{"id":340,"date":"2008-03-07T21:25:00","date_gmt":"2008-03-07T21:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/bibleandculture\/2008\/03\/jesus-vs-satan--the-computing-showdown.html"},"modified":"2008-03-07T21:25:00","modified_gmt":"2008-03-07T21:25:00","slug":"jesus-vs-satan-the-computing-showdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2008\/03\/jesus-vs-satan-the-computing-showdown.html","title":{"rendered":"Jesus vs. Satan– the Computing Showdown"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Jesus and Satan were having an ongoing argument about who was better <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

on the computer. They had been going at it for days, and frankly God was <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

tired of hearing all the bickering. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

Finally fed up, God said, “THAT’S IT! I have had enough. I am going <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

to set up a test that will run for two hours, and from those results, I<\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

will <\/span>judge who does the better job.” <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

So Satan and Jesus sat down at the keyboards and typed away. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

They moused. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

They faxed. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

They e-mailed. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

They e-mailed with attachments. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

They downloaded. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

They did spreadsheets! <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

They wrote reports. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

They created labels and cards. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

They created charts and graphs. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

They did some genealogy reports <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

They did every job known to man. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

Jesus worked with heavenly efficiency and Satan was faster than hell. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

Then, ten minutes before their time was up, lightning suddenly <\/span>flashed across the sky, thunder rolled, rain poured, and, of course, the <\/span>power went off. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

Satan stared at his blank screen and screamed every curse word known <\/span>in the underworld. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

Jesus just sighed. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

Finally the electricity came back on, and each of them restarted <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

their computers. Satan started searching frantically, screaming: <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

“It’s gone! It’s all GONE! “I lost everything when the power went out!” <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Jesus quietly started printing out all of his files from <\/span>the past two hours of work. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

Satan observed this and became irate. <\/span>“Wait!” he screamed. “That’s not<\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

fair! He cheated! How come he has all his work and I don’t have any?” <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

God just shrugged and said, <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n

“JESUS SAVES” <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n


<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jesus and Satan were having an ongoing argument about who was better on the computer. They had been going at it for days, and frankly God was tired of hearing all the bickering. Finally fed up, God said, “THAT’S IT! I have had enough. I am going to set up a test that will run…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":199,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nJesus vs. Satan- the Computing Showdown - The Bible and Culture<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/2008\/03\/jesus-vs-satan-the-computing-showdown.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jesus vs. Satan- the Computing Showdown - The Bible and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Jesus and Satan were having an ongoing argument about who was better on the computer. 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A graduate of UNC, Chapel Hill, he went on to receive the M.Div. degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. from the University of Durham in England. He is now considered one of the top evangelical scholars in the world, and is an elected member of the prestigious SNTS, a society dedicated to New Testament studies. Witherington has also taught at Ashland Theological Seminary, Vanderbilt University, Duke Divinity School and Gordon-Conwell. A popular lecturer, Witherington has presented seminars for churches, colleges and biblical meetings not only in the United States but also in England, Estonia, Russia, Europe, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Australia. He has also led tours to Italy, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Jordan, and Egypt. Witherington has written over thirty books, including The Jesus Quest and The Paul Quest, both of which were selected as top biblical studies works by Christianity Today. He also writes for many church and scholarly publications, and is a frequent contributor to the Beliefnet website. Along with many interviews on radio networks across the country, Witherington has been seen on the History Channel, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, The Discovery Channel, A&E, and the PAX Network.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/author\/bwitherington"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/199"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/bibleandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}