We recently held a Ladies Technology Workshop at our church with the goal of helping ladies gain familiarity and comfort using technology for everyday tasks like planning, facilitating relationships, and being wise stewards of their time and technology. As Christian women living in an increasingly digital world, it is critical that we think biblically about technology and how to use it to the glory of God and the benefit of others. We hope some of the biblical principles and practical applications of common digital tools we share will be valuable for you and your families.
Is Technology in the Bible?
We know the Lord has granted us “all things that pertain to life and godliness” (1 Pet 1:3), so we may know how to live wisely as Christians in every age. Even though the canon of Scripture closed two thousand years before the age of smartphones and laptops, we can be confident that God’s Word still imparts wisdom on how to live with and use our digital tools well. Let us consider a few principles from Scripture that should inform how we think about technology:
The creation and use of technology is part of subduing the earth and exercising dominion over it. From the beginning, God’s purpose for man was to fill the earth and subdue it.
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Gen 1:27-28)
Tony Reinke defines technology as “applied science and amplified power.” We see mankind using technology from our earliest days to fashion tools that could work the ground, herd animals, facilitate transportation, and much more. By God’s design, we have been able to use the laws of physics and the natural resources He provided to advance the tools we use and amplify human abilities beyond what we can accomplish with our bare hands. Even in our fallen world, we can still see how mankind carries out God’s mandate to subdue and exercise dominion over the earth in our work–albeit imperfectly–and we do so with a plethora of technology. Farming, gardening, and mining for natural resources like oils and minerals are all examples of cultivating and managing the earth’s resources for the good of humanity. Many of us labor in ways that are more abstracted from direct management of the land, but even financial planning, programming, other office jobs, and homemaking ultimately boil down to bringing order out of chaos and driving human productivity: hence, exercising dominion.
It is God, the ultimate Creator, who created technology and gifted its inventors. All inventions are under God’s sovereign control, which is a comforting truth when we feel anxious about the pace and dangers of technological advancement, particularly in the hands of sinners. Consider what the Lord says about technologists in Isaiah’s time and the weapons they designed:
“Behold, I have created the smith who blows the fire of coals and produces a weapon for its purpose. I have also created the ravager to destroy; no weapon that is fashioned against you shall succeed, and you shall refute every tongue that rises against you in judgment. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord and their vindication from me, declares the Lord.” (Isa 54:16-17)
In our day, incredible minds like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk have created companies and products that applied science and amplified power in ways that were mere science fiction a few decades ago: powerful computing devices that fit inside your pocket, self-driving cars, and augmented reality. With the advent of artificial intelligence, we may grow more anxious about the destructive capabilities of these technologies, even as we reap many benefits of convenience and comfort in our daily lives. We must remember that each of these brilliant inventors were ultimately created by God, and their inventions are fully under God’s control. The Lord created the smith who designed weapons in Isaiah’s time, and He ensured the protection of His people against any weapon used against them, no matter how fearsome. In the same way, God still rules over each invention today, and their impact in society will go as far as God intends and no further.
So, how can we put technology to good use in our lives today? We have a wealth of tools and resources at our disposal, which we can employ in order to serve our families, churches, and neighbors well. Just as the Proverbs 31 woman was diligent, entrepreneurial, and an excellent manager of her household, may we aspire to do the same by faithfully stewarding what God has given to us.
Practical Applications of Common Digital Tools
It would be impossible to cover all the technologies that are available to us today, but we would like to share a few common tools that are broadly beneficial to women of various seasons of life and differing degrees of tech-savviness. While the Proverbs 31 woman had maidens in her household (Prov 31:15), we are blessed with many “maidservants” that come in the form of laundry machines, dishwashers, vacuum cleaners, and yes, our phones and computers!
Here are a few technologies we shared about in our Ladies Technology Workshop, potential goals for their use, and practical applications.
Digital Calendars
Potential goal: I want to be a good steward of my time and my home by effectively managing my and my family’s plans and coordinating with loved ones.
Digital calendars such as Google Calendar and Apple Calendar are effective tools for managing our schedules, and their usefulness can multiply when we are coordinating events across our family members and friends. They provide an instant visual of events on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis, allowing us to optimize our schedules and avoid conflicts in important events. The accessibility of digital calendars is also a plus: we can sync them across our computers and mobile phones, which means we can check for upcoming events or availability on-the-go.
