God Is Like The iPhone

iPhones are these beautiful, useful, omnipresent things. They come with a manual that hardly anyone reads. This manual tells you all about the iPhone and the wonderful things it can do. It doesn’t tell you to go tell other people about the iPhone,¹ you just end up doing that because they’re awesome. Some people still stubbornly resist the iPhone, probably due to pride or because they don’t want to learn a whole new operating system. However, the majority of iPhone users don’t find iPhones beautiful; rather, they only find them useful. And they find them useful not so they can “advance humankind” as Apple’s founder intended,² but only insofar as they can advance their own comfort and sense of superiority. These often annoying people will also sometimes tell others about the iPhone, but only in a condescending way like: “Ew, why aren’t you smart enough to have an iPhone (like me)?” 

So how is God like the iPhone? Well, God gave us the most beautiful and useful “thing” ever, namely himself, through the gifts of Jesus and the Spirit. He comes with a manual that hardly anyone reads. This manual tells you all about God and the wonderful things he has done and can do. It doesn’t tell you to tell other people about God,³ you just end up doing that because he’s so awesome. Some people still stubbornly resist him, probably due to pride or because they don’t want to learn a whole new operating system. However, the majority of God users don’t find God beautiful; rather, they only find him useful. And they find him useful not so they can “advance humankind” into the image of Jesus where all ignorance, racism, violence, and all manner of injustice is a thing of the past as the Founder intended,⁴ but only insofar as they can advance their own comfort and sense of superiority. These often annoying people will also sometimes tell others about Jesus, but only in a condescending way like: “Ew, why aren’t you smart enough to believe in Jesus (like me)?” 

I found this analogy helpful in seeing all the ways that I miss what God is really for and instead turn him into a sort of selfie stick to prop up my own image and agenda. I hope it helps you too. And yes, I’m well aware that the analogy breaks down in about a billion ways as all analogies for God do :-).

1. Only Apple employees are explicitly told to do that.
2. Steve Jobs’ original mission statement was, “To make a contribution to the world by making tools for the mind that advance humankind.”
3. Only God’s “employees” are explicitly told to do that: the apostles, pastors, and the like.
4. See Romans 8:29, Galatians 5:13-24, Revelation 7:9-10, etc.