Interview Transcript

Mike Andrews, hello and thank you for the invitation to appear on The Narrative Podcast, from the Center for Christian Virtue, by recording. My name is Tony Reinke, a nonprofit journalist and teacher based in Phoenix. I have sought to serve the church by writing on tech and media for a decade now. I serve as a senior teacher at desiringGod.org, and have the honor to be the producer and host of John Piper’s podcast, Ask Pastor John.

You sent three really good questions. I’ll work through them one by one.

Digital Journeys

Question 1: What are some biblical principles — boundaries, disciplines, etc. — that can be applied to smartphone use that Christian parents should model and discuss with their children before giving them their own device?

Exactly right. Modeling is key. This is not a teenager problem. Grandma’s on Facebook too much. Mom’s on Instagram too much. So back in 2015, I set aside a full year to get my own heart right with my smartphone habits. I was spending too much time in social media. I was being stupid with my time. Foolish with my heart and my attention. I subtly began to think social media networks would fulfill me.

Of course, they never could. Instead, they distracted me from what was most important. I used social media all the time for ministry. It was my job. But I also used these platforms idolatrously — as idols of security and self-affirmation. Maybe you’ve been there.

So I took several digital detoxes in 2015, time offline and away from social media. Deleted apps, turned my phone off — those sorts of things. And I used the season to confess to the Lord what he was showing me about what was inside of me. I invested more time into prayer and Bible reading and meditation on God’s truth. More time reading great books. More time with the family — intentional time with them, on trips that I had planned out. Things like that. I reprioritized the local church. I spent more time dreaming about ministry possibilities in the future.

It was a painful season of self-scrutiny, but necessary. And it was fruitful, one fruit of it being my 2017 book, 12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You. That book each of my teens had to read before getting an iPhone.

Attention Overload

That process of honest discovery with myself about social media led me to further consider life inside the attention economy, inside the Hollywood media age. How can we thrive as Christians in this age of these massive, compelling digital spectacles that are all around us, every image and video clamoring for our eyes? How do we live by faith in such an eye-dominant culture? And where do we turn so that our lives are not inundated with viral, digital, ephemeral pointless things that don’t matter?

And that question led me to a second book, a meditation I published in 2019, called Competing Spectacles: Treasuring Christ in the Media Age. And these two books, the book on smartphones and the book on spectacles, work in tandem as warnings to show biases at work in the world, and how our media pushes us toward digital spectacles and hollows out our lives from what is eternally important.

There’s a social dilemma at play. Our attention is monetized, and we need limits and restrictions and legislations, yes. But there’s also a spiritual dilemma at play. And it’s this: our smartphones simply give us what we most want. This is what our kids need to know — what we all need to know: I am not a victim of my phone.

My phone, my social media platforms, are simply delivering to me what I most want. We have affections and desires, and those are misdirected, and then those misdirected desires get solidified into social media algorithms that feed those desires more and more. Algorithms don’t tell you what to desire. Algorithms feed you what you most want. The tailored algorithm is basically a digital decipher of what we most want.

Pixilated Desires

Another way to say it is the smartphone screen is a black mirror to reflect back to our eyes what your heart most desires in pixilated form. If our true heart is narcissistic, that’s what you’ll find online — you’ll search for things that bolster your self-image. If in your heart you harbor disdain for certain people, what you see on social media will stoke that disdain even further. If your heart is driven by unquenchable desire for sexual lust, porn will be the thing you see on your screen. The phone discloses what your heart most wants.

You can tell yourself that you’re a nice person, morally good, don’t hurt others. But there’s a Kafka-like nightmare awakening ahead of us all when we look into our phone screen, and we stare directly into our own heart’s desire. It’s right there on our screen. And if the Spirit is at work in your life, at some point, deep down, this exposé will drive you to your knees. And you’re not going to hear this in the cultural criticism. We’re not simply victims of Silicon Valley tricksters; we are sinners led by desires and impulses inside us that must be crucified.

So we continue to proclaim that rhetorical interrogation of Isaiah 55:2 and apply it to our hearts and our screens: “Why do you spend your attention on that which is not bread, and gaze at a screen for something that will never satisfy you?” That’s the spiritual dilemma we all face — mom, dad, teen. We can model this in our homes.

Wisdom Meets Gratitude

What I realized after these painful pruning seasons was that my whole take on technology changed. It matured. It deepened. For a long time I had been an early adopter of gadgets, a lot of it naively so. At the end of this process, I found myself less naive about tech, more aware of its biases. But also — at the same time — I became a lot more aware of God’s generosity in the technologies that adorn my daily life.

