I’ve found myself thinking about a question that, at first, almost feels inappropriate.
If God could have chosen any moment in human history to send His Son into the world…
why then?
Why the first century?
Why not today?
After all, Scripture tells us that Christ came in “the fullness of time.” God doesn’t make mistakes. He doesn’t arrive early, and He doesn’t arrive late. He arrives exactly when He intends to.
So why did His perfect timing look like this?
Why a world without airplanes?
Without hospitals?
Without microphones?
Without cameras?
Without the internet?
Without smartphones?
Without instant translation?
Without any of the technology we now take for granted?
I’ve spent more than twenty-five years in corporate America, and I know that’s probably why this question lodged itself in my mind.
As a Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt, I’ve been trained to think a certain way.
Find the waste.
Remove unnecessary steps.
Simplify the process.
Increase efficiency.
It’s not just what I do.
It’s how I’ve learned to think.
So, if I’m being completely honest, from a purely human perspective, I would have picked a different century.
If I had been invited into the planning meeting—and thankfully I wasn’t—I probably would have shown up with a PowerPoint.
“Lord, I think I’ve identified a few opportunities.”
Imagine the possibilities.
Every miracle recorded.
The Sermon on the Mount livestreamed around the world.
The resurrection captured from every angle.
Billions reached instead of thousands.
It all seems so logical.
Until you begin asking a different question.
What if God wasn’t trying to accomplish what I assumed He was?
What if the first century wasn’t a limitation?
What if…
it was part of the message?
The Hard Way
From a purely human perspective, God’s timing doesn’t seem to make much sense.
Mary is carrying the Son of God, yet she and Joseph make the long journey to Bethlehem.
On foot.
No uber.
No train.
No airplane.
No hotel reservation waiting when they arrived.
Then Jesus begins His ministry.
He walks.
Everywhere.
Village to village.
Town to town.
When He crosses the Sea of Galilee, He climbs into a fishing boat.
When He teaches thousands, He doesn’t reserve an auditorium.
He doesn’t rent a stadium.
He teaches from a hillside.
A shoreline.
A borrowed boat.
Sometimes simply while walking down the road.
No microphone.
No sound system.
No stage.
No production crew.
No marketing campaign.
No livestream announcing where He would be next.
And the pattern continues.
A borrowed boat.
A borrowed donkey.
A borrowed upper room.
A borrowed tomb.
Think about that for a moment.
The One who owns everything came needing almost nothing.
Now ask the obvious question.
Why?
If the greatest rescue mission in history was about to unfold, why not choose the fastest transportation?
Why not the greatest infrastructure?
Why not the widest reach?
Why not every technological advantage imaginable?
Wouldn’t that convince more people?
Wouldn’t that reach more people?
Wouldn’t that make the mission more successful?
Those questions make perfect sense…
if efficiency was the goal.
But what if it wasn’t?
What if God wasn’t trying to build His kingdom the way we would?
What if the apparent inefficiency wasn’t a flaw…
but the first clue?
No Competing Explanation
Here’s what’s fascinating.
Jesus didn’t just come before smartphones.
He came before almost every human substitute we rely on today.
Think about the people who came to Him.
The blind.
The lame.
The deaf.
The lepers.
The sick.
The dying.
Where else could they go?
There was no urgent care.
No emergency room.
No antibiotics.
No MRI.
No surgery.
No specialists.
No prescriptions.
If you were blind, there was little human hope that you would ever see.
If you had leprosy, you were not only sick but cut off from the life you once knew.
If your child stopped breathing, there was no ambulance to call.
Humanity lived with the constant reminder of its own limitations.
And that’s exactly what makes Jesus’ miracles so striking.
When the blind received their sight, no one credited a medical breakthrough.
When the lame walked, no one applauded an extraordinary surgeon.
When the lepers were cleansed, no one pointed to a new treatment.
When Lazarus walked out of the tomb, there wasn’t another explanation waiting in the wings.
The miracle belonged entirely to Christ.
That isn’t an argument against medicine.
Luke was a physician.
Throughout history, God has graciously worked through doctors, discoveries, treatments, and gifted hands to bring healing. Every good and perfect gift comes from Him.
But here’s the pattern.
God chose a moment in history where His Son would stand in unmistakable contrast to humanity’s inability.
No competing explanation.
No rival source of hope.
No question about where the power came from.
Perhaps that’s one reason Jesus came when He did.
