Don't Stay in the Puddles
How the internet helps us forget about deep scholarship
The Internet has ushered in a host of advantages. Democratic information exchange allows me to set these very words before your eyes and a few hundred other strangers. Before the internet, this would have been unheard of. My lack of position or scholarship would have left me scribbling these words to a flower-covered journal that never saw the light of day.1
It’s a gift to get to hear directly from a diverse set of voices—they can teach us profoundly even without a string of letters behind their name. Yet, as we become a community saturated with the democratization of ideas and information we also must look at what these wins have lost us: one of which is depth.
I witnessed a great example of this not too long ago as I was scrolling through Threads2 and discovered a person explaining Jane Austen’s work. She said most viewers think about Austen’s work as romance, but, she believed there were far more important themes of social commentary in her stories. She went on to explain her observations within Austen’s adaptations and the way she pinpointed this reality.
As I scrolled through the comments I saw many amazed at this declaration. They agreed and began to make more connections and comments on this line of thinking. Reading through them I couldn’t help but wonder if all these people understood the amount of literature and scholarship that already exists on this very topic. I wondered if they understood the depth of thought that has already enveloped this reality? Did they think this was brand new?
I don’t mean to fault the poster or the commenters. This woman discovered a new angle to enjoy her favorite stories, and she longed to share it! However, the entire situation puts in full view the way the internet can stunt our satisfaction in understanding. When our learning is primarily formed by instantaneous, 280-character posts and 800-word blogs we may start to believe that’s all there is—that it's where it originated. But when we do so, we settle for the puddle bubbling up to the surface, missing the fact that a rushing spring runs wide and deep beneath.
This temptation exists not only with literature analysis, but even with spiritual teaching. Tweets, infographics, and blog posts of a Christian teacher might be helpful, but we will be even more blessed when we understand that a depth of wisdom lays beneath it. That preacher isn’t the only one to write on imputation. That influencer is adding his thoughts on waiting to a host of writers before him. That author writing a book on play as worship is only building on truths written of for centuries.
For wisdom finds its beginning as far back as the creation of the world. Proverbs tells us of wisdom: “ages ago, I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth” (Prov 8:23). “When he established the heavens, I was there; when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made the skies above” (Prov 8:27). True wisdom and knowledge will extend deeper than any teacher on this earth can explain, for it is the very person of Christ—the wise one of all. What human could ever mine the depths of the wisdom of the Godhead?
Still man tries, and we should, for it’s why we were made—to reflect the glory of our God. From the beginning, we’ve been retelling the same truths of sin, grace, redemption, beauty, and grace. We’ve proclaimed the majesty of the Almighty and puzzled over life, time, and death. Throughout the centuries saints wrestled through the same ideas, singing the same song in slightly different keys. T.S. Eliot encapsulated this well writing that wisdom and truth had already been discovered, “once or twice, or several times by men whom one cannot hope to emulate.” Yet Eliot concluded he would keep writing, for “there is no competition—There is only the fight to recover what has been lost and found and lost again and again.”3
And this is what we have in the world—a trove of riches on the works of God and his world from saints throughout history. Every idea we read on a blog, in a tweet, or in a newsletter comes from a rich conversation that’s already been going on for centuries. Will we dig for it? Will we turn our head towards wisdom and “seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures” (Prov. 2:4). Will we meditate on it, and look for more explanations, writings, and teachings from God’s Word and from our brothers and sisters?
We won’t be able to dive into every topic—we are limited. Yet, just acknowledging the depths beneath topics like God’s forgiveness, his patience, our love for beauty, or any other topic will humble us and awaken our sense of awe in our Lord. For that’s where it all ends, anyway—closer to our Savior—the ultimate source of Wisdom, and the one will never stop supplying us with truths to marvel at.
Thanks to technology, we might say: “In the making of Substacks, Instagram posts, and tweets there is no end.4” In so many ways this is a gift from our Lord. Much wisdom can be gained, but may we also allow these refreshing puddles to whet our appetite for the fuller spring. May they push us to learn more—more of grace, more of hope, more of wisdom. May they send us to the words of saints before us and ultimately to the feet of the Wisest One.
Don’t stay only in the puddles that deliver a portion—even this one I’m writing right now.
The debate on the actual benefits of this can be for another time. :)
I wish I could supply an image of this conversation, but it happened several months ago, which is approximately twenty-five years in social media time, so I unfortunately can’t locate it.
T.S. Eliot, East Coker.
Borrowing from Ecclesiastes 12:12.