Decoding And Overcoming Smartphone Addiction Mfano

Apostle John and Smartphone Addiction 

  Smartphone addiction will be thing of the past when we recall the Face-to-Face conversations the New Testament calls us for. The senior-most leader of the early church, Apostle John, a man who was in his nineties, wrote twice that he preferred face-to-face conversations than letter-correspondence. He does that in 2 John 12 and 3 John 13 (easy to remember). 3 John 13 goes this way: “I have much to write you, but I do not want to do so with pen and ink” (NIV). Why does he do that? Maybe, during those days, there was an extra-craze for writing letters, because letter writing was relatively a new fad among the youth and young kids of his time just like Facebook and WhatsApp is a new fad during our time. Everybody was perhaps spending all their time in writing on paper, scrolls and parchments. What he basically said was this: “Writing on paper is good, making a book is good…but nothing like meeting a person, looking the person in the eye and talking with that person!” And if he was alive now, I am sure he would said, “Stop being on WhatsApp all the time. Stop being on Facebook all the time. Keep your phone down. Go and meet people. Fellowship with real people.” I must note here that the concept of the Online Church defeats the very purpose of the church! In a church, in a youth fellowship, you can get to meet each other, rub shoulders with each other, give each other a holy kiss (Rom. 16:16; I Cor. 16:20; I Thess. 5:26) or a shoulder squeeze or a warm hug. 

You can encourage each other in respective walk with Jesus Christ with direct conversations! This is not possible in a virtual space!