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Scrolling the Soul Shallow · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Speaker 1: Well, we lived through a decade of smartphone abuse and overuse,
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  Speaker 1: roughly 2015 to 2024. We talked at length about it
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  Speaker 1: on this podcast. I wrote books about smartphone overuse. Most
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  Speaker 1: of us have come to terms with when and where
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  Speaker 1: we've been online too much. And we lament the wasted time,
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  Speaker 1: knowing that we should have been doing more important things
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  Speaker 1: in life. The clock sped up as we just lost
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  Speaker 1: ourselves in the everlasting scroll of eye-grabbing images and video
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  Speaker 1: without end. But what if time was not the greatest cost?
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  Speaker 1: What if something more serious happened to us? A lingering
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  Speaker 1: damage still present inside of us now. Today on Ask
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  Speaker 1: Pastor John, Scrolling the Soul Shallow. It's a question from Noah,
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  Speaker 1: a young man in Akron, Ohio. Pastor John, I have
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  Speaker 1: made Titus 2 verses 6 to 8 my aim as
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  Speaker 1: a young man. I know Paul is speaking to a
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  Speaker 1: young pastor. I'm not a pastor, but I want to
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  Speaker 1: be self-controlled. I want to show myself to be a
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  Speaker 1: model of good works and I want to display integrity, dignity,
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  Speaker 1: and sound speech. The main struggle I face is the
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  Speaker 1: shallowness of the culture in which we live. On my phone, computer,
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  Speaker 1: and TV, I see endless examples of flippancy. That's really
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  Speaker 1: all I see some days. The whole world seems bent
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  Speaker 1: on numbing our souls to eternal realities. How can a
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  Speaker 1: young man resist all of this and stay spiritually alert
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  Speaker 1: and cultivate these virtues?
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  Speaker 2: One of the reasons I love this question is because
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  Speaker 2: I have said many times that the worst problem with television,
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  Speaker 2: or now let's just say Instagram or online media in general,
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  Speaker 2: is probably not the pervasive sexualization of all of life,
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  Speaker 2: that's big enough, but rather the pervasive trivialization of all
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  Speaker 2: of life. You can scarcely watch TV ads or online
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  Speaker 2: for more than 10 seconds without being dump trucked with
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  Speaker 2: banality and silliness. Grown men and women, even famous grown
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  Speaker 2: men and women, acting like 11-year-olds, whose high point at
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  Speaker 2: summer camp was to bob for apples in a toilet
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  Speaker 2: filled with mellow yellow. The apex, whoa, of satisfaction. That's
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  Speaker 2: the quality that we're being dumped on every day. This
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  Speaker 2: is the world we live in. Silliness, humor, fun, joking, casual, flippant, cleverness, whimsical,
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  Speaker 2: and all that has made its way tragically into parenting,
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  Speaker 2: worship services, preaching, hosting an event, even a serious one.
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  Speaker 2: Many modern people have never tasted serious joy, glad gravity,
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  Speaker 2: happy earnestness, joyful weightiness. They have no category for such
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  Speaker 2: a thing. There's fun. and there's boredom.
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  Speaker 1: That's it.
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  Speaker 2: Life is that shallow, that insignificant. So Noah asks, how
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  Speaker 2: can I resist all this? How can I march to
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  Speaker 2: the beat of a different drummer? First, make sure that
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  Speaker 2: you are clear that joy and fun are not identical. Today,
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  Speaker 2: the word fun is has virtually taken over the experience
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  Speaker 2: of serious joy. Fun is what you have when playing
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  Speaker 2: with your kids on the living room floor, or flag
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  Speaker 2: football with the guys on Saturday, or a day at
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  Speaker 2: Disney World. That's fun. Nothing wrong with it. But now,
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  Speaker 2: church planting is fun. Worship services are fun. Bible studies
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  Speaker 2: are fun. It's as if you learn the language of trees.