That resulted in my meditations on the generosity of God in all of the science and medicine and computers and smartphones and cars and homes that we enjoy, technologies that adorn my life every day. I’m cautious of the tools we have, and I’m also totally amazed that I get to live in this age, and not one hundred years ago or two hundred years ago.

My gratitude for all my tech culminated in a third book: God, Technology, and the Christian Life. It’s the capstone now of a decade-long process from seeing my sin exposed by smartphone misuse, to now seeing God’s glory and his generosity in my smartphone.

Tech Dangers and Opportunities

Question 2: Smartphones have been around for almost two decades. What are some dangers, especially spiritual, regarding phone and technology use that Christians still are either not aware of, or perhaps not fighting against as actively as we should?

In 12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You, I think all twelve ways are still underappreciated. Much is on the line. I think we are still learning how to balance our digital tools and integrate them into our flourishing and not our self-destruction. That’s life as technology-makers and -users. We make tools, we adopt tools, and then we spend years and decades trying to adapt those tools to our flourishing. That’s the process we are in now.

Four Stages to Flourishing

Here’s what I discovered over that decade of writing about tech and media. The tech conversation needs to progress up in four stages, and those stages get harder (and rarer) as you climb the ladder. Here’s how I put it.

Stage 1

We identify tech problems externally. This is a view of tech in which we conclude, “The app made me do it.” This is The Social Dilemma documentary on Netflix. “The algorithm made me do it. Big tech is ruining our lives.” We externalize sin, leaving it to regulations and legislation.

That’s not wrong entirely, because big tech does code biases into their algorithms and apps and gadgets. They do. No question. But our concern is incomplete if that’s the extent of it. And I think it is the extent that most Christians ever reach. And so if you think holiness is about not having a smartphone, you’re in for a shocker. So we need to go further.

Stage 2

We identify tech problems internally. Aware of biases in tech (real biases in how our apps and platforms are made, absolutely — ones we must be aware of), I must next become aware of the sinful inclinations living inside of me. Because tech biases (on the outside of me) are pushing and pulling on native, sinful inclinations within my own heart that must be dealt with.

Again, that’s why I wrote 12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You and Competing Spectacles. Social media, smartphones, the attention economy — at their worst, they all appeal to something lurid inside of me. So what is that? That sin in me has got to be addressed. That’s stage 2 — identifying tech problems internally, not simply externally.

Stage 3

We voice gratitude to God for our tech. Biases acknowledged (in stage 1), sin patterns identified and confessed and dealt with (in stage 2), now I have eyes beginning to open to see the generosity and brilliance of the Creator in the tens of thousands of innovations I use every single day. I see God’s generosity in all of it. I see his generosity in all the things I’m using right now for me to record my voice for you in my studio and for you to hear me later. All of it, a divine gift.

“Christ crucified is the hinge of history, where all human spectacles meet one unsurpassed, cosmic, divine Spectacle.”

I aspire to help my kids to see this, by the power of the Spirit. Silicon Valley is not just humans doing human things. These tools are gifts from God to be stewarded for his glory. If you miss this stage, you have no foundation for stewardship. The whole tech conversation operates in the realm of godlessness. He’s a nonfactor.

This is huge, and required a whole book of its own, one I wrote titled God, Technology, and the Christian Life. As God prepared his people to enter the promised land with its milk and honey flowing, he was also preparing them to enter a land of iron and copper.

And God warns them: When you make a technological society that is wealthy and comfortable and if you fail to glorify God for all his generosity in everything you make, you are an idolater. For whatever reason, God’s people are shortsighted and blind to his generosity when they hold shiny metal things that they made. That’s the story of Deuteronomy 8:9–20.

So when we pull lithium from the ground, and aluminum, iron, silicon, cobalt, nickel — and we refine those elements into a new iPhone, that iPhone is a gift from the Creator, one he coded into his creation, for which we can now praise him. Most Christians are not here. When most Christians think of the iPhone, God is irrelevant. And our kids pick up on that real quick. But why is stage three important? That’s because, finally . . .

Stage 4

We are called to live out our tech-stewardship. Aware of the biases in tech (step 1), aware of the sin inclinations inside of me (step 2), and now beholding God’s generosity in his material gifts in his creation (step 3), technology in my life can now conform to my calling and inform how I use tech and how I parent tech-stewardship in the home.

