Latest / The Living Waters Podcast / Ep. 180 - How Social Media Can Change Us and What to Do About It

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Ep. 180 - How Social Media Can Change Us and What to Do About It · The Living Waters Podcast

• 1:05
  Emeal Zwayne: Now, obviously we know in the social media realm there are negative elements.
• 1:09
  Emeal Zwayne: We've been touching on that.
• 1:10
  Emeal Zwayne: Can you highlight some of the positive ones, right, I mean, this is a part of your livelihood and what you do.
• 1:15
  Emeal Zwayne: It's a part of what we do as a ministry as well.
• 1:17
  Emeal Zwayne: But how are some of the ways that Christians can steward social media from the positive standpoint Can I mention?
• 1:23
  Nathan W. Bingham: one more negative before we go to the positive, is that okay?
• 1:26
  Oscar Navarro: You mentioned 10 more negatives.
• 1:28
  Nathan W. Bingham: Well, once we go to the positive side I don't want to bring the conversation down- by getting negative again.
• 1:32
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, no.
• 1:34
  Nathan W. Bingham: And there are a number of negatives, and we've thought about these things as articles online.
• 1:37
  Nathan W. Bingham: People are talking about this often, but one thing that really concerns me particularly post-2020, is that we're seeing the erosion of community.
• 1:46
  Oscar Navarro: That's good yeah.
• 1:47
  Nathan W. Bingham: And when church went online and people were watching live streams, the accelerated pace of people adopting digital technology audiobooks, podcasts, all of this sort of thing.
• 1:58
  Nathan W. Bingham: This upcoming generation doesn't have an appreciation for in-person, embodied community worship and we're cold not to neglect the gathering together of the saints.
• 2:09
  Nathan W. Bingham: And there are many, many people that, when they think about what a local church is, they don't see the distinction between online church, virtual church, and embodied worship, with a group of people where there are pastors that know your name who will give an account for you.
• 2:24
  Nathan W. Bingham: They're caring for your soul.
• 2:26
  Nathan W. Bingham: And I think of the end of second John, and John says basically there's so much more I wish I could say to you, but I would rather not use paper and ink.
• 2:37
  Nathan W. Bingham: I'd rather come to you and be face to face, so that our joy may be full.
• 2:47
  Emeal Zwayne: Where did I take my beloved Father in Law, ray comfort for Father's Day?
• 2:51
  Emeal Zwayne: Nowhere when else but chilies.
• 2:53
  Emeal Zwayne: Ray, that was fun.
• 2:57
  Ray Comfort: We had a good time and I liked the steak.
• 2:59
  Ray Comfort: I enjoyed your steak.
• 3:00
  Ray Comfort: I really enjoyed it.
• 3:02
  Emeal Zwayne: I can't believe you got it medium Medium yeah.
• 3:05
  Emeal Zwayne: No, it's got to be medium well.
• 3:08
  Ray Comfort: That's the only right way to do it.
• 3:10
  Emeal Zwayne: You guys seriously think you know something about meat that I don't know.
• 3:13
  Ray Comfort: Yes.
• 3:14
  Emeal Zwayne: I'm from Lebanon, that doesn't matter.
• 3:15
  Emeal Zwayne: I'm made of meat.
• 3:16
  Emeal Zwayne: That doesn't make any difference.
• 3:17
  Emeal Zwayne: That's true, I'm made of meat.
• 3:20
  Mark Spence: You kill the flavor when you cook the best medium rare.
• 3:23
  Emeal Zwayne: No, I'll teach you guys some things about flavor.
• 3:26
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, you can like.
• 3:27
  Oscar Navarro: I can respect medium.
• 3:28
  Oscar Navarro: Anything past medium.
• 3:30
  Ray Comfort: It's too close to beef jerky I'm speaking of that I did have some seasoning on it that I really liked.
• 3:35
  Nathan W. Bingham: I would have just liked the seasoning without the sauce.
• 3:37
  Nathan W. Bingham: I was cilantro.
• 3:38
  Nathan W. Bingham: No, it wasn't I don't even say that word.
• 3:41
  Oscar Navarro: Yeah, the seasoning was really good.
• 3:43
  Oscar Navarro: Have you ever had steak with chimichurri on top?
• 3:45
  Oscar Navarro: No good chimichurri so good.
• 3:47
  Ray Comfort: That may be what I had I don't know, it's green.
• 3:49
  Ray Comfort: No, it wasn't.
• 3:53
  Emeal Zwayne: And the waiter comes up or the food runner or whatever, and it gives the food and then Ray offers him something and then out card and something and he goes.
• 4:02
  Emeal Zwayne: You ever seen we have?
• 4:03
  Emeal Zwayne: You have a lot of YouTube, because, oh yeah, I see all the time.
• 4:04
  Emeal Zwayne: I'm from Cerritos College.
• 4:06
  Emeal Zwayne: Oh, you're right away.
• 4:08
  Emeal Zwayne: Seriously, I would not be surprised if one day you become the mascot of Cerritos College.
• 4:13
  Emeal Zwayne: Is he tall?
• 4:14
  Ray Comfort: enough.
• 4:15
  Ray Comfort: You know I wouldn't be.
• 4:16
  Ray Comfort: You could sit me up.
• 4:17
  Emeal Zwayne: Then we start talking about how Ray can hardly go into public without being recognized anymore.
• 4:23
  Emeal Zwayne: And right then these two ladies, like right as we get done, saying on, these two ladies stand up from the table across from us, come over and they go.
• 4:30
  Emeal Zwayne: Ray, come back.
• 4:31
  Emeal Zwayne: And it was so cool.
• 4:33
  Emeal Zwayne: The lady said she had just been thinking about you.
• 4:37
  Emeal Zwayne: She watched something.
• 4:38
  Mark Spence: She said you owe me $40.
• 4:40
  Emeal Zwayne: They mean no and she goes.
• 4:42
  Emeal Zwayne: I was just thinking I wonder if I'll ever get to see Ray come for it.
• 4:45
  Emeal Zwayne: And it was cool, we had a lot of it.
• 4:47
  Ray Comfort: I was thinking the same thing about her too, and it was so nice to meet her.
• 4:52
  Emeal Zwayne: When will I get to meet her?
• 4:53
  Emeal Zwayne: But it was really touching.
• 4:54
  Ray Comfort: Yeah, they were very nice, ladies.
• 4:56
  Emeal Zwayne: She called her son because her son is a big fan, and Ray talked to him on the phone.
• 5:00
  Emeal Zwayne: Was he a bit shocked, ray, when you talked to him?
• 5:02
  Ray Comfort: No, he was, just like his mother, really Mellow.
• 5:06
  Ray Comfort: No, she wasn't mellow, it was the exact opposite.
• 5:08
  Ray Comfort: Very enthusiastic.
• 5:08
  Emeal Zwayne: That's what I'm saying.
• 5:09
  Emeal Zwayne: Was he excited?
• 5:10
  Emeal Zwayne: Yes, he was excited.
• 5:11
  Emeal Zwayne: Yes, yeah what do you think I said I wasn't listening to anything stupid?
• 5:15
  Emeal Zwayne: I was listening to something else.
• 5:16
  Emeal Zwayne: All right, friends.
• 5:17
  Emeal Zwayne: Hey, we got something special.
• 5:22
  Emeal Zwayne: But first a comment.
• 5:24
  Emeal Zwayne: This is from.
• 5:25
  Emeal Zwayne: My name is Sutter Green.
• 5:27
  Emeal Zwayne: I am 13 years old and I love this podcast.
• 5:30
  Emeal Zwayne: That's who it's from.
• 5:31
  Emeal Zwayne: I've learned so much from this podcast and it has answered so many questions.
• 5:36
  Emeal Zwayne: When I saw the Living Waters YouTube channel and podcast, it inspired me to start my own channel.
• 5:41
  Emeal Zwayne: I started a YouTube channel called 777, discipleship777, where I had the honor to interview Mark Spence.
• 5:48
  Emeal Zwayne: That interview was such an encouragement for me that I now am handing out Living Waters Gospel Tracks everywhere I go.
• 5:54
  Emeal Zwayne: Every time I need some inspiration on what to post on my channel.
