Hope you enjoy these links, much to read so little time.

Were the First Christians Socialists?

Despite the initial plausibility of a socialist reading of Acts, there are at least two realities that make the sharing in the early church very different from socialism and especially communism.

Babies Are Not Tech

You might, reasonably, ask what the differences between dial-up Internet and the iPhone have to do with babies. But, increasingly, babies are thought of as themselves aspects of technology. And that’s not good news.

The Feel-Good Gospel How We Use God for Comfort

God has much to say to the anxious, the depressed, the angry, the grieving, the confused, the despondent, to all the discontent who will trust him. But God’s revelation isn’t primarily about meeting these ailments. Jesus did not come into the world to first save us from our sadness — but our sin. Yet that is not what the new prosperity gospel of emotional health, wealth, and happiness teaches. We may shake our heads at messages about Jesus bringing believers mansions and Mercedes, all the while subtly believing that Jesus’s primary mission entailed giving us our best (emotional) lives now.

Check Your Digital Self-Image

Our digital photos and selfies only amplify this self-projection. According to global stats, we now take more than one trillion digital pictures per year. We become actors before our own phones and the phones of our friends. We modify our self and filter our appearance. And then we become spectators of ourselves, because “each selfie is a performance of a person as they hope to be seen by others.”

Worship Is Not a Reflection of How You Feel

Many of us go to church thinking about how we feel. But worshipping is not a reflection of how we feel; it’s a reflection of what we know to be true and what God has promised in his Word. It’s a declaration of what God is worthy of.