Not because the first century lacked technology…
but because it lacked substitutes.
And people who know they have no substitute are far more likely to discover their need for a Savior.
A Kingdom Built by Faith
But God didn’t just choose a world without modern medicine.
He also chose a world without modern media.
No cameras.
No photographs.
No video recordings.
No livestreams.
No drone footage hovering over an empty tomb.
Think about that.
The most significant events in human history…
the crucifixion…
the resurrection…
were never recorded.
Today, thousands of phones would have been held in the air.
Every miracle would have gone viral.
The darkness at the cross.
The earthquake.
The veil torn in two.
The empty tomb.
Every frame replayed.
Every angle analyzed.
Every clip shared around the world within minutes.
From a human perspective, it sounds like the perfect strategy.
Surely more people would believe.
But would they?
The people who rejected Jesus weren’t lacking evidence.
They watched the blind receive their sight.
They watched the lame walk.
They watched lepers cleansed.
They watched Lazarus come out of the tomb.
And many still cried,
“Crucify Him.”
The problem was never evidence.
It was the human heart.
That’s why Paul later told the Corinthians that he refused to rely on eloquence or clever words.
Why?
“So that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”
The method mattered.
God wasn’t merely interested in people believing.
He was interested in what produced their belief.
That’s why He didn’t leave us a photograph of Jesus.
He didn’t preserve His voice on a recording.
He didn’t even tell us what He looked like.
Instead…
He gave us His Word.
And through His Spirit, He opens blind eyes.
Not physical eyes.
Spiritual ones.
The world keeps saying,
“Show me.”
God keeps saying,
“Trust Me.”
That has always been the difference between sight…
and faith.
The Wilderness Wasn't an Accident
Long before Bethlehem…
God was already teaching this lesson.
Think about Israel in the wilderness.
Millions of people.
A barren desert.
Forty years.
Just pause there.
Even with all of our technological advances, moving that many people through a wilderness would be one of the greatest logistical challenges imaginable.
We’d need fleets of trucks.
Medical teams.
Water purification systems.
Communications.
Fuel.
Temporary housing.
Supply chains.
And even then…
we’d expect casualties.
Now take every one of those things away.
No grocery stores.
No rivers.
No farms.
No permanent shelter.
No infrastructure.
No backup plan.
Just a desert.
God could have taken another route.
He could have led them through cities.
He could have taken them where food and water were plentiful.
He could have shortened the journey.
He could have done it a thousand different ways.
But He didn’t.
Why?
Because the wilderness wasn’t simply the road to the Promised Land.
It was the classroom where God taught His people dependence.
Every morning they woke up asking the same question.
Will there be manna today?
Every day they followed a cloud they couldn’t control.
Every night they rested beneath a pillar of fire they couldn’t produce.
When they were thirsty…
water came from a rock.
When they were hungry…
bread came from heaven.
He wasn’t just rescuing them from Egypt.
He was teaching them to stop thinking like Egypt.
That’s a lesson every generation has to learn.
Maybe that’s why God so often leads His people into places where every earthly support is stripped away.
Not because He delights in making the journey harder.
But because He delights in showing His children that He is enough.
The wilderness wasn’t God’s failure.
It was His curriculum.
Have We Complicated What God Made Simple?
I can’t help but wonder if we’ve complicated things.
Not the gospel.
The way we think the gospel has to move forward.
Sometimes I wonder what we would tell Jesus if He came to us today.
“Lord, before You preach, we need to secure a venue.”
“We need a marketing strategy.”
“We need better production.”
“We need a social media campaign.”
“We need to build Your platform.”
“We need to increase Your reach.”
None of those things are wrong.
In fact, they can all become wonderful servants of the gospel.
But they make terrible saviors.
The kingdom of God has never depended on microphones.
Or stages.
Or cameras.
Or branding.
Or marketing.
Or production value.
Or technology.
The gospel reached the ends of the earth without a single tweet.
Without a podcast.
Without a website.
Without a publishing company.
Without a communications strategy.
Without a production crew.
Without a marketing campaign.
It spread because the Spirit of God took the Word of God and transformed the hearts of ordinary men and women.
That hasn’t changed.
Technology has changed.
The Spirit hasn’t.
Communication has changed.
The gospel hasn’t.
Our tools have changed.
God’s power hasn’t.
Maybe that’s why this article has been so unsettling for me.
