“This bag is not a toy.” “May contain peanuts.” “If side effects occur, discontinue use and consult your doctor.” “Handling this product will expose you to lead, a chemical known to the State of California to cause birth defects or other reproductive harm. Wash hands after handling.”
Everywhere we look, we see warning labels, don’t we? Our life is surrounded by stuff that, if hazardous in some way, has some sort of warning on it in fine print. The item itself may be very useful. It may be an essential tool or cleaner or building material or medicine. But when it’s determined that there may be a risk to our physical health, we put a warning label on it. Unfortunately, things that may damage our spiritual health don’t always have warning labels.
There’s no warning message we listen to before we hear a song that criticizes Christianity, mocks believers, encourages being “spiritual but not religious”, or puts blasphemous phrases to catchy music. There’s no warning message on the screen during commercial breaks of a sporting event that caution, “In addition to promoting the product, the following commercial promotes promiscuity, immodesty, and immorality.” And while there are various different filters you can buy, the internet doesn’t have a warning that notifies you that you are connecting to an ocean of temptation that lurks beyond every click. Or does it?
Back in the late 1970’s, two guys named Steve started a computer company in a garage. There’s a variety of stories as to how they came up with the name “Apple Computer” that range from “Steve Jobs just came back from working at an apple orchard” to “they wanted to be ahead of Atari in the phone book” to “they wanted something non-technical and approachable.” Regardless how the name came about, the original logo of Issac Newton under an apple tree only lasted about a year because it was too complicated and didn’t reproduce well at small sizes. So they went to an ad agency and told them they wanted something iconic, colorful, and fun. The artist did different renderings of an apple, and to keep it from being confused with a cherry or a tomato, he decided to draw it with a bite taken out of it to give it scale. To embrace the “colorful” directive, he decided to use the rainbow, but he rearranged the colors so that the leaf would be green and the rest would be out of order.
Steve Jobs, after his ouster from Apple, went on to found NeXT Computers. A computer science engineer using one of these computers went on to develop the “hypertext transfer protocol” or “http” and the first web server and web browser. Apple acquired NeXT in 1997, and Steve Jobs returned. He reinvented the company with the iMac, which was designed to make it easy to get on the internet, then some years later unveiled the iPhone which, going far beyond email, brought the internet to your pocket for the first time. And on all these devices was an apple… with a bite taken out of it.
Today we are carrying around the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in our pockets. Who knew that we would get to this point? Of course, God knew. And as the saying goes, “God can draw straight lines with crooked people.” God knew that we would get here, and so He used one man to put a warning label on the most iconic manufacturer of the most useful — and the most dangerous — technology. Yet how many people don’t read the warning label before handing a smartphone to their toddler? A toddler who isn’t even reaching for the apple, but we hand them one so we can get back to our own apple?
Before they ate, all Adam & Eve knew was the true, the good, and the beautiful. God gave them the knowledge that by eating of the tree they would die, but what Adam & Eve lacked was wisdom. So after they ate, they lost their appreciation of the true, the good, and the beautiful. Some theologians say that God never intended for them to refrain from eating from the tree of knowledge of good & evil forever. As the theory goes, once they were ready, once they had wisdom, God would have allowed them to eat of the tree so that they could appreciate all He had done in His goodness.
Yes, this technology is a powerful tool that can empower us to do wonderful things. It can help us research, and engineer, and create, and spread the Gospel. But if the dark corners of the internet are where you want to go, then saddle up and grab a snack because it’s a wide road that’s an easy ride… straight to the pit of damnation. Our technology has a warning label. Let’s make sure we remember to read it, and pray that the Holy Spirit gives us the understanding to comprehend it, the wisdom to obey it, the fortitude to resist temptation, and the counsel to use our technology to seek God in the true, the good, and the beautiful.