This is the hardest part of the tech conversation. We are called to love God with all that we are and to love our neighbors as ourselves. Our tech gifts can help us to do that. I’ve dedicated my life to online ministry for this reason. I want to employ my tech gifts to love others. I believe electricity and data coding and the digital age and computer chips and smartphones and laptops and the internet were all God’s idea, inherent within the creation that he gave us to cultivate and develop.

Hung Up on ‘No’

But again, we tend to get stuck at stage 1. And it’s the spiritual danger almost no Christian appreciates — “the algorithm made me do it.” And so our parenting, for example, sounds a lot like, “No, you can’t have that gadget!” “No, you cannot use that app!” “No, you should never do that thing, look at that thing, online!” No, no, no. It never gets into the yes and amens of stewardship, of a vision of life for how to glorify God and to serve others. This fourth stage has huge implications for pastors and parents, and for anyone trying to figure out tech-ethics.

But, again, it’s just really hard to get there, because our tech-ethics are really lagging behind. We settle on being tech-dismissive and just remain there. It’s just easier to settle into stage-1 or maybe into stage-2 ethics and never move into stage-3 gratitude or stage-4 stewardship. In fact, I’d be willing to say that most Christians stagnate at stage 1 (“the app made me do it”) and never even get into stage 2 (doing the hard work of heart-work).

So when it comes to stages 3 and 4, I’m hoping Christians will learn this over the years and decades ahead. It’s not something you can add fast. It takes years to learn and appropriate these things into our lives. But without that basis for stewardship, we are lost and have no way forward but to dismiss the tech-age as Babel-like and godless. We can only diss on tech, as we hold our iPhone in hand. Our kids pick up on that dishonesty pretty quickly.

Our Phones, Our Hearts, Our Gospel

Question 3: What are some diagnostic questions or practices Christian parents or teens should regularly ask in order to keep smartphone usage within healthy and appropriate margins? And if you don’t mind me cheating a bit and asking the other side of this question, too — how can we apply the gospel to our own lives, or preach it to our kids, when our smartphone usage drifts outside of those healthy and appropriate margins?

There’s a lot we can do as far as practices. An iPhone contract is useful to set out expectations for a teen. All devices charged at night in Mom and Dad’s room, or some neutral place, never left in a teen’s room. Sundays offline. Things like those are helpful, but none of them distinctly Christian. We get Christian when we ask the right diagnostic questions. That’s exactly the right approach. Here are eight you can use with yourself, and then your teens:

How much of my media is for escape? And what am I escaping?
Does my screen time leave me more recharged or more depleted?
Is my media diet enriching my time with Christ or eroding it?
How consistent is my personal devotional life?
What does my prayer life look like?
Is my communion with God drab and boring? Or is it alive?
How do Christ-centered sermons and songs affect me? And what does this say about how I protect my heart for Sunday worship?
Are my digital desires serving my God-given duties, or are they distracting me from them?

Insatiable Eyes

Those eight questions cut to the heart of the matter in “the age of the spectacle,” as it has been called. The Bible says, “Sheol and Abaddon are never satisfied, and never satisfied are the eyes of man” (Proverbs 27:20). The graveyard is never full of coffins because Sheol is an open mouth, always consuming — day and night. So too are our eyes. Vivid. Like a cemetery, our eyes are insatiable — always roving, never satisfied by anything in this world. Fallen eyes endlessly consume death.

So I love the resolve in Psalm 101:3: “I will not set before my eyes anything that is worthless.” On whatever will not profit my soul, I will not focus my eyes. That’s incredible. Later the psalmist echoes this same challenge, but in the form of a desperate prayer, in Psalm 119:37. There he prays, “[God,] turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways.” And that’s how resolves work. It doesn’t take long before we’re desperately crying out to God to make the resolve happen!

Which means our great enemy is not the external seducers nor the spectacle-makers. Our great enemy is our own insatiable eye-appetite that is death. Again, that’s absolutely frightening. And so in Numbers 15:39, God tells Moses to say to the people of Israel to follow the will of God in his word and to not “follow after your own heart and your own eyes.” If you fill your eyes with the spectacles of this world, you will grow deaf to the voice of God (Numbers 15:39).

And so when the psalmist cries out to God in Psalm 119:37, “Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways,” he’s saying the fullness of life is not fullness of eyes. And that is the competition we feel, because we can fill our eyes with endless spectacles in every direction, and in the end it’s a feeding on death, a feeding on what cannot give you life.

One Great, All-Satisfying Spectacle

So how does the gospel come in here? This is absolutely huge. I’m so glad you asked. Because into the spectacle-loving world, with all of its spectacle-makers and spectacle-making industries, came the grandest Spectacle ever devised in the mind of God and brought about in world history — the cross of Christ.