• 5:57
  Emeal Zwayne: I listen to the Living Waters podcast If you want a great answers to tons of questions.
• 6:01
  Emeal Zwayne: Funny is easy's laugh real Christian podcast and I highly recommend the Living Waters podcast.
• 6:08
  Ray Comfort: Well, I want to mature 13-year-old.
• 6:10
  Ray Comfort: Yeah, isn't he?
• 6:10
  Ray Comfort: Yeah.
• 6:11
  Emeal Zwayne: Barry, thank you so much.
• 6:12
  Emeal Zwayne: You didn't even put a name, sutter.
• 6:15
  Emeal Zwayne: Oh yeah, my name is Sutter Green.
• 6:16
  Emeal Zwayne: Yes, you did.
• 6:17
  Emeal Zwayne: Thank you, sutter.
• 6:18
  Emeal Zwayne: Sorry, it was Mark you interviewed.
• 6:20
  Emeal Zwayne: Nonetheless, no one else was available.
• 6:22
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, that's what it was.
• 6:23
  Emeal Zwayne: All right, friends, this podcast is brought to you by the Outreach Book Pack.
• 6:28
  Emeal Zwayne: We told you before about the kind of equipping book pack.
• 6:31
  Emeal Zwayne: This is for outreach to give to others, and there's six different evangelistic books, scientific Facts in the Bible, the Ultimate Health Foods, the Mystery.
• 6:38
  Emeal Zwayne: 101 of the Dumbest Things People have Done, 101 of Things Husbands Do it Annoy their Wives.
• 6:43
  Emeal Zwayne: 101 Things Dogs Do it Annoy their Owners.
• 6:45
  Emeal Zwayne: Man, that's a lot of books.
• 6:47
  Oscar Navarro: Ray, it's a 203 things.
• 6:48
  Oscar Navarro: Ray does it Annoy.
• 6:49
  Emeal Zwayne: Something Always.
• 6:50
  Emeal Zwayne: Mark, do you remember the first book of Ray's?
• 6:53
  Mark Spence: you read I believe it was Revivals Called in Key.
• 6:58
  Emeal Zwayne: Ah, which has had 50 billion different titles.
• 6:59
  Emeal Zwayne: Is that now God has a wonderful plan?
• 7:02
  Ray Comfort: No, it's the Way of the Master.
• 7:03
  Ray Comfort: Oh, it's good.
• 7:04
  Ray Comfort: God has a wonderful plan for your life.
• 7:05
  Ray Comfort: Is the cream of the Way of the Master book, so you can give it away without having to read four other pages.
• 7:09
  Ray Comfort: That's what it is.
• 7:10
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, all right, friends, something very special, oscar you and I went to NRB or NERB, NERB, nerb Did you make that up?
• 7:18
  Emeal Zwayne: I think so Very good, very original, but we had an awesome time there.
• 7:24
  Emeal Zwayne: We did.
• 7:24
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, you and I had a great time.
• 7:26
  Oscar Navarro: Yeah, we met some rad people, rad people, rad people that have read books for sure, rad, people Zee rad Rad.
• 7:32
  Emeal Zwayne: There it is.
• 7:33
  Ray Comfort: We met some great people.
• 7:34
  Ray Comfort: Did you get sore feet walking around?
• 7:37
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, that place it was a lot of walking, which was good, because I was trying to get some more walking.
• 7:41
  Ray Comfort: Well, I try to get everyone there to wear big orange slippers so that everyone's comfortable.
• 7:44
  Ray Comfort: Yeah, no, no no, no more to do.
• 7:48
  Oscar Navarro: What's the?
• 7:49
  Emeal Zwayne: NRB National Religious Broadcasters so it's kind of a convention where people that are involved in Christian media go.
• 7:55
  Emeal Zwayne: It was great.
• 7:56
  Emeal Zwayne: We did some amazing interviews.
• 7:57
  Emeal Zwayne: So we're going to do a little series here letting you listen to interviews.
• 8:00
  Emeal Zwayne: If you're watching the videos, you're going to see us in the same shirts.
• 8:03
  Emeal Zwayne: We just knocked this all out with tops and tails because we interviewed all the people there.
• 8:07
  Emeal Zwayne: But this first interview was really refreshing.
• 8:10
  Emeal Zwayne: It was with a brother named Nathan Bingham.
• 8:12
  Emeal Zwayne: He's the vice president of ministry engagement for Ligonier Ministries and does a bunch of other things.
• 8:16
  Emeal Zwayne: You'll hear about that in our interview.
• 8:18
  Emeal Zwayne: But it was a great interview and we really, really enjoyed it.
• 8:22
  Oscar Navarro: Yeah, we got into detail about how social media changes us, which is relevant for everybody everywhere, even if you're not on social media.
• 8:29
  Oscar Navarro: Social media is changing the people around you, the way that we consume content, the things that we believe, the way we view ourselves and the world around us, and so I think Nathan does a great job of making us aware of the water we drink, or the air we breathe.
• 8:45
  Oscar Navarro: If you will, and as a teaser, towards the end of the interview, he told us a story about you, ray, which was really cool.
• 8:54
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, I think people are going to love it.
• 8:55
  Emeal Zwayne: And social media so huge.
• 8:57
  Emeal Zwayne: I mean, ray, seriously your life has changed because of social media.
• 9:01
  Ray Comfort: Yes, never mind.
• 9:06
  Emeal Zwayne: Mark, your life has changed, hasn't it?
• 9:08
  Emeal Zwayne: Actually, Mark, you're always pushing social media and the importance of it for ministry.
• 9:12
  Mark Spence: Yeah, we do need to be careful with it.
• 9:13
  Mark Spence: Right?
• 9:13
  Mark Spence: We should not be getting our news from Instagram memes.
• 9:16
  Mark Spence: If possible, set up a timer.
• 9:19
  Mark Spence: If you find yourself spending too much time on a social media app, whatever that app is, we need to use it and make sure that our social media apps don't use us.
• 9:28
  Mark Spence: It's addictive, though, isn't it.
• 9:30
  Mark Spence: Yeah, that's right, and that's exactly the point, because before you know it, you're going down a real, a short.
• 9:36
  Mark Spence: What are they called?
• 9:37
  Mark Spence: Shorts?
• 9:38
  Mark Spence: Shorts, yeah, and before you know it you've watched like 20 of them and time is gone.
• 9:44
  Mark Spence: So we need to be careful.
• 9:45
  Ray Comfort: And it's fun, but it's a waste of time.
• 9:49
  Emeal Zwayne: But, ray, all the people that you've been able to impact through it has just been phenomenal.
• 9:52
  Ray Comfort: Oh, it's been incredible.
• 9:53
  Ray Comfort: It's mind-blowing to think that we've got such a big reach.
• 9:57
  Ray Comfort: I remember years ago, the pastor that got me over here knelt down it's just 1989, 1990, and he just said, Lord, get the pastors out of the way.
• 10:06
  Ray Comfort: And I've never forgotten that prayer because that was the problem.
• 10:10
  Ray Comfort: He had to go through the pastor to get to the people, and if he didn't know who you were, that's it, it's all over.
• 10:14
  Ray Comfort: He couldn't do anything.
• 10:15
  Ray Comfort: And then the television program and now YouTube and social media.
• 10:18
  Ray Comfort: It's got straight to the people.
• 10:21
  Emeal Zwayne: Amen, all right, friends.
• 10:22
  Emeal Zwayne: Well, without any further ado, we'll be back on the other side of this, but here is our dear brother Nathan W Bingham.
• 10:31
  Emeal Zwayne: Well, friends, if the noise didn't give it away, yes, we are still here at NRB in Florida.
• 10:39
  Emeal Zwayne: I wanted to send.
• 10:40
  Oscar Navarro: Oscar over to Disneyland it's.
• 10:41
  Emeal Zwayne: NERB, nerb, nerb.
• 10:42
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, we're calling it NERB.
• 10:44
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, that fits kind of, but yeah, I'd love to send Oscar over to Disneyland, put him on the Dumbo ride.
• 10:50
  Emeal Zwayne: Thank you, please don't.
• 10:51
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, I might.
• 10:52
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah.
• 10:53
  Emeal Zwayne: Well, friends, we have a special guest here with us and I got a bit excited a second ago because I found someone who can sympathize with me.
