Unbound: Freedom in a Digital WorldSample

Paul would have walked down the same famous road—the Via Egnatia—where Julius Caesar and Pompey had marched their troops during Caesar's war as he entered Philippi. It was at Philippi that Mark Antony and Octavian finally caught up with Cassius and Brutus, centuries before Paul would cause his riot. Ten miles from the port of Neapolis and settled into the fertile plains of Asia Minor, Philippi might best be described to the modern reader as similar to Los Angeles in location and importance in Asia Minor.

It's on these famed streets that Paul met Lydia and established the first Christian community in Philippi. After casting out the spirit of prophecy in a slave girl, Paul and Silas are thrown into prison for disrupting the peace. The text teaches us that as Paul sat in the dark bottom of the Philippians' jail, bound at the ankles and enclosed in bars of iron, he did the most unexpected thing. Luke intentionally notes that Paul began praying and singing umneos (Greek for hymns) to God. How is it that Paul, having just been beaten and flogged and now being bound and chained, could still sing praise to God?

It's because Paul had learned "the secret to being content" (Philippians 4:12) when he was found by the grace of God in Jesus and released from his bondage of sin and death. This is the same salvation from the bondage that Paul preaches to the jailer in Acts 16:31.

"Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved." The jailer then joins Paul in being baptized into the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. He became free from the chains of sin and death as well!

For Paul, prison will become a kind of home away from home. While in prison, he writes four letters that are a part of our New Testament: Philippians, Colossians, Philemon, and Ephesians. These are regarded as the Prison Epistles and will be our area of focus, though we will only cover Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon directly. It's while imprisoned that Paul will develop and share with us still today an understanding of life in Christ that is free from all bondage regardless of the present circumstances. Paul might be in chains, but his mind, heart, soul, and spirit are eternally free in Christ.

Are you free today as well? Is your mind, heart, soul, and spirit free from bondage?

Or do you allow the present circumstances of an imprisoned world to keep you captive?

In recent years, our minds, hearts, souls, and spirits have been increasingly and intentionally taken captive through digital technology, specifically cell phones. The average American checks their phone 344 times a day and spends just under three hours a day on it. Consequently, for a year, the average American will spend nearly a month and a half on their phone (44 days). 71% of us check our phones in the first ten minutes of waking up. 74% of us feel uneasy leaving our phones at home, and nearly half of us admit freely to being addicted to our phones (reviews.org/mobile/cell-phone-addiction).

We are bound, tethered at the palm.

And yet, today, you are reading this devotional on your phone. The freedom Paul teaches in his prison epistles can help us cultivate a healthy engagement with our phones. The solution cannot be to throw away all of our devices and never touch them again. Whether we like it or not, this is the world and culture we now reside in. Instead, through this study, we want to think intentionally, spiritually, and practically about how we engage with our phones. We hope to intentionally cultivate practices with our phones that will allow us to gain and retain freedom in our hearts, minds, souls, and spirits while still engaging routinely with our phones. We want to discover how to become unbound.

Each day we will read a little from scripture. We will think about what Paul's writings meant for the church in his day and for us today. We will also have a daily suggested practice where we can work on being unbound.

Having been freed from the bondage of sin and death, the jailer invites Paul into his home to share a meal filled with joy! Practice freedom today by sharing an entire meal from start to finish with someone without your phone. Don't allow it to disrupt the joy of sharing a meal.