Christ crucified is the hinge of history, the point of contact between BC and AD, where all time collides, where all human spectacles meet one unsurpassed, cosmic, divine Spectacle. From this moment on, God intends for all human gaze to center on this climactic moment. In the cross God says to us, “This is my beloved Son, crucified for you, a Spectacle to capture your heart forever!”

In his account of the cross, Luke tells us in Luke 23:48 that the crucifixion was a physical spectacle for crowds to see. But the cross is not merely a physical spectacle for the eye. Its greater glory is in serving as a spectacle for the ear of faith. So in Colossians 2:15, Paul tells us that what you could not see with your eyes was the spiritual spectacle of victory it represents — victory over all sin and evil, over that evil inside of us, even.

The cross is huge, so huge, that in Galatians 3:1 Paul says the preaching of the cross is the re-celebration of the spectacle of the cross, as if it were portrayed on a prominent city billboard. That’s what “preaching Christ” means. In pulpits across the world, every week, God says to us again and again, “This is my beloved Son, crucified for you, a Spectacle to capture your hearts forever!” Preaching re-proclaims that over and over.

Faith-Driven Tech-Users

So by divine design, Christians are pro-spectacle, and we give our entire lives to this great Spectacle, now historically past and presently invisible. The driving spectacle at the center of the Christian life is an invisible spectacle. Only by faith can we see it. I have now been crucified to the world, and the world has been crucified to me, as the apostle Paul says (Galatians 6:14). Our response to the ultimate spectacle of the cross of Christ defines us.

Christ died for my sins of escapism, for my disdain for people, for my lust, for my vanity, for filling my eyes with worthless things. Christ died for the lurid desires and sins of my heart manifested on my screen. He came and died as a spectacle to the universe in order to forgive my guilt and then to free me from the power of my sins.

That doesn’t mean we parents are perfect users of the iPhone and tech. We aren’t. And when we fail here, when digital media takes too much of our attention, when we are distracted by worthlessness, our families will know it. And we can openly confess our need for Christ to forgive me — Dad — as I demonstrate in confession the beauty of the cross before my spouse and teens once again.

Now, it took me about a decade to put all four stages together. It’s complex. But I hope it helps other Christians and pastors and parents and teens to see a way forward in this age of technology. I am grateful for this opportunity to share what I have learned, Mike. Thank you for asking.

Audio Transcript

Good Monday morning, everyone. We have a big week on the podcast. First up, our inbox is full of emails asking whether or not it’s a good idea to dramatize Christ’s life for television. A listener named Jim asks it this way: “Dear Pastor John, hello, and thank you for this podcast. I’m wondering of the dangers and benefits of watching biblical historical fiction, particularly of television shows and movies about the life of Christ, of him acting and saying dramatized things beyond what we read in Scripture.”

One anonymous man writes to say, “Dear Pastor John, thank you for the podcast. It has been used by God to help me and my family here in Kazakhstan. I would like to know your thoughts on television shows and movies about the life of Christ. Are they helpful or unhelpful? What are your concerns?”

Sam, a church leader, wants to know the place of visuals, particularly screen dramatizations about the life of Christ. One recent show is “beloved by many” in his church, and he says, “I feel that it has enlivened my own walk with God and helped me imagine what Jesus’s world could have been like. This has the effect of making the world of the Bible more accessible to me. But imagination can only take you so far. Can we enjoy shows like this personally, even include them in a teaching context, without violating the second commandment?”

Another listener, Lisa, is less optimistic. She says television dramatizations of Christ’s life “don’t sit well with me.” As she considers Proverbs 30:6 and Revelation 22:18, she wonders if these dramas are “adding to or altering Scripture,” amounting to heresy. Pastor John, for these listeners, do you have any thoughts?

There is no way that I can avoid this question, because it touches on my life. For 25 years — and I still do it one way or the other — when I was a pastor at Bethlehem, every Christmas season, I created and read to the people in worship what we called “Advent poems,” one for each Sunday during advent. The poems took about ten minutes to read. They created a story built around a biblical character or biblical situation in which I invented persons, dialogue, and circumstances that were not in the Bible but were intended to clarify and confirm and intensify realities that are in the Bible, that the Bible itself teaches.

So, the question is not abstract for me. The question is, Was I doing something sinful? Was it wrong to create those poetic, imaginative expressions?