• 11:00
  Emeal Zwayne: Nathan W Bingham is here with us from Ligonier.
• 11:03
  Emeal Zwayne: Nathan, before we get into all the formalities introducing you and all that, I got a bit excited because there are a few who can sympathize with me because I have a teenage daughter who just got her driver's license.
• 11:14
  Emeal Zwayne: It's a terrifying moment oh you relate right, oh, I do, I do.
• 11:19
  Nathan W. Bingham: I'm praying more now than I have, I think, in my entire almost 40 years of existence.
• 11:22
  Emeal Zwayne: Oh yeah, like never before and actually this is my fifth, so I've been through the process, right sitting behind the wheel, training them yeah five times, but we're going to have to speak afterwards, you're going to have to tell me how you survived this.
• 11:35
  Oscar Navarro: And that's in California, by the way.
• 11:36
  Nathan W. Bingham: Yeah.
• 11:36
  Oscar Navarro: California freeway isn't all of that, which is a big difference.
• 11:39
  Emeal Zwayne: I have some advice for you.
• 11:40
  Oscar Navarro: It's going to cost you.
• 11:42
  Emeal Zwayne: I need it, I need it Well, Nathan W Bingham, we're blessed to have you here with us.
• 11:46
  Emeal Zwayne: We'll call you Nathan from here on out, but we want to clear it up with the W so no one misunderstands who you really are.
• 11:51
  Emeal Zwayne: You're with Ligonier Ministries.
• 11:53
  Emeal Zwayne: You've been going at that for a while.
• 11:55
  Emeal Zwayne: You are the vice president of ministry engagement, executive producer and host of renewing your mind and host of the Ask Ligonier podcast.
• 12:04
  Emeal Zwayne: Man, you're from Australia.
• 12:06
  Emeal Zwayne: I am from Australia.
• 12:07
  Nathan W. Bingham: Good on you, mate.
• 12:08
  Nathan W. Bingham: Yes, very good Very good.
• 12:10
  Emeal Zwayne: Well, I'm friends with Ken Ham, so he's at Ann Ray Comfort's, my Father-in-Law, so you know I've gotten adapted to the Down Under sound.
• 12:16
  Nathan W. Bingham: Well, you know.
• 12:16
  Nathan W. Bingham: So Ray's from New Zealand.
• 12:18
  Nathan W. Bingham: Right, he's a Kiwi.
• 12:19
  Oscar Navarro: Yeah, yeah.
• 12:21
  Nathan W. Bingham: And there's a bunch in there between Aussies and New Zealand.
• 12:23
  Emeal Zwayne: All blacks, bro, all blacks.
• 12:25
  Emeal Zwayne: I saw you get heated up when you mentioned he's from New Zealand.
• 12:28
  Mark Spence: I was like whoa he's eating.
• 12:30
  Nathan W. Bingham: That's why he's not here.
• 12:31
  Nathan W. Bingham: He was intimidated.
• 12:32
  Nathan W. Bingham: You're all Canadians, right?
• 12:35
  Emeal Zwayne: We didn't want to trigger you, brother, you know what?
• 12:39
  Oscar Navarro: Nathan, real quick, tell us about how you went from being in Australia to being at Ligonier here in Florida.
• 12:44
  Nathan W. Bingham: Well, that is a great question, a long story, but I'll give you the short story.
• 12:48
  Nathan W. Bingham: Early on with social media 2008, facebook, twitter, people trying to figure out how do we use this new technology to glorify God and I was very active online at that time and I was tweeting about my faith, reformed Theology, things that I was learning.
• 13:03
  Nathan W. Bingham: I was tweeting about technology and some individuals Chris Larson, the current president and CEO of Ligonier Ministries.
• 13:09
  Nathan W. Bingham: Burke Parsons, one of our teaching fellows.
• 13:11
  Nathan W. Bingham: He's my pastor now as well.
• 13:13
  Nathan W. Bingham: They followed me on Twitter and so I was very engaged in the Christian conversation at the time and I was studying theology, was going to go into pastoral ministry, and one day I tweeted this simple question.
• 13:25
  Nathan W. Bingham: It wouldn't work today, mind you, but it did back in 2010, if this was early 2010.
• 13:30
  Nathan W. Bingham: As I'm wrapping up some of my studies, I'm needing a little bit of extra money.
• 13:35
  Nathan W. Bingham: Is there anyone that would pay me for some social media consulting?
• 13:39
  Oscar Navarro: That was your question, basically, yeah.
• 13:41
  Nathan W. Bingham: That's not word for word, but basically, like anyone willing to pay me, I'll help you.
• 13:45
  Oscar Navarro: Yeah, Like not much different than a beggar on the side of the street, really with a cardboard, Exactly.
• 13:51
  Nathan W. Bingham: Yeah, have some experience, we'll travel.
• 13:53
  Nathan W. Bingham: And so I tweeted that and I believe it was a Friday evening, chris Larson was out to dinner, burke Parsons was somewhere else.
• 14:02
  Nathan W. Bingham: They both read that tweet at the same time, texted each other this is what I found out afterwards and said did you see what Nathan just tweeted?
• 14:08
  Nathan W. Bingham: Maybe he could help Ligonier?
• 14:10
  Nathan W. Bingham: Wow, and he just sent me a private DM and said would you consider helping Ligonier Ministries?
• 14:14
  Nathan W. Bingham: Wow, I was just like wow, what?
• 14:16
  Emeal Zwayne: year was that?
• 14:16
  Emeal Zwayne: You said 2010.
• 14:18
  Emeal Zwayne: That's amazing.
• 14:18
  Ray Comfort: That's amazing.
• 14:20
  Emeal Zwayne: You know this is a surreal moment for me, nathan, because in our ministry we have for many years a picture up on the wall of Ray Comfort, who's the founder of our ministry, sitting down at a table much like this, being interviewed by Dr Arcee Sproul at an NRB.
• 14:34
  Oscar Navarro: I heard that story.
• 14:35
  Oscar Navarro: I heard that story.
• 14:35
  Oscar Navarro: Yeah, nrb, I didn't know that.
• 14:36
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, I was at an NRB.
• 14:37
  Emeal Zwayne: I was sitting with you, so you're.
• 14:41
  Nathan W. Bingham: Ray, I'm Arcee, yeah, why are you?
• 14:43
  Nathan W. Bingham: Nice to see you.
• 14:44
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, brian, I know there was a surreal moment for you because I was trolling on Twitter there checking you out a bit and I saw a picture of you and Dr Arcee Sproul in the RYM radio studio, which I think you said was 11 years ago, and then there was another picture of you and there now as the host.
• 15:02
  Emeal Zwayne: Yes man, what was that like for you that?
• 15:04
  Nathan W. Bingham: sort of changed.
• 15:05
  Nathan W. Bingham: So February 2012, we moved to the US to work for Ligonier full-time.
• 15:10
  Nathan W. Bingham: So my wife and I, three kids, we sold everything we owned moved here with 10 suitcases.
• 15:15
  Nathan W. Bingham: We had never stepped foot on US soil before, had never met anyone that worked at Ligonier in person before, but we accepted I accepted this full-time role and the first photo I got with Dr Sproul was in the studio.
• 15:26
  Nathan W. Bingham: Wow.
• 15:27
  Oscar Navarro: So he was very gracious.
• 15:28
  Nathan W. Bingham: I sat down, did a selfie with Arcee and then now having the opportunity and privilege to be the host of that radio program is great.
• 15:36
  Nathan W. Bingham: And then, on top of that, if I go back to my time early in my marriage in Australia, the first thing that my wife and I regularly consumed and dug into from Ligonier was renewing your mind.
• 15:47
  Nathan W. Bingham: We listened to that podcast Isn't it amazing.
• 15:49
  Emeal Zwayne: You know the things the Lord does that you could never imagine something similar with me.
• 15:54
  Emeal Zwayne: And I was impacted by Razor Ministry far before I knew him, and I remember one day I dropped to my knees.
• 15:57
  Emeal Zwayne: I said, lord, I pray that somehow, in some way, this man can one day disciple me.
• 16:02
  Emeal Zwayne: And the first time I learned about him it was through a book someone gave me.
