The Thorns Jesus Warned About Are in Our Pockets

In three of the Gospels, Jesus tells The Parable of the Sower. In it, He describes seed that falls among thorns, which choke out the seed, making it unfruitful. He later explains that the thorns represent three things: pleasures, the worries of life, and the deceitfulness of wealth.

Though He spoke these words over 2,000 years ago, it is a perfect illustration of what we face today. Our phones are a modern-day embodiment of the thorns, yielding the same unfruitful result.

Pleasures – our phones provide a portal of “escape” from reality, ranging from Netflix to gaming to gambling to pornography.

Worries of life – our phones provide a constant deluge of information, occupying the real estate of our brains. Whether emails, Twitter/X feeds, or a 24-hour news cycle, our brains never get a break from worries that are often unactionable.

Deceitfulness of wealth – the deceitfulness of wealth is buried in comparison–“the thief of joy.” A memorable family vacation can easily be derailed by a scroll through Instagram — all of a sudden, you are no longer satisfied with your time in Tampa compared to someone else’s time in Tahiti. The deceitfulness of wealth sows a lie through one glance at your phone.

The result of these modern-day “thorns” is the exact same as in the day of Jesus: the seed sown in our life is not able to bear fruit.

In other words, you could have the greatest quiet time of your life, but the first look at a screen can choke out the word, making it unfruitful.

Or you can spend untold time and resources on discipleship and formation. You can Practice The Way to perfection. And all it takes is distraction from the rectangle-shaped thorn in our pocket to undo all of that work.

The same is true of the impact to your congregation. You could spend weeks on a message that you deliver flawlessly and pierces the hearts of your people. But one scroll through Instagram chokes out the Word, making it unfruitful.

So the problem is not necessarily that our phones contain pleasures, the worries of life, and the deceitfulness of wealth. It is that they contain all of those things AND the result is they choke out the word in our lives.

Beyond ministry impact, they can also make us unfruitful in very other meaningful areas of life: focused attention, productive work, meaningful moments, quality time, deep relationships, and hopeful futures.

With all of that on the line and with all of the far-reaching implications, what better investment of time, focus, and resources could there be in your staff culture?

The long-term impact of starting with staff culture is it will naturally become part of your congregational culture. You will be able to address the topic with experience, confidence, and conviction. Your staff will be able to effectively disciple others in technology because they have been discipled themselves.

Here’s the good news: we can do something about it.

Reclaimwell is helping churches disciple people in their relationship with technology, so the soil can be good again, and the Word can flourish.

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