Safeguards Against Distortion

Let me mention the safeguards that I put in place to avoid the dangers of distorting Scripture or replacing Scripture or diminishing the authority of Scripture, and then I’ll give some positive reasons for why I think imaginative explanations and illustrations and representations of biblical truth are not only legitimate, but are even encouraged by the Bible.

Not Adding to Scripture

First, was I guilty of disobeying Proverbs 30:6 or Revelation 22:18, which says that we should not add to the words of God or to the prophecy of Scripture? No, I was not guilty of disobeying those Scriptures because those Scriptures forbid the presumption that one could add scripture to Scripture or prophecy to prophecy. Those texts are not condemning explanation and elucidation and illustration and representation of Scripture that make no claim in themselves to have any Scripture-level authority.

Those texts are condemning every attempt to use words or images or representations that claim to be on a par with Scripture. And in fact, I would say that the Roman Catholic Church is guilty of this error when it elevates the papal pronouncements ex cathedra to the level of infallible biblical authority. That’s my first safeguard.

Clearly Imaginative

Second, I made clear that the poems I was reading were not Scripture. I made it clear. They were not divinely inspired. They were not infallible. They were imaginative illustration, explanation, and representation of truth that I saw in the biblical text.

I made this distinction not only when reading poetry but when preaching. My preaching is not Scripture; it is based on Scripture. It uses language that is not in Scripture — all preaching does, all teaching does. It derives any authority that it has from the degree that it faithfully represents the reality put forth in the Bible. So it is with imaginative poetry — or drama, for that matter.

Consistent with Scripture

Third, I promised never to create any dialogue or any character or any circumstance that could not have happened in view of what the Bible actually teaches. In other words, even though I created things that were not in the Bible, nothing I created contradicted what was in the Bible. Everything had to be possible and plausible in view of what was in the Bible. Nothing was allowed to call Scripture into question.

Focused on Scripture

Fourth, I made every effort to draw attention and affection to the same reality in my poems that I saw in the Scripture itself. And fifth, I never replaced expository preaching with imaginative poetry.

In other words, I tried to make plain that God had ordained the expository preaching of his infallible word as central to congregational life and as the main corporate means by which God protects his word from distortion. Through every other form of representation, preaching stood. Preaching remained dominant and essential. And in my case, the sermon was never, not once in 33 years, intermingled with any kind of visual media. I think that’s a bad practice in preaching and is usually owing to a loss of confidence in the preached word to do its amazing work.

Biblical Warrant

Now, those are the safeguards that I put in place to keep from diminishing Scripture or distorting Scripture or replacing Scripture, but I think even more important is the fact that imaginative representations of biblical reality are warranted by Scripture itself.

“Imaginative representations of biblical reality are warranted by Scripture itself.”

Of course, in biblical times, nobody had ever heard of movies or videos, and so nothing directly is said in the Bible about them. But short of that, pointers to imaginative representations and drama are everywhere in the Bible.

Imaginative Language

First, the Bible itself uses imaginative language that creates pictures in our minds that are not the same as the reality being discussed, but that shed light on the reality by not being the reality itself. We call these metaphors or similes or word pictures or parables. For example, just listen to Jude 12–13 describing the false teachers and the troublemakers in the church:

These are hidden reefs at your love feasts, as they feast with you without fear, shepherds feeding themselves; waterless clouds, swept along by winds; fruitless trees in autumn, twice dead, uprooted; wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their shame; wandering stars, for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.

That’s amazing! He’s talking about human beings, bad people who are ruining the church. What does he do? He creates pictures in our brains with words like “hidden reefs,” “selfish shepherds,” “waterless clouds,” “fruitless trees,” “wild waves,” “wandering stars.” In other words, he tries to make plain one objective reality by comparing it to a very different reality.

Jesus did this with parables, didn’t he? “The kingdom of heaven is like . . .” — like a mustard seed, like leaven, like a treasure, like a merchant, like a net, like a master of a house, and on and on. Or consider the prophets like Zechariah. He sees a reality; he wants us to know the reality. How should he help us see and savor this reality? He says, “I see a measuring line” (Zechariah 2:1–5). “I see a lampstand” (Zechariah 4:1–3). “I see a flying scroll” (Zechariah 5:1–4). “I see a woman in a basket” (Zechariah 5:5–11).

“The job of the preacher or the poet or the teacher or the parent is to help others see and savor reality.”

The Bible does this kind of thing hundreds and hundreds of times. It’s the very nature of language to be different from the reality it points to. The word love is not the same as the reality of love. The word God is not the same as the reality of God. The word salvation is not the same as the reality of salvation. And once you realize that all language is pointing to reality, that the job of the preacher or the poet or the teacher or the parent is to help others see and savor reality, then you realize all the amazing and various potentials that language has.

