God always intended technology. He is the Creator and releases the creative genius of tech. He also has plans for it and wants to bring His purposes through it.
There are warnings and red flags about AI and technology dependence because of the potential of not just a global way of thinking but of a one-world action that the book of Revelation hints of arising. But God will use technologies and anoint them for His purpose and is raising up people who will be “tech missionaries,” those who would use tech to reach God’s goal in humanity.
The Holy Spirit is speaking to people all around the world and is launching entertainment companies, video game corporations, streaming services, technology entertainment experience companies, digital currencies and companies that use them, and anointing individuals in media, entertainment, tech and even digital currency.
When David had to go live with the Philistines, many theologians believe that he learned the Iron Age from them, and that it caused the people of Israel to have new weapons of warfare that set them apart and was also one of the reasons the Philistines remained a hard-to-conquer enemy; they had developed weaponry that no one else had.
The technology industry is like that in our generation.
“For although we live in the natural realm, we don’t wage a military campaign employing human weapons, using manipulation to achieve our aims. Instead, our spiritual weapons are energized with divine power to effectively dismantle the defenses behind which people hide. We can demolish every deceptive fantasy that opposes God and break through every arrogant attitude that is raised up in defiance of the true knowledge of God. We capture, like prisoners of war, every thought and insist that it bow in obedience to the Anointed One. Since we are armed with such dynamic weaponry, we stand ready to punish any trace of rebellion, as soon as you choose complete obedience. You seem to always be looking at people by their outward appearances. If someone is confident that he belongs to Christ, he should remind himself of this: we belong to Christ no less than he does” (2 Cor. 10:3-7, TPT, emphasis added).
Tech companies are already at the forefront of changing the mindsets of how people think and imparting an internal culture that shifts people’s political, family and character foundations. The problem is these same companies are not inspired or controlled by God’s original plan.
Here’s a quote from the Institute of Creation Research’s article, “Christianity and Technological Advance – The Astonishing Connection”: “The rise of North America to dominance in technology is related to the Judeo-Christian foundation with which it started. The founding fathers of the United States of America were theists who believed in a Creator who gave moral rules by which to live. The work ethic they practiced also contributed to the rapid progress of the country. In this ethic, all honest work was regarded as dignified, not just the ‘white collar’ jobs. This also has Christian roots. Jesus, the founder of Christianity, Himself chose the profession of a carpenter prior to His ministry. Along with this work ethic, there was also the right climate for initiating research. The free-enterprise system allowed individuals and private groups to carry on research and to develop technology.”
But we see when the children of Israel inherited the promised land, it had already been developed as if they had been there all along. It was a mature land with cities they didn’t construct, houses they hadn’t built with furniture they hadn’t provided. That was a picture of how God had developed a mature inheritance for them that already had an infrastructure so that they could thrive there. They weren’t starting from scratch; people who were not God’s people had spent hundreds of years fleshing it all out, and the children of Israel inherited it.
I believe that entertainment, media and technology are going to be front and center tools that will help Christianity spread and grow in a multiplied way. That means that if you are called to these things, you need to take it as seriously as a pastor planting a church, a missionary reaching an untaught people group or a Bible translator interpreting a new language, because this is your God-assignment. There is an anointing for it, and we aren’t starting from scratch. God is giving Christians an entry point when many things have matured in it so that when God’s purpose comes through His people, it will be like shooting us out of a cannon. It will be powerful.
The provision that will come through some of these tech endeavors as well as the communities they reach should make us want to run there as fast as we can.
I saw a vision of this many years ago, and it was a parabolic heavenly one. I saw demonic princes that were over not only whole regions but also industries in the tech and entertainment world. They were holding onto long ropes, which represented different technologies that were netted together, imprisoning humanity underneath them. It was so discouraging to see these dark figures in the sky around the world holding onto such important, God-given tools.
But then I heard a trumpet and out of the dark clouds, a parting came. Angels were riding on horses filling the sky and not even doing battle, but just taking these technologies or ropes out of the hands of the enemy and delivering them to humanity below. When the right humans grabbed hold of the technologies that still looked like ropes, they were no longer a net of oppression holding people back; they became like a fishing net, capturing people for the kingdom.
I knew after the vision that the net also represented the networking between some of the richest people in the world, some of the greatest technologies that exist and you who are called for this very purpose.
Heaven is going to come down to release these things and deliver the technology purposes to Christians who are assigned. This is part of a promise-land experience for God’s people to inherit so we can build a net that can apprehend all who are called to love Jesus.
Innovation and God’s heart:
There is an anointing that comes from God that is as great as when God heals someone and as miraculous as when God speaks. It is when He anoints someone with innovation. We have many natural examples of people who were a phenomena of inventions and innovation like Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Edison, Tesla or even Elon Musk. But what happens when God anoints someone who is His, that walks with Him in innovation and brings the world or their industry forward?
One of the things that will mark Christianity is that God is raising up some innovators that the world will not be able to ignore and that will be obvious to history. These are people who will see the new wine skins that are coming and won’t be able to mix with old wine skins, meaning they will be creating from a new way of thinking and doing.
mark 2:21-22 ESV / 56 helpful votes
No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins—and the wine is destroyed, and so are the skins. But the new wine is for fresh wineskins.”
Romans 12:2 ESV / 45 helpful votes
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
To find out more, listen to my full podcast on The Shawn Bolz Show with Shawn Bolz: https://sites.libsyn.com/412208.
Shawn Bolz is a TV and podcast host, an author, producer and a Christian minister. He has been leading conversations in the church, entertainment industry and in social justice that have helped believers connect their faith to culture in a transformative way. Shawn’s deeply connected yet humorous style of speaking, media hosting and coaching through his unique expert perspective has brought him around the world to meet with churches, CEOs, entertainers and world leaders.
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