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  Speaker 2: while walking among 20-foot Georgia pines, and then you visit 300-foot, 2,000-year-old
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  Speaker 2: redwoods in California, and you have no language. They're just
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  Speaker 2: fun trees. They're not magnificent. They're not breathtaking. They're not humbling.
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  Speaker 2: They're just fun trees. So, Noah, grow your vocabulary of
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  Speaker 2: joy and significance and wonder, because more often than we
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  Speaker 2: would like to admit, The heart shrinks to the language
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  Speaker 2: we have to express it, rather than the other way around.
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  Speaker 2: If you call enough magnificent things fun, before long, that's
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  Speaker 2: all they'll be. Your heart will have shrunk to your vocabulary. Second,
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  Speaker 2: listen to the warnings of Scripture to know you're not crazy.
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  Speaker 2: The Bible is very aware of people who are incapable
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  Speaker 2: of being happily serious. And all their language is just
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  Speaker 2: clever or joking or trifling. Proverbs 26, 18. Like a
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  Speaker 2: madman who throws firebrands and death is the man who
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  Speaker 2: deceives his neighbor and says, I'm only joking. I'm only joking.
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  Speaker 2: Titus 1, 10. Beware, there are many who are empty talkers.
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  Speaker 2: 1 Timothy 6.20, avoid irreverent babble, Greek word, canophonia, empty
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  Speaker 2: sounds coming out of your mouth. Proverbs 10.23, doing wrong
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  Speaker 2: like a joke is a joke to a fool, but
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  Speaker 2: wisdom is pleasure to a man of understanding. Ephesians 5.6,
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  Speaker 2: let no one deceive you with empty words. 1 Timothy 1.6,
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  Speaker 2: certain persons have wandered away into vain talk, mateologian, that is,
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  Speaker 2: futile speech. If you long for substance and deep insight
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  Speaker 2: into reality and joyful earnestness in conversation, you're not crazy. Third,
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  Speaker 2: think about the shortness of life and the inevitability of
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  Speaker 2: death and the great realities of God, and human soul,
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  Speaker 2: and sin, and the cross. Oh, the cross, the cross,
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  Speaker 2: the bloody, horrible cross, and faith, and holiness, and heaven.
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  Speaker 2: Psalm 90, verse 12, teach us to number our days
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  Speaker 2: that we may get a heart of wisdom. Colossians 3, 2,
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  Speaker 2: set your minds on things that are above, not on
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  Speaker 2: things that are on the earth. For you have died
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  Speaker 2: and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ,
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  Speaker 2: who is your life, appears, then you will appear with
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  Speaker 2: him in glory. Let the word of God define your reality. Fourth,
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  Speaker 2: read biographies of people who gave their lives to significant things.
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  Speaker 2: For example, Not long ago, I completed Graham Tomlin's biography
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  Speaker 2: of Blaise Pascal, published in 2025. When I finished, I
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  Speaker 2: wrote on the first blank page two frustrations that I
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  Speaker 2: had with the book. But then I wrote, I loved
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  Speaker 2: this book. For the cast of mind, it quickened. Serious, joyful, realistic, deep. Heartbreaking, fearful, anti-trivial, inspiring,
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  Speaker 2: Bible reality, stirring, end quote. That was my pitiful attempt
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  Speaker 2: to capture the effect it was having on my soul.
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  Speaker 2: So here's a taste as he quotes Pascal. The God
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  Speaker 2: of Abram, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob,
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  Speaker 2: the God of the Christians is a God of love
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  Speaker 2: and compassion. He is a God who fills the soul
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  Speaker 2: and heart of those whom he possesses. He is a
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  Speaker 2: God who makes them inwardly aware of their wretchedness and
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  Speaker 2: his infinite mercy, who united himself with them in the
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  Speaker 2: depths of their soul, who fills it with humility, joy, confidence,
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  Speaker 2: and love, who makes them incapable of having any other end.