Imaginative Action

Then there’s not just imaginative language, but there is imaginative action in the Bible — acted-out dramas of biblical reality. Jeremiah was told to make yoke bars and walk around with this heavy yoke on his shoulders to dramatize the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar on the people (Jeremiah 27:1–22). And Ezekiel was told by God to lie on his left side for 390 days to illustrate Israel’s years of punishment (Ezekiel 4:4–8). And then there’s poor Isaiah. God said, “My servant Isaiah has walked naked and barefoot for three years as a sign and a portent against Egypt and Cush” (Isaiah 20:3).

Pursuing Reality

So, my conclusion is that if we pause and ponder why the Bible itself employs so many imaginative means of explaining and illustrating and representing reality, we will see that the Bible itself:

offers us examples of truth-clarifying, truth-intensifying drama, poetry, language
encourages us to use language this way
protects us against distorting or replacing or diminishing Scripture

Let’s begin by asking the “So what?” question. So what, if Colossians 1:15–20 is one of the greatest exaltations to Christ in all the Bible? Maybe the greatest. There are a few that come close.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. . . . And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:1–3, 14)

That’s close.

In these last days [God] has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. (Hebrews 1:2–3)

That’s close. But Colossians 1:15–20 may be the greatest. So, you are about to listen to me for the next thirty-five minutes or so wave my little expository finger, and point toward this Mount Everest of Christ-exalting Scriptures, and then you’ll go home. And the crucial question will be, So what?

I’m going to give you two answers to that question here at the outset from Colossians so you can be testing while I preach, and then when you go home: Is this happening? Is this text having this God-appointed effect on me?

Vaccine Against Error

Here’s my first answer to the “So what?” question. False teaching has begun to infect the minds of some of the believers in Colossae, and Paul intends for the clarification and exaltation of the majesty of Jesus Christ to be the theological vaccine that protects the Colossian Christians from the disease of Christ-diminishing, Christ-distorting error.

Turn with me to Colossians 2 to get three glimpses of the false teaching in Colossae. Notice that in every case the failure to embrace a clear enough and big enough Christ is what makes the church vulnerable.

Colossians 2:8: See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

If you don’t embrace a Christ that is big enough and clear enough, you will be a sitting duck for Christ-diminishing, Christ-distorting philosophy, empty deceit, and human tradition.

Colossians 2:16–17: Let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

If you don’t embrace a Christ that is big enough and clear enough, you easily mistake shadows for reality.

Colossians 2:18–19: Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, and not holding fast to the Head.

If you don’t embrace a Christ that is big enough and clear enough, you will stop holding fast to Christ as the great, all-supplying Head of the body, and take up sectarian strategies of self-improvement.

So, the first answer to the “so what” question is this: if you embrace a Christ who is big enough and clear enough — the way Paul shows him to be in Colossians 1:15–20 — you will have a theological, spiritual, biblical vaccination against a hundred Christ-diminishing, Christ-distorting errors — and they will not be getting fewer in the last days.

Endure and Give Thanks with Joy

Now, the second answer to the “So what?” question. Back to chapter 1. Last week, Pastor Kenny walked us through Paul’s prayer for the Colossians — and for us — which starts in Colossians 1:9. It’s the connection between this prayer and today’s text about the supremacy of Christ which clarifies the second answer to the “So what?” question.

Paul prays in Colossians 1:11 that we would be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience. And then that little phrase “with joy” could go either way, forward or backward. Endurance and patience with joy, or, with joy giving thanks to the Father.

Experientially, I can’t see any difference. We are enduring with patience the pandemic, the political acrimony, the war in Ukraine, churches in conflict, the sexual debauchery of the culture, the heartbreak of lost loved ones. Does it make any difference whether you say: “We are enduring with joy” or to say, “We are enduring, giving joyful thanks to God the Father”? In both cases joy marks our patient endurance in these days, and, God willing, to the very end. Serious joy, thankful to our heavenly Father to the very end.

“Joy marks our patient endurance in these days and, God willing, to the very end.”

But how can we have thankful joyful hearts as we patiently endure these days? Paul answers in Colossians 1:12, because God the Father “has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.” We are not going to be cast into outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 8:12; 22:13; 25:30). Our inheritance is a new world where night will be no more. And there will be no need of sun or moon, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb (Revelation 22:5; 21:23).

