Who would have guessed? It was just a simple experiment at the time, an exchange of meaningless data between two machines on Sept. 2, 1969. A little-known UCLA professor named Leonard Kleinrock supervised that small experiment. And he launched arguably the most significant technological revolution in history. He planted the seeds of the Internet.
Bob WeathersNearly four decades later, our entire social and industrial structure is dependent on the Internet. Like me, you depend on e-mail. Like me, you count on the network of computers to be able to complete your work. And like me, you are mortified that some nut might sneak through the net and snatch personal information from your humming PC.
And that’s the rub. Security. While the Internet grew, so did the opportunities for malevolence. And where the opportunity exists, humans will find a way. At the keyboard, we are still sinners.
Furthermore, Kleinrock and his associates never conceived of the colossus that would one day be the Internet. So they did not foresee the needs for security, speed, and the efficient exchange of enormous amounts of information.
How do you address the fact that today’s Internet was actually not designed to do what it must do? Start over. That’s right. Leading researchers at three different universities are working on “clean slate” approaches to providing an Internet that will be adequate for the demands of tomorrow. Scrap what we have, they say, and start all over.
Seems kind of drastic, doesn’t it? Maybe so, but sometimes you cannot bring about the needed change by working with what you have. You have to start with something – well, something completely new. Something – clean.
And so it is with you. Trying to make good people out of sinners, well, that was the Law. Making new people out of old ones – that’s grace. Jesus said, “No one pours new wine into old wineskins” (Mark 2:22). No, God is in the business of making new creatures. That way we don’t have to muddle through, trying to handle temptations with the weakness of our old sinner selves.
A clean slate. Sound good? Give Christ your life. And start over.