I spend my days improving processes, eliminating waste, and looking for better ways to accomplish things. There is tremendous value in that work.
But God’s kingdom has reminded me that efficiency and effectiveness are not always the same thing.
Sometimes God chooses methods that no consultant would recommend.
Sometimes He intentionally removes the very things we think are indispensable.
Not because He is against them.
But because He refuses to let us confuse the instrument with the source of the power.
That is a question every one of us should wrestle with.
What am I relying on?
Am I trusting in God’s Spirit…
or have I quietly placed my confidence in the bells and whistles?
What Are We Really Trusting?
None of this is an argument against technology.
Or medicine.
Or airplanes.
Or microphones.
Or creative communication.
They are all gifts.
Luke was a physician.
Paul traveled on Roman roads.
The gospel has always made use of the tools available.
The danger isn’t using them.
The danger is quietly beginning to trust them.
Perhaps that’s one of the subtle ways every generation is tempted.
Israel trusted Egypt.
The Pharisees trusted their religion.
The Corinthians were tempted to trust eloquence and human wisdom.
What are we trusting?
We live in a world that believes bigger is better.
More followers.
More influence.
More production.
More innovation.
More technology.
More reach.
More visibility.
Without realizing it, those assumptions can quietly shape how we think about the kingdom of God.
We begin believing that if we only had better tools…
more people would believe.
If we only had greater reach…
God could accomplish more.
If we only had enough resources…
the kingdom would advance faster.
But that has never been God’s testimony.
Better tools may expand our reach, but they have never been the source of the Church’s power.
The Spirit of God always has been.
Maybe that’s why this question has become so personal.
What have I quietly concluded God needs before He can work?
Because whatever the answer is…
that’s probably where my confidence has begun to drift.
The Wisdom of God
The irony isn’t lost on me.
I’ve spent more than twenty-five years helping organizations remove unnecessary steps, increase efficiency, and improve processes.
Then I opened the Scriptures and discovered that God often does the very opposite.
Not because He is inefficient.
But because He is accomplishing something far greater than efficiency.
He is revealing His glory.
Think about the pattern.
He chose a wilderness instead of well-stocked cities.
He chose fishermen instead of philosophers.
He chose a manger instead of a palace.
He chose a borrowed boat instead of a grand stage.
He chose a cross instead of a throne.
He chose faith instead of sight.
He chose the first century instead of the twenty-first.
None of that was accidental.
It was all declaring the same truth.
God repeatedly removes every competing explanation until the only reasonable conclusion is,
“This was the Lord’s doing.”
Perhaps that’s why Jesus didn’t wait for technology.
Not because technology is the enemy.
Not because medicine is the enemy.
Not because creativity, innovation, or good stewardship are the enemy.
But because from the very beginning, God wanted the world to know that His kingdom would never be built on human ingenuity.
It would be built by His Spirit.
Two thousand years later, we have hospitals.
We have airplanes.
We have smartphones.
We have artificial intelligence.
We have instant communication.
We have tools the apostles could never have imagined.
And yet the Church still depends on exactly what it depended on then.
The Spirit of God.
The Word of God.
And hearts willing to believe.
Technology has changed.
God has not.
The tools have changed.
The gospel has not.
The world still looks for cleverness.
God is still looking for faith.
Why Didn’t Jesus Wait for Technology?
Perhaps the better question isn’t why Jesus came when He did.
Perhaps the better question is what God wanted us to see because He came when He did.
That may be why the gospel still humbles us today.
It crossed deserts without highways.
It crossed oceans without airplanes.
It crossed languages without translation software.
It crossed centuries without the internet.
It crossed cultures without marketing campaigns.
And somehow…
it reached me.
Not because someone finally produced enough evidence.
Not because technology made the story more believable.
Not because humanity became more sophisticated.
But because the Spirit of God took the Word of God and opened my eyes to behold the Son of God.
The same Spirit who sustained Israel in the wilderness…
The same Spirit who empowered Christ’s earthly ministry…
The same Spirit who turned frightened disciples into faithful witnesses…
is the same Spirit building Christ’s Church today.
The world still looks for bigger platforms, better strategies, and greater visibility.
God is still looking for hearts that will trust Him.
Maybe that’s why Jesus didn’t wait for technology.
Not because technology is the enemy.
But because from the very beginning, God wanted the world to know that His kingdom would never be built on human ingenuity.
It would be built by His Spirit.
And that is still enough.
Reflection Questions
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