One of the benefits of our modern age is the wide access to tools Christians have available to grow in the understanding of our faith. Blogs, videos, podcasts, books, and more can give us great tools to assist in our growth and understanding of the Christian faith. However, we must remember they are secondary, or even more accurately, tertiary tools.
 
Despite the wide availability of such tools, God intends and commands that we are to be part of a local body of believers. We are to be under the leadership and submissive to elders that He has called and appointed to be over us, as our primary means of Christian learning and maturity. We are to grow alongside our fellow saints, using our God-given gifts for the building up and edification of the body. And we are to study the Scriptures prayerfully that we might show ourselves approved.
 
These secondary or tertiary tools can be informative, helping us understand and refine our knowledge of biblical truth. But, they cannot hold us accountable if we begin to wander from the narrow path. Paper pages, videos, audio, and pixels on a screen cannot look into our Christian walk to discern if we are rightly practicing what we have learned. Nor can they directly intervene when we falter or dive headlong into sin.
 
Furthermore, some of these tools, either by accident or design, can cause us to be laser-focused on singular issues to the exclusion of other highly important areas of Christian maturity and growth. The net effect of this laser-focus can be us “majoring in the minors” so to speak. Elevating certain areas of Christian doctrine that may be important but neglecting the honing of the rest of Scripture. We become obsessed to the point of making our pet doctrinal concerns a signboard that we scream out at everyone else, demanding they join us in calling the attention of the entire church abroad to it.
 
Imbalance, gracelessness, immaturity, anger, bitterness, and haughtiness can soon follow when such obsession becomes the norm. And the echo chamber effect of social media can only exacerbate the problem. When secondary and tertiary tools become our primary means of doctrinal growth, all of us will suffer the consequences.
 
Therefore, it is imperative that we, as Christians, place these tools in their proper context. Do not let them become all-encompassing in your life. Do not let them take the place of your local church and pastors. Do not let them usurp your times of personal Bible study and prayer. Let them come along and assist you but never let them lead you.
 
Part of the Christian life is learning balance. Not straying off the narrow path to either the left or the right. And the best means of doing so is using the primary means God has given us for our humility, maturity, and growth in the faith. Go to church, read your bible, submit to your elders, and pray.
 
And if anything of what I just wrote irks you, if it causes in you a strong desire to object and then reframe the argument so it favors your take, perhaps, just perhaps, you are imbalanced and are already stepping off the path. So then, I urge you to reread and consider what I have said.
 
God bless.
(This article was also published at X.com)