To begin, review together what we discussed last week: that we are created in God's image, made to develop and innovate as part of joining God in his work─and how that good vocation relates to technology.

Opening

Last week focused on how good technology can be, and how we were made to develop and create. This week we turn to three texts that show what happens to our use of technology when sin and our lack of trust in God enter the picture.

Genesis 4:8–17 — Cain

Read the text together, then discuss:

1. After Cain murders Abel, what does God say to him? What is God's initial response?

2. How does Cain respond to God? In what ways does he misunderstand both God's judgment and God's continuing willingness to protect and care for him?

3. How does God correct Cain—and how does he still offer him protection?

4. What in the text suggests Cain does not trust God's offer of protection? How does that lack of trust lead him to found a city?

5. What does this begin to show us about technology — and how our building and developing get misdirected when we stop trusting God's provision?

Genesis 11:1–4 — Babel

Read the text together, then discuss:

6. Why are the people building this tower? What are they hoping it will give them?

7. How does that purpose reveal a rejection of God's commission to humanity?

8. How does Babel build on what we saw in the Cain story about technology and our lack of trust in God?

Psalm 115:2–8 — Idols

Read the text together, then discuss:

9. What do these verses show us about how idols—the things we make to replace God—end up forming the ones who make them? How might the same be true of the tools we build and use?

Bringing it home

10. Why does all of this matter for our use of technology today? If a tool can carry a story and shape the one who uses it, what does that change about how we should think about the tools in our lives?

11. Where do you see the technologies you use forming you away from God's story—toward building your own name, provision, or protection?

12. Are there any tools in particular you sense you need to question or reconsider your use of?

Engaging the booklet

13. Talk through this week's exercises. If you've started the inventory, what have you begun to notice about what takes over, promises, or numbs? For those who have done the fast—what did you fast from, and what surfaced when you did?