• 16:06
  Emeal Zwayne: They're like man, you got to check this guy out.
• 16:08
  Emeal Zwayne: And then the next thing I saw in connection with him was him open air preaching in New York at Washington Square Park.
• 16:14
  Emeal Zwayne: And how crazy it was when one day after he became my father-in-law, of all things, he comes up and he gives me a reprint of that book that I first learned about him through.
• 16:22
  Emeal Zwayne: He had secretly inserted a chapter with poetry that I had written in that same book.
• 16:28
  Emeal Zwayne: And then one year we were on our way to Israel and we had a layover in New York and I found myself standing there side by side with him open air preaching in Washington Square Park.
• 16:37
  Emeal Zwayne: You know the place that I saw him in in that video.
• 16:40
  Emeal Zwayne: So just amazing what the Lord does, yeah.
• 16:43
  Emeal Zwayne: So social media man, this is your world.
• 16:45
  Emeal Zwayne: Today we're going to be talking a little bit about how social media changes us and what we can do about it, and so I'd like to first kick this off with a question to you about what ways social media has impacted us negatively, first as a society in general, and then as the church in particular.
• 17:05
  Nathan W. Bingham: Well, that could be a five-hour conversation.
• 17:07
  Nathan W. Bingham: Let's do it, we'll run all day.
• 17:10
  Mark Spence: This is a podcast man.
• 17:11
  Nathan W. Bingham: Yes, this is not radio Right.
• 17:13
  Nathan W. Bingham: So there are a number of ways that it's impacting us negatively and I'll try and think about it from a Christian perspective, how it is, in particular, affecting the church, and that's what I think about a lot.
• 17:23
  Nathan W. Bingham: One, I would say, is in the area of stewardship when it comes to time, because we know, as Christians, that time is a gift and we're called to steward this time that has been given.
• 17:36
  Nathan W. Bingham: We can't number our days and we're called Paul Taylor's Interfesions to redeem the time.
• 17:40
  Nathan W. Bingham: And if you look at the statistics, I think it's about 35% of teenagers say that they are almost constantly on some form of social media, including YouTube, and then if you broaden that question and just say, well, how often are you online?
• 17:54
  Nathan W. Bingham: it's almost 50% that are saying they're almost constantly because they're using it every hour and all day, and so, as Christians, we need to remember that we have this great stewardship of time and we are spending so much of it just kind of zombie scrolling through our devices, and it's not exclusive to teenagers.
• 18:11
  Nathan W. Bingham: We're all guilty of it at times, and so we need to remember that we have this great stewardship of the time that the Lord has given us, and I think when we meet Jesus, one of the things we will have to give an account for is not just every idle word, but every idle minute, because we're living in a period of time in history where we've never had so much time to waste that we have wasted.
• 18:33
  Oscar Navarro: That's great.
• 18:34
  Oscar Navarro: You know, one of the things I think it's so important for everyone to realize, and the first step of understanding the influence in social media lives is to realize that our phones aren't like utility knives.
• 18:44
  Oscar Navarro: It's not a Swiss Army knife, because a Swiss Army knife doesn't change who you are.
• 18:49
  Oscar Navarro: It doesn't affect the way you view the world right, it doesn't affect the way you respond to ideas, you understand other human beings and etc.
• 18:58
  Oscar Navarro: Etc.
• 18:58
  Oscar Navarro: A little bit.
• 18:58
  Oscar Navarro: But your social media devices, your phone, has that power.
• 19:02
  Oscar Navarro: Ultimately, it has the power to disciple you, and that's the thing.
• 19:06
  Oscar Navarro: That's important is that the hours that you just mentioned are actually discipleship hours.
• 19:10
  Oscar Navarro: So the question is, who's discipling you?
• 19:13
  Oscar Navarro: Is it, you know, joe Rogan, andrew Humerman, or is it a pastor?
• 19:18
  Oscar Navarro: And the reality is, so many people, so many, unfortunately, so many Christians will spend 45 minutes to an hour and a half at church on Sunday, and then they spend the rest of the week being discipled by whatever it is that they're following on social media.
• 19:31
  Oscar Navarro: That becomes their life liturgy.
• 19:34
  Oscar Navarro: And so, nathan, how would you suggest redeeming that time?
• 19:38
  Oscar Navarro: What are some practical ways we can make sure that we are being discipled by people rather than algorithms?
• 19:46
  Nathan W. Bingham: I was reading the book recently and the gentleman in this book he tells the story of basically how he came about to write this book and he realized, I believe, he was an attorney.
• 19:54
  Nathan W. Bingham: He was just so busy and he realized he a Christian man that he was waking up every morning.
• 20:00
  Nathan W. Bingham: The first thing he would do is reach over, grab his device.
• 20:03
  Nathan W. Bingham: He's checking email.
• 20:04
  Nathan W. Bingham: He's then lost into the world of work.
• 20:06
  Nathan W. Bingham: He's thinking about all of that the day he goes by.
• 20:08
  Nathan W. Bingham: He gets home, it's nine o'clock at night, he's saying goodnight to his kids, he goes to sleep and that whole thing starts again.
• 20:14
  Nathan W. Bingham: And so he made the decision that he was going to have this principle that he would put in place in his life, which was scripture, before smartphone and it's so simple and I can't point to a chapter of verse that says everyone must do that.
• 20:27
  Nathan W. Bingham: But it's a lot of wisdom there to say before I touch a device, I'm going to open the Bible, I'm going to spend time in God's Word.
• 20:34
  Nathan W. Bingham: That's a very simple thing.
• 20:35
  Nathan W. Bingham: It's very practical, tangible.
• 20:37
  Nathan W. Bingham: But if you begin your day in God's Word like that changes the trajectory of your day.
• 20:42
  Emeal Zwayne: I love that, nathan, and I love the fact that you highlighted that there are certain things that we may not be able to find chapter and verse for, but I think what we abdicate when that becomes our mindset and everything we do as believers, is the realm of wisdom.
• 20:55
  Emeal Zwayne: You know, the world uses worldly wisdom and so many things, and some of it coincides with what is right and good when we look at the tone and tenor of scripture.
• 21:05
  Emeal Zwayne: Right.
• 21:05
  Emeal Zwayne: And so I think that when you highlight the fact that, hey, you don't find chapter and verse necessarily, but what is wise, good, practical, how does this also comport to kind of the grand scheme of scripture and what God has called us to as his people?
• 21:19
  Emeal Zwayne: You know, race has the same thing no Bible, no breakfast, no read, no feed.
• 21:23
  Emeal Zwayne: You know, I like that Again now not to be legalistic about it, but there's, there's wisdom in that principle to be able to say, hey, what would be beneficial, what would be honoring to the Lord, what's gonna maximize my growth in Christ, my impact for him in the world?
• 21:37
  Emeal Zwayne: And then I also love the fact that you highlighted the reality of accountability before the Lord.
• 21:42
  Emeal Zwayne: On a recent podcast we talked about respectable sins, and I think sometimes when we think about accountability, we're thinking about it in sort of the grand scheme of things.
• 21:52
  Emeal Zwayne: But if we're gonna give account for every idol word spoken, how about those idle moments?
• 21:58
  Emeal Zwayne: You know that we let just kind of run away from us instead of using them for God's glory, and so I love the fact that you highlighted that.
• 22:05
  Emeal Zwayne: Now, obviously, we know on the social media realm there are negative elements.
• 22:10
  Emeal Zwayne: We've been touching on that.
• 22:10
  Emeal Zwayne: Can you highlight some of the positive ones, right?
• 22:13
  Emeal Zwayne: I mean, this is a part of your livelihood and what you do.
• 22:16
  Emeal Zwayne: It's a part of what we do as a ministry as well.
• 22:18
  Emeal Zwayne: But how are some of the ways that Christians can stored social media from the positive standpoint?
• 22:23
  Emeal Zwayne: Can I mention one?
• 22:24
  Nathan W. Bingham: more negative before we go to the positive.
• 22:26
  Oscar Navarro: You mentioned ten more negatives.
• 22:29
  Nathan W. Bingham: Well, once we go to the positive side I don't want to bring the conversation down- by getting negative again.