And then Colossians 1:13 adds that we have already entered into this kingdom of light: “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son.” And Colossians 1:14 adds that the reason that we guilty sinners can enter that kingdom of everlasting light and joy — it’s because “in [Christ] we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” He paid the ransom with his blood for our forgiveness. By faith we are united to him. And his sacrifice covers all our sins.

Greatest Tribute

Now, follow the flow of thought to see the connection with today’s text. Paul’s prayer in verses 11–12 is that we would endure with joyful thankfulness everything this fallen world throws at us until Jesus comes. The reason we can do that, he says, is because he has qualified us for an eternity of light and love not darkness. And the way he has done that is by paying the redemption price for the forgiveness of all our sins and bringing us already into the kingdom of his greatly loved Son.

“The supremacy of Christ is meant to sustain our joy through patient endurance.”

And at this point Paul is so full of awareness that our thankful, joyful, patient endurance depends on the greatness of the redemption of Christ and the greatness of the reign of Christ that he launches into the greatest tribute to the supremacy of Christ in the Bible (Colossians 1:15–20). In other words, the second answer to the “So what?” question is that, if your mind and heart are captured with the greatness and the beauty and the worth of Jesus Christ in verses 15–20, you will endure the hardships of this life with patience and joyful thankfulness. The supremacy of Christ is meant to sustain our joy through patient endurance.

Supremacy of Christ

So let’s look at the supremacy of Christ in Colossians 1:15–20.

I see at least five ways Christ is supreme in relation to creation — and then three ways he is supreme in relation to the church. Or if you prefer, you can use the word “preeminent,” since that is the purpose of God stated at the end of verse 19: “that in everything he might be preeminent.” That’s the immediate goal of this passage: to show that in everything Christ is preeminent, or supreme — that he is the greatest, most excellent reality that exists.

Supreme over Creation

First, then, in relation to creation — five aspects of his supremacy.

1. Christ Is God

Colossians 1:19: “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.” Even more clearly in Colossians 2:9: “For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.” Remember, in verse 13 Christ is called God’s beloved Son. Now we see that the Son is said to possess the fullness of God-ness. He is fully God.

And this divine Son came to earth and clothed himself with humanity. He has a body and a human nature. So Colossians 2:9 says, “In him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.” We call this the incarnation of the divine Son of God. There is now, and forever, a God-man. God the Son never lays down his body. He rises from the dead with it. He ascends with it. He possesses it in heaven today glorified according to Philippians 3:21. And he will return visibly in his body.

They could see him and touch him while he was on the earth. And we will see him when he comes again. I think this is what Paul means in Colossians 1:15: “He is the image of the invisible God.” God is invisible. He is spirit. But Jesus is not invisible. He is the visible God. In John 14:9, Jesus said to Philip, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”

So I would ask you very frankly, Do you worship Jesus Christ? Matthew 28:17 says, “When the eleven saw him they worshiped him.” Do you? Is your Christ big enough and clear enough and supreme enough that you treasure him more highly than any other reality, as very God of very God?

2. Christ Is Before All Things

Colossians 1:17: “And he is before all things.” Why would Paul say that? It is so obviously implicit in virtually everything else he says about Christ in this paragraph. Well, sometimes it is very good to make implicit, glorious things explicit! Things that we just pass over and don’t ponder. I invite you to ponder the fact that before there was anything else, Christ was.

For example, this draws our attention to the fact that Christ’s relationship to things that are not Christ is very different from our relationship to things that are not us. We think that we are creators. We’re not. Not the way Christ is. When we make things, we just rearrange what’s already there. We rearrange chemicals and make a medicine. We rearrange molecules and make an atom bomb. We arrange materials and make house.

When Christ brought creation into existence, he didn’t rearrange anything, because he was before all things. There wasn’t anything to arrange. Christ is absolute reality. Everything else is secondary.

3. Christ Created Everything That Is Not God

Colossians 1:15–16: “[He is] he firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities — all things were created through him and for him.”

“Firstborn of all creation” does not mean he is part of creation. Four reasons:

He is God — not part of what God made. We have seen that already.
The ground of 15b in verse 16 contradicts that he is part of creation: “He is firstborn of all creation. Because by him all things were created.” It would make no sense to say, “He is part of creation because he created all things.”
The word “of” in “firstborn of all creation” does not have to mean he is part of creation any more than my saying, “David is the coach of his son’s little league team,” means he is a little leaguer on the team. “Coach of” means “coach over” and that’s what Paul means here — he is the firstborn over all creation.
The word “firstborn” came to mean, alongside its biological meaning, “having the highest rank,” as in Psalm 89:27 where God says to David, “I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth.” That is, not having his origin from the kings of the earth but highest over them.