Examples of practical applications:
- Creating events, sharing event details, and inviting guests via email all in one go, e.g. birthday parties or showers
- Adding a recurring event to your calendar, e.g. Bible Study that repeats every other Tuesday night
- Keeping track of noteworthy dates, e.g. family birthdays, anniversaries
- Sharing calendars among family members, which overlays their calendar on yours, giving you visibility into each other’s schedules
- Adding recurring tasks, e.g. take the trash out every Wednesday
Photo Management
Potential goal: I want to cherish special moments with my family and friends by organizing, storing, and sharing my photos and videos.
Most of us have more photos than we can manage. Smartphones in particular have made it easy to take pictures of anything and everything, without a thought to the cost of printing. Thankfully, we also have a number of photo management tools at our disposal to help us organize our memories.
Cloud storage options, such as Google Photos or iCloud Photos, are convenient and provide automatic backups (in case your local phone storage has a mishap), enable you to access your photos from different devices, and allow you to easily share photos with family and friends. The social nature of cloud storage options is a great perk: you can share photos with family that may live far away, or create shared albums from a joint trip that multiple friends can contribute to and comment on. Most cloud storage options will provide you a certain amount of storage for free, but you will need to pay for additional capacity at some point.
Hard drive storage options (well-known brands include Western Digital or Seagate) are a good alternative if you prefer more physical control over your data or need faster access to large files. This type of offline storage can be good for large, high-quality photo collections, such as your wedding album or professional photos, as most hard drives provide significant storage space. The downside is you need an additional physical device, and these photos cannot be easily shared with others.
Password Management
Potential goal: I want to wisely protect my personal information on the Internet by securely managing my passwords.
How do you remember fifteen different “complex” passwords to each of the online accounts you have? Given today’s password security requirements, that seems impossible. At the same time, we want to protect our accounts, especially those that contain our most sensitive information, such as our bank accounts, healthcare information, emails, and more.
Password managers are a great tool that can assist us in securing our passwords, and hence, our accounts. Password managers require you to set up and remember one master password–instead of fifteen–and securely saves all your other account-specific passwords in an encrypted vault (which means the passwords are not stored as plain text, but require an encryption key to translate it, giving an extra layer of security in case the vault is “broken into.”) When you go to login to those accounts, your password manager will take over and log you in, knowing that it’s you. Google offers a free Google Password Manager service, but there are also other options (BitWarden, LastPass, Dashlane, iPassword, to name a few) depending on your needs and whether you’d like to pay for more premium features.
It’s important to keep in mind that password managers have risks too. Of course, your master password is the key, so if that becomes compromised, you’ve compromised your other accounts as well–so make your password strong! Physical theft, where your laptop is left unlocked and then stolen, could also compromise you, as could phishing attempts, where fake websites attempt to mimic real ones to trick you into providing login credentials. Remember that no password manager is 100% secure, but the goal is to minimize risk, which you can do by using secure passwords, being careful of scams, and using a reputable password manager.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
AI is all the buzz today, especially since ChatGPT burst onto the scene overnight with endless applications in different industries. How should Christians think about AI, especially as it raises an increasing number of ethical questions?
As we’ve seen from biblical principles, technologies are tools we can leverage for good, and God is ultimately sovereign over them, including AI. We should not be afraid of using AI, but be discerning in how we apply it. For instance, AI can be highly effective in providing objective information based on your inputs and questions (think of it as a more conversational, synthesized, and customized Google Search result). However, we caution against relying on AI for counseling or decision-making, where we should be depending first on the Lord through His Word and prayer, and seeking input and counsel from wise believers. AI is a powerful tool we can use to gather information and accelerate tasks, but it is devoid of the Spirit of God, who is the Author of Scripture and indwelling believers. He is the ultimate Guide we look to in living life well and making decisions.
What are some ways we can put this powerful tool to use? These are just a few areas we can employ AI:
- Home projects, design and decor
- Recipes and meal planning
- Shopping and product recommendations
- Planning parties, showers, and other events
- Drafting and proofreading emails
- Providing tech support
It doesn’t require a high level of technological know-how to get started. You can simply start by asking questions or requesting information from a few AI tools that are popular today: ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, and plenty of others for both general and specific use cases.
While this only scratches the surface of the technologies we have available today, we pray that this brief reflection on the biblical principles and some practical applications of digital tools may help you be a wise steward of your time and technology!