• 22:33
  Nathan W. Bingham: Yeah, no, go for it and there are a number of negatives and we've thought about these things as articles online.
• 22:38
  Nathan W. Bingham: People are talking about this often, but one thing that really concerns me, particularly post 2020, is that we're seeing the erosion of community.
• 22:46
  Oscar Navarro: That's good.
• 22:47
  Nathan W. Bingham: And when church went online and people were watching live streams, the accelerated pace of people adopting digital technology audiobooks, podcasts, all of this sort of thing.
• 22:59
  Nathan W. Bingham: This upcoming generation doesn't have an appreciation for in-person, embodied community worship, and we're called not to neglect the gathering together of the Saints.
• 23:10
  Nathan W. Bingham: And there are many, many people that, when they think about what a local church is, they don't see the distinction between online church, virtual church and embodied worship, with a group of people where there are pastors that know your name who will give an account for you.
• 23:25
  Nathan W. Bingham: They're caring for your soul.
• 23:26
  Nathan W. Bingham: And I think of the end of second John, and John says there's basically, there's so much more I wish I could say to you, but I would rather not use paper and ink.
• 23:37
  Nathan W. Bingham: I'd rather come to you and be face-to-face so that our joy may be full.
• 23:42
  Nathan W. Bingham: And this is a wonderful conversation and we could have had this conversation any week for the past year.
• 23:48
  Nathan W. Bingham: We could have zoomed together and sat down virtually and recorded a podcast episode.
• 23:53
  Nathan W. Bingham: But there is something different when you're sitting across the table from each other.
• 23:56
  Nathan W. Bingham: I can look you in the eyes.
• 23:58
  Nathan W. Bingham: Although I love digital technology, I love social media and the good that it has done, I love the reach that it is enabled for the gospel to go forth to enter into closed countries, we need to say and have a firm commitment as Christians that our preferred method of discipleship and our preferred method of growing in Christian community needs to be in person, embodied face-to-face across the table.
• 24:23
  Emeal Zwayne: Man that is so crucial.
• 24:26
  Emeal Zwayne: In fact that was I'm just gonna read it work, for that was my question for you and such a predominant social media age, what safeguards can we put in place to protect ourselves from disconnecting from real-life community and interpersonal face-to-face interactions in the real world?
• 24:40
  Emeal Zwayne: Because, yeah, from the spiritual standpoint, people have pretty much made their church and the social media realm, and especially, I think, because they caught accustomed to hey, with COVID, some churches, even those that stayed opened, ultimately at first shut down because no one knew what was going on, but they got accustomed to that whole realm.
• 25:00
  Emeal Zwayne: But then also, nathan, from the standpoint of just human interaction, for the sake of the gospel right, we're talking about discipleship and church community, but for the sake of the gospel, I mean, what advice would you give believers in terms of being cautious to not get sucked into that rabbit hole?
• 25:17
  Nathan W. Bingham: I really would appeal to the older generation because I really think that it is on those more seasoned Christians and those that may be baby boomers, gen X, to reach out to the younger generations.
• 25:29
  Oscar Navarro: That's good.
• 25:30
  Nathan W. Bingham: What I see happening is this continued generational divide.
• 25:35
  Nathan W. Bingham: Now, if you look at church history or American history of the past number of decades, you can see how kind of the younger church, older church is separated.
• 25:43
  Nathan W. Bingham: Contemporary Christian music parents are saying well, I will go to whatever church my children like, like the music or like the youth group and so those, those churches that have been there for generations faithfully preaching the Bible verse by verse, book by book, those churches are going smaller and smaller and smaller, and there might be 30 faithful older saints, and so agrees me to see this generational gap, some churches where they take the children out, and there's that split.
• 26:08
  Nathan W. Bingham: Now, with the explosion of technology, you have young people who basically look at mom and dad or grandmire and granddad and say you have no idea how to use this device and of course, even now, like my oldest, she's the only one that has a smartphone.
• 26:22
  Nathan W. Bingham: She's still sometimes laughs at me and I'm meant to be this tech guy like dad.
• 26:26
  Nathan W. Bingham: What are you doing?
• 26:27
  Nathan W. Bingham: So there is this technology divide where young people think my parents, my grandparents, they don't know anything.
• 26:32
  Nathan W. Bingham: The problem is that that might be true, but these older generations actually have wisdom.
• 26:38
  Nathan W. Bingham: They spent time in the word, they know how to apply the written word of God to life's circumstances and they actually have a lot to say about the area of technology.
• 26:48
  Nathan W. Bingham: If just these two generations spoke to each other.
• 26:51
  Nathan W. Bingham: Yeah, wow and the younger generation.
• 26:53
  Nathan W. Bingham: They're scared now, like if the doorbell rings, I have a panic attack.
• 26:56
  Nathan W. Bingham: They don't want to answer their phone if it rings like all of these kinds of things and I empathize with them in some senses because they've been brought up in a very strange environment.
• 27:05
  Nathan W. Bingham: That's why I say I think it is.
• 27:06
  Nathan W. Bingham: This older generation almost needs to adopt a grandchild, yeah, or adopt a son or daughter in the church, to just have a conversation with them.
• 27:15
  Oscar Navarro: I love that there's.
• 27:16
  Oscar Navarro: There's somebody who ran like a mentorship program and I was reading.
• 27:19
  Oscar Navarro: He had a little pamphlet and he was talking about the struggle of finding mentors and he said he goes into these churches, you know, go to the younger generation and he'll say how many of you are interested in having a type of mentor, discipleship relationship with somebody who's older than you?
• 27:33
  Oscar Navarro: And the hands went up.
• 27:34
  Oscar Navarro: He would get 10, 15, 20 young adults saying, yes, I need an older mentor in my life.
• 27:41
  Oscar Navarro: We're talking about millennials.
• 27:42
  Oscar Navarro: Gen Z is saying, yes, that's what I need.
• 27:44
  Oscar Navarro: And then he'd have a meeting with the older generation and he would say how many of you guys see that the younger generation needs mentorship?
• 27:51
  Oscar Navarro: They're like, oh, they definitely need mentorship, those whippersnappers, this and that, blah, blah, blah.
• 27:54
  Oscar Navarro: And then he would.
• 27:55
  Oscar Navarro: He would ask, okay, how many of you are, have the time and are willing to mentor?
• 27:59
  Oscar Navarro: And very little hands would go up.
• 28:02
  Oscar Navarro: I think it was like a 10 to 1 odds.
• 28:04
  Oscar Navarro: And so I like that call, the way that you initiated that response, which is a calling to the older generation to say, hey, how can you redeem the time by putting yourself out there and being willing to have a meaningful conversation with the younger generation.
• 28:19
  Oscar Navarro: And there's a sense of uncomfortability, probably a discomfort Like what would you know?
• 28:25
  Oscar Navarro: Some young, blended old Gen Z want to do with me.
• 28:28
  Oscar Navarro: Surprisingly, a lot actually, the younger generation is really open to being mentored in.
• 28:34
  Oscar Navarro: What we need that is that generational connection.
• 28:37
  Oscar Navarro: I love the way you put that.
• 28:39
  Oscar Navarro: Let me ask you this, because you mentioned you got a 17-year-old daughter what about social media and teens?
• 28:44
  Oscar Navarro: You know Jonathan Haidt has done a really great job of helping us understand the impact that social media has on teenagers.
• 28:50
  Oscar Navarro: He shows that the correlation between depression, anxiety, body image issue with young females and so much of that can be related to the moment they get online, and one of the things that he talks about is that social media is ultimately designed to be addictive, just as addictive almost, as cigarettes or alcohol.
• 29:09
  Oscar Navarro: And yet we don't give 12 or 13 year olds cigarettes or alcohol right, because the young mind is not developed and ready to consume something so addictive.
• 29:18
  Oscar Navarro: And yet so many teens are on this addictive behavioral product.
• 29:22
  Oscar Navarro: And so the question is what are the choices you've made with your children, and how can other families navigate that in a world where every teenager seems to have social media?
• 29:34
  Nathan W. Bingham: So when you look at the statistics now, what's?
• 29:36
  Nathan W. Bingham: I think it's 95% of teenagers have a smartphone, so nine and a half teenagers I don't know if I get the right five but basically nine out of ten teenagers have a smartphone, so they're on social media.