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  Speaker 2: than him. Page 139. And of course, it's of course
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  Speaker 2: for those anyway who know me, nobody outside the Bible
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  Speaker 2: has been more helpful to me in making joy and
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  Speaker 2: seriousness priorities of my life, happy priorities of my life
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  Speaker 2: than Jonathan Edwards. Sometimes I just go to Edwards to
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  Speaker 2: take a bath in the water of another world. of
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  Speaker 2: God-entranced happiness, because I just swim in triviality. And I
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  Speaker 2: want to take a bath and see if I can
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  Speaker 2: wash myself off from this modern world of ours.
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  Speaker 1: Here's one of.
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  Speaker 2: My favorite quotes that captures what I mean. It's from
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  Speaker 2: The Religious Affections. I first read this quote over 50
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  Speaker 2: years ago, and I can still feel the first force
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  Speaker 2: of it. He said, All gracious affections are a sweet
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  Speaker 2: aroma to Christ's and that fill the soul of a
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  Speaker 2: Christian with a heavenly sweetness and fragrance. All of them
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  Speaker 2: are brokenhearted affections. A truly Christian love, either to God
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  Speaker 2: or men, is a broken, humble, brokenhearted love. The desires
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  Speaker 2: of the saints, however earnest, are humble desires. The hope,
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  Speaker 2: their hope, is a humble hope. Their joy, even when
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  Speaker 2: it is unspeakable and full of glory, is a humble,
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  Speaker 2: broken-hearted joy and leaves the Christian more poor in spirit,
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  Speaker 2: more like a little child, more disposed to a universal
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  Speaker 2: lowliness of behavior. Tony and all of our listeners, I
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  Speaker 2: don't know anyone who writes like that. Yes. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: I'm sure there are. I'm sure there are. But I
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  Speaker 2: don't know anybody who writes like that or sees like
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  Speaker 2: that or feels like that. So find your biographies and
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  Speaker 2: find your great witnesses to serious joy. And finally, I
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  Speaker 2: would say, find a church. You've got to have a church.
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  Speaker 2: God wills for us to be in churches. Find a
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  Speaker 2: church that doesn't do slapstick on Sunday morning. A joyfully
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  Speaker 2: serious church. a biblically faithful church, find a friend or
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  Speaker 2: two in it, and read something great together, and then
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  Speaker 2: go do some crazy, risky ministry for the glory of Jesus.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, sobering. You can scarcely watch TV ads or browse
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  Speaker 1: online for more than 10 seconds without being dump-trucked with
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  Speaker 1: banality and silliness. It's the air that we breathe.
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  Speaker 2: But.
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  Speaker 1: There are remedies in the lives of those who have
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  Speaker 1: gone before us. The Jonathan Edwards quote just mentioned here
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  Speaker 1: comes from the pages of his classic, A Treatise Concerning
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  Speaker 1: the Religious Affections. Banner of Truth publishes a paperback edition
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  Speaker 1: of that book if you want to read it. The
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  Speaker 1: Religious Affections. And then Blaise Pascal, The Man Who Made
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  Speaker 1: the Modern World by Graham Tomlin. A biography released in
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  Speaker 1: paperback this past summer. Also easy to find online. Blaise Pascal,
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  Speaker 1: The Man Who Made the Modern World. Thank you for
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  Speaker 1: those book mentions, Pastor John, and thanks for joining us today.
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  Speaker 1: If you have a question to ask Pastor John, find
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  Speaker 1: a link to email us and find our complete episode
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  Speaker 1: archive at the same place, askpastorjohn.com. The danger we saw
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  Speaker 1: today is that our age conditions us to operate only
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  Speaker 1: in terms of fun and boredom. Fun and boredom. That's it.
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  Speaker 1: The shallow rhythm that defines our lives is one of fun, boredom.
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  Speaker 1: And that plague of shallow affections is directly confronted by
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  Speaker 1: the complexity of the emotional life of Jesus himself. Next
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  Speaker 1: time we look at his emotions and explore what we
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  Speaker 1: get wrong about the tears of Jesus. Don't miss it.
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  Speaker 1: I'm Tony Reinke. We'll see you back here on Monday.