So I say again, Christ created everything that is not God. And I suspect Paul listed the particular creations that he listed to make sure that the Colossians did not try to make exceptions by saying, “No, no, the thrones and dominions and rulers and authorities do not include evil powers.” Yes, they do! And that’s the point! Verse 13 just said we were delivered from the “domain (Greek exousias) of darkness” and that word “domain” is the same as the “authorities (exousiai)” in verse 16. He made them. And he delivered us from them. They have no independent existence or power.

No exceptions, Colossians. No exceptions, Bethlehem. Christ is the creator of all that is not God. Including all the demons and their political echoes in this world. Is it any wonder that Jesus simply commands fevers, and wind, and water, and demons, and they obey? As then. So now.

4. Christ Holds Everything Together

Colossians 1:17: “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” Christ doesn’t just bring everything that is into being. He holds everything that is in being. This may strike home to help us feel the way we ought, even more than knowing that he is our Creator.

Hour by hour the reason you do not fly apart into a billion fragments and then vanish is because Christ holds you together. And this is true of everything in the universe. Everything that man has ever made, and every body of every man and woman and child. And every mountain and ocean and cloud and supernova — all would cease to be if Christ did not hold them in being.

He holds together the metal on the tanks rolling into Ukraine. He holds together the cellphones in Ukraine that connect the resistance. He holds together the pew you sit on, the clothing you wear, the food you eat, the skin that covers your bones. As your Creator you might think he is distant, having done that work some time ago. But to confess that in him you’re very body and soul, millisecond by millisecond, are held in being is another matter. He is not distant. You are personally and radically dependent on Christ, even if you don’t believe on him.

5. All Things Were Created for Christ

Colossians 1:16 (at the end): “All things were created through him and for him.” What does for him mean? It can’t mean, in order to meet his needs. To be God means to have no needs. Acts 17:25 says, “God cannot be served as though he needed anything.”

“Christ created everything and sustains everything for the glory of Christ.”

One clue is found in Colossians 1:18 at the end: “that in everything he might be preeminent.” Creation exists “for him” in the sense of putting his preeminence on display. He does everything he does in order put his supremacy, his glory, on display. Christ created everything and sustains everything for the glory of Christ! This is why the universe came into being — to put the preeminence of Christ’s glory on display.

Supreme over the Church

Lest you think that makes an egomaniac out of Christ, we turn now, all too briefly, to three acts of Christ’s supremacy in relation not to creation but to the church in verses 18–20.

I’ll name them quickly:

He is supreme as the head of the body. Verse 18a: “And he is the head of the body, the church.”
He is supreme as the beginning of the new creation as he rises first from the dead, the first of millions. Verse 18b: “He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.”
We’ve already looked at verse 19, so I skip to verse 20: He is supreme as the one whose blood secures a new heaven and a new earth where everything is reconciled and at peace with God. Verse 20: “And through him to reconcile to himself all things whether on earth or in heaven making peace by the blood of his cross.”

Apex of Glory: Grace

Here’s what changes the whole idea of egomaniac. When we say that Christ has created everything for the glory of Christ, the apex of that glory is the glory of grace toward his people.

It’s the glory of being the head (v. 18a) that supplies every need that the church ever has for everlasting holiness and joy.
It’s the glory not of being the only one to rise from the dead, but the first one to rise from the dead (v. 18b), bringing with him millions upon millions of people who will be delivered from the bondage of death and brought into a new world of everlasting joy with Christ.
It’s the glory of shedding his blood (v. 20) so as to make peace — to make a new world of only reconciled people in two ways: one is to supply the forgiveness of sins for everyone who believes, and the other is to strip from the hands of God’s demonic and human enemies all grounds for condemning God’s people and dismiss those enemies into outer darkness where they will not in any way infect the new heaven and the new earth.

Bethlehem,

Jesus Christ is our God.
Jesus Christ is before all things.
Jesus Christ created all that is not God.
Jesus Christ holds everything together.
Jesus Christ created everything to display the supremacy and the glory of Jesus Christ.

This is not egomania. It is love. Because the apex of that glory is the glory of grace. It’s the glory of Christ’s supplying everything his church needs to be holy and happy forever. It’s the glory of triumphing over death in bringing millions of believing sinners to everlasting life. And it’s the glory of establishing a new heaven and new earth of peace and reconciliation by the blood of his cross.

What he wants from us is the answer to Paul’s prayer — that we would find strength for all endurance and patience with thankful joy because we have embraced this Christ.