• 29:47
  Nathan W. Bingham: For us as a family basically because of my work and the things that I've read and thinking about these things earlier than, I guess, most parents we made the decision that our children don't need to have a smartphone.
• 29:59
  Nathan W. Bingham: We did have some iPads in the home.
• 30:01
  Nathan W. Bingham: We had time restrictions when devices came out.
• 30:04
  Nathan W. Bingham: We live on a two-story home, so first floor, second floor bedrooms are upstairs, which I love this in the design because we just made the rule no technology upstairs.
• 30:14
  Nathan W. Bingham: So they couldn't take it into the bedroom.
• 30:16
  Nathan W. Bingham: Now, my oldest she'll turn 17 next month and she now has a smartphone.
• 30:22
  Nathan W. Bingham: She got a smartphone because she got a job.
• 30:24
  Nathan W. Bingham: She got a job, she needed to have a phone.
• 30:25
  Nathan W. Bingham: We needed to be able to communicate with her.
• 30:27
  Nathan W. Bingham: It could have been a dumb phone and there is a resurgence and people saying we just want a device where mom and dad can call.
• 30:34
  Nathan W. Bingham: She demonstrated great wisdom.
• 30:36
  Nathan W. Bingham: She had demonstrated that she was respecting boundaries that we put in her life throughout her early teen years and her teen years, so we felt like we could trust her.
• 30:45
  Nathan W. Bingham: I think it was Tim Chalise had said.
• 30:47
  Nathan W. Bingham: Some of the restraints we put in our lives, whether it's internet filter devices and certain rules, it's almost like a scaffold that you're putting over your children and as they get older, you're removing things.
• 30:58
  Nathan W. Bingham: So we trusted her with that device and continued to talk with her.
• 31:01
  Nathan W. Bingham: That generational thing is parents to children too.
• 31:04
  Nathan W. Bingham: So how are you using this device?
• 31:06
  Nathan W. Bingham: Now I will tell you I am a blessed father that all of my children say to me they do not want social media, so I don't have.
• 31:14
  Nathan W. Bingham: I have three teenage girls and then a boy.
• 31:17
  Nathan W. Bingham: None of those girls are asking me dad.
• 31:20
  Nathan W. Bingham: Can I please be on Instagram?
• 31:22
  Nathan W. Bingham: I will tell you this, though, and I've mentioned this in a number of settings I am blessed that my wife homeschools our children.
• 31:29
  Nathan W. Bingham: Many husbands say we homeschool my wife does the homeschool.
• 31:34
  Nathan W. Bingham: But they're very, very active in our church community.
• 31:37
  Nathan W. Bingham: Many times throughout the week they're there.
• 31:39
  Nathan W. Bingham: They're speaking to people of their own age, of multiple ages.
• 31:42
  Nathan W. Bingham: But there is a danger because there are parents that say we have made the rule that our children will not be on social media, but they give them internet enabled iPads or other tablet devices and they are group texting, whether it's Google Chat or some other thing,
• 31:57
  Nathan W. Bingham: they have their own instance of social media, just localized to that church community or that local community, wherever they are people in the sports team or in school or whatever the case may be and what is happening in those group chats is just as unhelpful absolutely just as foolish as what you would see on Twitter or Instagram.
• 32:15
  Emeal Zwayne: Absolutely yeah, and I love that.
• 32:16
  Emeal Zwayne: Nathan, you know that's what we did with our own children.
• 32:18
  Emeal Zwayne: We have five and we didn't let them get a smartphone until, basically, they started driving, because similar to work.
• 32:26
  Emeal Zwayne: You know, we needed to have contact with them in case there was an emergency or whatever, but we didn't allow social media until until they turned 18, but we discipled them up to that point.
• 32:37
  Emeal Zwayne: And I think that that's often the missing element sometimes in parenting today with Christians is that there isn't a build-up, there isn't that communication like you're talking about, so that when they get there they're ready to handle it.
• 32:48
  Emeal Zwayne: You know they've seen all sides of it from the most important disciples in their lives and that's their parents.
• 32:54
  Emeal Zwayne: And it was kind of similar with us because our daughters especially said thank you for not allowing us to get on social media, because they saw the drama that that caused in the lives of their friends and and just the insanity that gave birth to.
• 33:09
  Emeal Zwayne: And so you know there are certain social media platforms that, especially our boys, will not go on, because that's another big problem it's the dangers of what's on social media, all the God dishonoring filth that we see there, especially in the pornographic realm.
• 33:25
  Emeal Zwayne: And so, oscar, were you gonna say something?
• 33:27
  Emeal Zwayne: You look like you had something to say.
• 33:28
  Oscar Navarro: Yeah, well, no, just relating.
• 33:29
  Oscar Navarro: I mean I'm thinking about all the family and parents out there that are struggling through this right now.
• 33:33
  Oscar Navarro: I certainly feel your pain.
• 33:34
  Oscar Navarro: There's been moments.
• 33:35
  Oscar Navarro: I have a 13 year old, gonna be 14 next month, and we've taken the same route.
• 33:39
  Oscar Navarro: 18 is gonna be the number for us and and she, she does have a mobile phone.
• 33:43
  Oscar Navarro: But what's great about some of the phones now is you can keep them really restricted because of the way we move around and travel.
• 33:48
  Oscar Navarro: We felt it was necessary.
• 33:49
  Oscar Navarro: The phone numbers that she has on there, they come through us.
• 33:52
  Oscar Navarro: We accept them, we deny them.
• 33:54
  Oscar Navarro: If she gets a text message from somebody that doesn't is not an accepted contact, it doesn't go through.
• 33:59
  Oscar Navarro: She's got no internet.
• 34:00
  Oscar Navarro: It's basically a dumb phone right with ten contacts on there.
• 34:04
  Oscar Navarro: But there has been those moments, if I'm being honest, where my kid will come home and they'll say man, I, you know, everyone's on social media.
• 34:11
  Oscar Navarro: I'm not sure why I can have it and it doesn't make sense to me all the time and I'm responsible, aren't I?
• 34:16
  Oscar Navarro: I've had those conversations, but we've pressed through, we've explained ourselves, we've given our daughter articles to read that quote stats and talk about anxiety and depression and similar to your experience, yuzzi.
• 34:29
  Oscar Navarro: She has come back at times and and has seen what is going on in her friends live and has gone.
• 34:36
  Oscar Navarro: Wow, I get it now I get it.
• 34:38
  Oscar Navarro: And one of the reality is it's not just social media what's out there, but it's also being able to remove yourself from school relationships.
• 34:45
  Oscar Navarro: Because if you think about it and this is one of the reasons why anxiety and depression is so high if you think about it, when we were growing up, if we had a bad day at school, if we got an argument with a friend, we went home and it was done.
• 34:55
  Oscar Navarro: We went home and we were disconnected from that friend.
• 34:57
  Oscar Navarro: And now we're home and we've got our neighborhood kids and we've got a family and it was separate.
• 35:02
  Oscar Navarro: But nowadays some of these teenagers, they'll get into an argument and they'll go home and they'll continue online or in text and they'll lay down in bed and if they got their phones with them in bed, they're sitting there watching it happen at two, three, four, five o'clock in the morning.
• 35:14
  Oscar Navarro: I mean, I've heard these stories of girls that will stay up all hours of the night tormenting themselves because of one comment that was made at nine o'clock the morning before at school, and so that's ultimately what parents are trying to protect their children from.
• 35:30
  Oscar Navarro: But what about, nathan, protecting ourselves, because we are all fallen, and it would be foolish to think that the dangers of social media are primarily Teenagers.
• 35:39
  Oscar Navarro: I'm 39 years old and I have dangers.
• 35:42
  Oscar Navarro: What are the pitfalls that we have Ourselves as consumers of social media and and how can we identify the way it's impacting our lives?
• 35:51
  Nathan W. Bingham: so, being recently reading our screw-tape letters so good and the big takeaway, as I read, that is, realizing how Skilled we are at rationalizing our sin like when you think of the psychology, of how screw-tape is suggesting that you manipulate Christians, yeah, and we need to remember, as you're identifying, that we can.
