Genesis 3 Made Us "Smart Phones” – Part 1 Series

Our society values intelligence. Think about it. Smart people receive a Nobel Prize, a Robert B. Downs Intellectual Freedom Award, or the Intellectual Property Legends Award. You have to be pretty smart just to win the annual spelling bee contest!

A smart person, and you may never hear anyone say this, is considered more valuable to society than someone who is, dare I say it, “dumb”. Our history books are filled with intellectuals whose discoveries and ideas have been praised – Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, George Washington Carver, Sir Isaac Newton, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Marie Curie, just to name a few.

But for every discovery, for every idea, there are untold thousands who are assigned tasks – told what to do – in order to make the discovery or idea a reality.

We view people who merely do what they are told as less intelligent. But I find it interesting that scripture places much more value on people who listen and do what they’re told rather than those who don’t. These individuals are coveted and respected in heaven.

Being “dumb” – in this case, being obedient – is a good thing.

Now, keeping all of this in mind, think about “smart phones” and how they compare to “dumb phones.” My intention is not to offend you with the word “dumb” – I’m simply using it to bring home a point. For this teaching, “dumb” is good. Say it with me: “dumb is good”.

I purchased my first cell phone back in 1995. Today that phone would be called a “dumb phone” because it could only make and receive phone calls. Text messaging wasn’t introduced to the U.S. until 1996 and its growth was very slow. Do you know why? Most of the available phones were “dumb” like mine.

As texting began to grow, cellular companies found a new revenue stream meeting the desires (not needs) of the consumers. Hello smart phone!

The smart phone can make phone calls, send and receive text messages, and take, send and receive pictures and play videos, order dinner, buy theater tickets, and ring during the church service. Ooops! That last one slipped in!

I owned a dumb phone until 2013. Whatever I typed as a text was sent exactly as intended. Let me tell you what irritates me most about my smart phone: smart phones have an “auto-correct” function.

Auto-correct is a text replacement or replace-as-you-type function. Its principal purpose is as a spell checker to correct common spelling or typing errors, theoretically saving time for the user. Let me emphasize the word theoretically!

My dumb phone did not have this function. The phone interpreted the text exactly as I had typed it and did not try to tell me what I really meant. Not my smart phone. If I don’t catch “its correction”, then whoever receives my text must try to figure out what I meant to say.

My smart phone changes the words of my texts because obviously I, the source of the message, meant to type something else. Do you think we treat God and His Word this way sometimes? Nah!

“Dumb Phones” were in the Garden of Eden.

God put Adam and Eve on earth to rule it and to populate it. They were naked in the garden and were not ashamed. They were innocent, or for the purpose of this teaching, they were dumb phones. Say it with me: “dumb is good”.

By the time we get to Genesis chapter three, Satan is working on Eve to turn the dumb phones – Eve and her husband, Adam – into smart phones complete with the auto-correct function.

Before showing up in the garden, Lucifer (Satan) according to Ezekiel chapter 28, verse 13, was the “anointed cherub that covereth”. Why don’t we look at the entire verse?

“Thou (Lucifer) hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in three in the day that thou wast created.”

Initially, Lucifer served God and did as God commanded. He was a dumb phone. Satan did what God told Him to do because he was not the creator; he had been created.

But at some point, he decided that he knew how to rule better than God. In his mind, God wasn’t the best one to be “God.” Jump down to verse 15.

“Thou wast perfect in all thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found thee.”

God created the angels with free-will. Satan’s iniquity was not found until it manifested itself through his actions.

Can you see Satan behind closed doors questioning God’s decisions? He had decided that he did not like being a dumb phone. Not only did he become a smart phone, he believed he had given himself an upgrade that included all of the latest bells and whistles. Satan believed he was so smart that he could now correct his Creator.