Encouragement

Ancient and Modern

by John Puckett 
01/30/26
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Ancient and Modern

The stack of timber had been there too long and needed cutting into logs. I got to work with my handsaw.
Not long after I began, a chainsaw burst into noisy life nearby. Its user was invisible and I had no idea what was being sawn, but it set me thinking.
How different could two saws be? Mine was a simple bow saw, a thin steel blade tensioned on a metal frame, cutting the logs with minimum effort. In addition, I was having healthy exercise. And time to think.
My saw produced no ear-damaging noise. I was not inhaling poisonous exhaust vapours. There were no masses of wood chips, no disturbance to neighbours or wildlife, no need for protective clothing and no fossil fuel was consumed.

It is easy to be so impressed with a chainsaw that the humble handsaw is discarded as being behind the times. The handsaw has been around for many, many years, chainsaws for less than a 100.
I started thinking about church.
In recent times, the IT revolution has captivated much of the UK church. Some products and techniques have certainly been a great help. The Internet, for example, can be a great tool in God’s hands for good.
However, church technology can be so impressive that the simplicity of prayer can become ‘surplus to requirements’. Prayer has been around for 1000s of years, IT for several decades.
Just as the chainsaw can deprive a man of healthy exercise in the clean, open air, so communication technology can deprive the church of healthy exercise in prayer.

Gene Jackson, of the Assemblies of God, USA, once made this comment: “We have PowerPoint in our computers to enable us to get fancy in our singing and ‘current’ in our preaching. But let me tell you, if you don’t have power in your soul, PowerPoint in your projector is not going to be worth a hoot.”

In the mid-20th century in the Scottish Hebrides, God began a mighty work of salvation and revival.
The church at Barvas had no organ, no guitars, no orchestra, no choir, not even a hymnal. The church had no organisations, no coffee mornings, no special young people's meetings, and no church staff other than the minister, no seminars, and no elaborate programmes.
Apart from its Sunday services, there was the weekly prayer meeting and other spontaneous prayer meetings here and there. Yet people came in their crowds, and many people were converted.
Why? Some of God’s children prayed.

The apostles said: “We will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” Acts 6:4, NKJV