• 36:13
  Nathan W. Bingham: We can think, yeah, this is a problem just for teenagers, but it's for us as well, and we are very, very skilled at rationalizing the time that we spend on a device.
• 36:23
  Nathan W. Bingham: I sit here and I say, you know, it's consuming our time, it's eroding at time.
• 36:26
  Nathan W. Bingham: We need to give an account for it all the while, like, what was I doing on my device an hour ago before I came here?
• 36:31
  Nathan W. Bingham: Yeah, what am I doing, as I'm meant to be employed?
• 36:34
  Nathan W. Bingham: Am I making the most of my time?
• 36:36
  Nathan W. Bingham: Am I getting sucked in to those things?
• 36:38
  Nathan W. Bingham: I would say, as I always say make sure that you are connected in a local church, make sure that you're part of some kind of accountability or discipleship group that you're not just dropping in, dropping out.
• 36:50
  Nathan W. Bingham: It is the, the means of grace working in our lives by the power of the Holy Spirit, that helps us see those areas of sin yeah.
• 36:58
  Nathan W. Bingham: It's not possible for us to lock down our device to say I can't receive calls and I can't receive texts, but we have to pray for wisdom yeah we're told, if you, if you lack wisdom, ask for it, it'll be given to you yeah and we need to be continually praying for wisdom and have the willingness to ask ourselves or our brothers in Christ the hard questions, yeah, about how we're using our devices.
• 37:20
  Nathan W. Bingham: I have, I have a friend that just says I don't have Instagram on my phone.
• 37:23
  Nathan W. Bingham: Mm-hmm, he just knows.
• 37:24
  Nathan W. Bingham: If Instagram is there, it's, he's going to see things he doesn't need to see.
• 37:29
  Nathan W. Bingham: Right, that doesn't help him, so he chooses not to use it.
• 37:31
  Nathan W. Bingham: And I think that there is a lot of wisdom in and a lot of courage and being able to say I'm I'm going to make the hard choice, because I know how frail I am and this individual is not doing what most teenagers are doing.
• 37:45
  Nathan W. Bingham: You know, 85% of teenage boys have been exposed to pornography.
• 37:47
  Nathan W. Bingham: That's not his story.
• 37:49
  Nathan W. Bingham: Yeah but he just knows this is not helpful.
• 37:51
  Nathan W. Bingham: Yeah, for me.
• 37:51
  Nathan W. Bingham: And we need to be willing, as men and as Christian women, to make these hard decisions, to say I'm gonna say no, I won't put this app on my device, or there are other things you can.
• 38:02
  Nathan W. Bingham: Honest, on an iPhone, you can change the color scheme, yeah, to be grayscale, yeah, and a simple thing like that Psychologically stops the drawer of the screen yep, yeah, and Nathan, wouldn't you say as well that I mean?
• 38:17
  Emeal Zwayne: ultimately, obviously, it comes down to the fear of God, yeah, in our hearts, because I mean we all know that those who do have said time and again that they're not gonna look at porn again, they're not gonna do this, or that they even may put things on their phone that will restrict them.
• 38:32
  Emeal Zwayne: Accountability software if someone wants to find a way around those things, they will Comes down to the fear of the Lord, but at the same time too, I mean in keeping with the principles that Christ taught us about plucking out your eye and cutting off your hand, taking those extreme measures In terms of cutting sin out of your life, don't you think there are some people who have proven that they can't trust themselves with social media and they just need to get off of it altogether?
• 38:59
  Oscar Navarro: It's really good.
• 38:59
  Nathan W. Bingham: Yeah, no, I think absolutely.
• 39:01
  Nathan W. Bingham: You know, I'll bring this up.
• 39:02
  Nathan W. Bingham: I can remember Adele the, the music artist, when she was in the height of her fame.
• 39:08
  Nathan W. Bingham: She was making mistakes on Twitter and things like that, and I don't know all what was going on in her personal life, but I believe there's alcohol, pills, perhaps, these things happening that she was just making very, very foolish decisions publicly and so the people around her and probably the music label that want to continue making money, they took her device off her.
• 39:29
  Nathan W. Bingham: You cannot have this.
• 39:30
  Nathan W. Bingham: You're demonstrating that you cannot control yourself and use this device.
• 39:34
  Nathan W. Bingham: No, I understand she's.
• 39:35
  Nathan W. Bingham: She's different now than she was and I don't know.
• 39:37
  Nathan W. Bingham: I don't know what hell.
• 39:38
  Nathan W. Bingham: But we need to be able to recognize the fullness of ourselves, the weakness of our flesh, and say perhaps this isn't for me.
• 39:45
  Oscar Navarro: Yeah, I mean even more relevant recent than that.
• 39:48
  Oscar Navarro: There's a incredibly talented NBA star, john Morant, right now who is self Destructing his life via social media, which is another prime example, and we talked about the pornographic issues.
• 39:59
  Oscar Navarro: One of the other aspects, which you touched on it earlier, is the way our phones Turn us into consumers, and and you mentioned apps, and something that we've talked about before on our podcast is that our phones, they don't work for us.
• 40:11
  Oscar Navarro: This is ultimately, that you know the smart device that's in your pocket is actually not working for you.
• 40:17
  Oscar Navarro: It's working for all of the companies that create the apps that's on there, and every single app that you have, whether it's Social media or anything else, is designed you can almost summarize to do one thing, which is to make you want, to make you feel unsatisfied, to make you think you know, if only I had that experience, that vacation, that product, that car, that family, then I'd be more happy.
• 40:43
  Oscar Navarro: And when it succeeds, it causes us to spend and to consume more and more and more in pursuit of this supposed peace and Happiness, which goes back to, I think, paying attention to the liturgies of our lives.
• 40:56
  Oscar Navarro: If the liturgy of my life is being determined by apps that make me want, then I'm gonna long for all the things of this world, the liturgy which you talked about before, about prayer and reading time in the morning.
• 41:07
  Oscar Navarro: If the liturgy of my overall life and my overall days pointing me towards Christ, then I will find the satisfaction, satisfaction and joy that is found in Christ and that's probably a great transition.
• 41:20
  Oscar Navarro: To go back to the question that you asked earlier, which is, with that said, how can we use our smart devices and social media For the glory of God?
• 41:29
  Oscar Navarro: And what ways, nathan, has it been beneficial in your life other than your career, but seriously, and what ways has it drawn you closer to the Lord?
• 41:38
  Nathan W. Bingham: Well, I can think back almost 20 years ago and I was at a little Bible study.
• 41:43
  Nathan W. Bingham: I had been a Christian for I don't know.
• 41:46
  Nathan W. Bingham: I think I think a couple of years at least in church, had prayed sinners prayers and Would have called myself a Christian, and maybe I was.
• 41:54
  Nathan W. Bingham: But I was still trying to understand this, this Christian Religion.
• 41:59
  Nathan W. Bingham: And I was in this Bible study and somebody said to me you need to go to living waters, dotcom wow address.
• 42:06
  Nathan W. Bingham: They said no way, yeah, and you need to.
• 42:08
  Nathan W. Bingham: There's two messages you need to listen to Hell's best kept secret and true and false conversion yeah.
• 42:15
  Nathan W. Bingham: So I went home from that Bible study and it was a Friday night I watched both of those messages and that was the first time that I I had this almost Isaiah 6, to reference R C Sproul the holiness of God moment where I was taken through the law of God and for the first time, truly Understood just how sinful I am and the need I had for a savior, and that was revolutionary in my life.
• 42:39
  Nathan W. Bingham: You know our C.
• 42:40
  Nathan W. Bingham: When he talks about getting saved, he speaks about his second conversion, where he Encountered the holiness of God and became aware of God in all of his fullness.
• 42:48
  Nathan W. Bingham: I don't know, maybe it's a similar experience to that where I just for the first time saw God in his majestic holiness and me.
• 42:56
  Oscar Navarro: So in my loneliness.
• 42:57
  Nathan W. Bingham: So that is at least for one sinner.
• 43:00
  Emeal Zwayne: That was an incredible way that the Lord has used technology that is moving Nathan man.
• 43:05
  Nathan W. Bingham: I'm so glad you shared that you didn't know that story, no idea what a blessing.
• 43:09
  Emeal Zwayne: I'm gonna share that with.
