodern world, humans believed that they needed revelation. In the modern world, humans rejected the possibility that there was a God who could reveal himself. In the 'postmodern world,' humans reject the possibility of revelation from any source: facts are discovered, life is experienced, and each man communicates based upon his own internal language.
The psalmist who composed Psalm 119 would have recognized this philosophy à la mode. He said, "My soul clings to the dust; give me life according to Your word. I recounted my ways, and You answered me; teach me Your statutes." Psa 119:25, 26 He understood that, as humans, we want to hold on to the things of this life, the things of this ephemeral, dying world. Real life, eternal life, is given by God through the words revealed in the Bible. We do talk to God and He responds, but, more importantly, He makes us understand His statutes, the established order by which men must live.
Psalm 119 speaks of precepts, instruction of law, statutes, and commandments. This kind of communication is not dialogue. It is a sinner (another unpopular word) saved by grace receiving the truth about the life that he or she must live. These words are not about information or amusement nor are they about meeting the needs of man. Precepts are heeded, instruction is followed, statutes are observed, and commandments are obeyed.
The reader of the Bible is not a peer of the author nor is he a participant in a conversation. He is either a 'hearer' or a fool. Much of modern communication is foolishness, but we crave it anyway. Even the best communicators, Shakespeare, Donatelli, Charlie Chaplin, can only speak about things that humans share in common. The psalmist craved something better, "Make me understand the way of your precepts so that I can meditate on your wonderful works." Psa 119:27
If it is true that bread is the staff of life, then dialogue is the stuff of life. We communicate with humans about our humanness, and we pull ourselves deeper into our human condition - we cling to dust. We might ask, with the psalmist, that God will revive us according to His Word.
Just some things on my mind and in my heart, this first week of 2007.
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