• 43:10
  Emeal Zwayne: Ray's gonna be so blessed and encouraged.
• 43:11
  Emeal Zwayne: And you know, it's amazing because when, when I was a biblical studies and theology major back in college, one of my teachers played for us the holiness of God.
• 43:20
  Emeal Zwayne: Oh my doctor, rc Sproul, and that had a massive impact on me.
• 43:24
  Emeal Zwayne: In fact, in devotions I watched it through with my wife and kids a few years ago, and so what a blessing to see how our ministries and our lives have intersected and we're just so excited about what you guys are Doing.
• 43:36
  Emeal Zwayne: Can you just quickly here, as we wrap up, tell people about how they can connect with Ligonier?
• 43:41
  Emeal Zwayne: I mean, one of the things I love about your ministries that you guys aren't just about Teaching people but you're about getting them to, and I love this.
• 43:47
  Emeal Zwayne: This is straight from what you guys say.
• 43:49
  Emeal Zwayne: You want to equip Christians to know what they believe, why they believe it and how to live it and how to share it.
• 43:56
  Emeal Zwayne: Obviously, the sharing part is a big part of what we do, but tell people about Ligonier, how they can connect with you personally on social media and, well, how you guys can serve him now that we've convinced people to not be on social media, how can they connect with you on social media For?
• 44:08
  Nathan W. Bingham: hours on hours just scroll through all of my feeds and Ligonier's.
• 44:12
  Nathan W. Bingham: Yeah, so Ligonier Ministries, founded by RC Sprawl 1971, so we're over 50 years old now.
• 44:18
  Nathan W. Bingham: In fact, at NRB, we're receiving an award tonight for more than 50 years of ministry.
• 44:23
  Nathan W. Bingham: It's really exciting that you know our found.
• 44:26
  Nathan W. Bingham: It's not exciting that I found it went home to be with the Lord.
• 44:29
  Nathan W. Bingham: But it is for him not for us, but he went home to be with the Lord at the end of 2017, and what is exciting is that the growth the ministry has experienced in the five plus years after his death is More than the growth we experienced in the years prior, and it is just so humbling to see the way that the Lord is taking truth well told and Sending it not just throughout the United States, but throughout the world.
• 44:54
  Nathan W. Bingham: So, if you're listening, you're not familiar with Ligonier Ministries.
• 44:56
  Nathan W. Bingham: If you can spell it, I encourage you to go to Ligonierorg, l-i-g-o-n-i-e-r.
• 45:01
  Nathan W. Bingham: We mentioned.
• 45:02
  Nathan W. Bingham: I'm the host of renewing your mind.
• 45:03
  Nathan W. Bingham: This really is our flagship podcast and broadcast renewing your mindorg.
• 45:07
  Nathan W. Bingham: Every single day we have RC Sprawl or other trusted teachers opening God's word.
• 45:12
  Nathan W. Bingham: Really good liturgy to be a part of your life, to just listen and be in God's word every single day.
• 45:17
  Nathan W. Bingham: And if you want to follow me on social media, at NW Bingham, basically anywhere yeah Well, nathan, let me just say, since you shared that story, likewise Dr Spuyl had such an impact on my life.
• 45:27
  Oscar Navarro: I was an atheist in high school and college and then, when I became a Christian, I went to a sort of seeker-friendly as church and remember being a part of a Bible study and, and you know, I was showing up on Wednesday preparing reading my Bible and starting to get access.
• 45:39
  Oscar Navarro: Remember listening to the holiness of God and then I watched a series by RC and I don't remember the name.
• 45:46
  Oscar Navarro: It was so meaningful and so I brought notes from RC to this Bible study and it caused an uproar and I was so shocked because it was my first experience.
• 45:57
  Oscar Navarro: You know, again, I have no clue about the Christian realm, the world.
• 46:00
  Oscar Navarro: I didn't know that, like good, theology was controversial to some people and so there was, there was a lot.
• 46:06
  Oscar Navarro: I remember it getting into a bit of an argument with people that were there.
• 46:09
  Oscar Navarro: It was like theology isn't that important and I was like wait, what?
• 46:12
  Oscar Navarro: Like I didn't know this was a thing, that this was a thing To even be argued for.
• 46:15
  Oscar Navarro: And just since that time until my life now, like, I don't think you can unwind my understanding of God's word and not see the impact.
• 46:25
  Oscar Navarro: The RC and Ligonier the rest of your teachers ahead of my life, so I'm really glad you're here.
• 46:30
  Oscar Navarro: Thank you for joining us.
• 46:31
  Oscar Navarro: And again, just to re-emphasize, if you're not familiar with the ministry, they have so many tools and resources that it would be a good way to spend your liturgical week Embedding yourself in what they've done.
• 46:42
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, and you know, nathan let me just say this too as I close Mission drift is such a huge problem for so many ministries, especially when the founder is gone.
• 46:51
  Emeal Zwayne: Thank you guys for sticking with the mission and For doing it with excellence, because that's one of the elements.
• 46:59
  Emeal Zwayne: Unfortunately, that's absent from a lot of Christian ministries, and so we're honored to call you guys friends, we're honored to call you fellow laborers and God's kingdom, and we look forward to many more connections.
• 47:10
  Emeal Zwayne: So you thanks for coming on with us today.
• 47:12
  Nathan W. Bingham: Thanks for having me grateful for you.
• 47:14
  Emeal Zwayne: Well, friends, I'm sure you can see why we said it was such a great and refreshing Interview.
• 47:19
  Emeal Zwayne: Nathan gave us some great insights.
• 47:22
  Emeal Zwayne: It was delightful, wasn't it Oscar?
• 47:23
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, it was rare, was your favorite part.
• 47:25
  Ray Comfort: Just the whole thing just meant so much.
• 47:28
  Mark Spence: Boy, isn't it encouraging to see what hell's best kept secret and true and false conversion can do With an individual and I.
• 47:34
  Mark Spence: I'm surprised time and time again when we come across people who are excited to meet different people, different speakers, different teachers, but then they come up to us at events and they say you are pivotal.
• 47:45
  Mark Spence: That teaching hell's best kept secret Was pivotal to get me to walk on that straight and narrow path to examine myself to see if I'm in the faith.
• 47:52
  Mark Spence: And I think, as we examine hell's best kept secret and true and false conversion, as was mentioned here by Nathan Boy, that that is the testimony of so many people.
• 47:59
  Oscar Navarro: Yeah, and, by the way, if you're not familiar with Ligonier ministries, they do an amazing thing.
• 48:03
  Oscar Navarro: They're founder RC Sproul.
• 48:05
  Oscar Navarro: They have so much great content, including podcasts and videos and articles, so feel free to visit their website.
• 48:12
  Oscar Navarro: They're a trusted resource, yeah, not only in theology, but also apologetics.
• 48:15
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, and it's interesting because when we were there, we reminisced about how, ray, you had at one point been interviewed at a CBA by Dr RC Sproul.
• 48:24
  Emeal Zwayne: Yes, we used to have before we renovated here.
• 48:26
  Emeal Zwayne: We had that picture up on the wall.
• 48:28
  Ray Comfort: Yeah, I had a great time.
• 48:29
  Ray Comfort: I was able to bluff it for an hour.
• 48:31
  Emeal Zwayne: He is brilliant man.
• 48:32
  Emeal Zwayne: I mean Ben Stein, number one.
• 48:34
  Emeal Zwayne: Ben Stein did an interview with that's right, you are so smart he was like brilliant.
• 48:38
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, so he didn't say it that enthusiastically.
• 48:41
  Emeal Zwayne: You are so smart.
• 48:44
  Mark Spence: Common knowledge.
• 48:45
  Emeal Zwayne: I know it's not well, friends, there you have it.
• 48:48
  Emeal Zwayne: Don't forget to check out the outreach book pack and the evidence study Bible and the Living Waters mug all living waterscom.
• 48:54
  Emeal Zwayne: Remember to comment and to give us ratings and to send us your thoughts at Podcasts of living waterscom.
• 49:00
  Emeal Zwayne: Thank you for joining us.
• 49:02
  Emeal Zwayne: We'll see you here next time on the Living Waters Podcast, where we still have no idea what we're doing.