The Sandpaper of the Mind - Part 6

The Algorithm is Not Your Pastor: Why Truth Requires Flesh and Bone

There’s no shortage of truth-sounding content online (clips, quotes, commentaries, motivational reels, ten-second theology) but none of it will disciple you. Because truth, real truth, doesn’t travel well through screens. It has to be embodied. Lived. Witnessed. And that means it needs flesh and bone. The algorithm is not your pastor. The feed is not your church. YouTube is not your elder board. We were made to sit across from one another. To hear the tone. See the eyes. Feel the weight of presence. That’s where conviction happens; not in pixels, but in proximity.

Paul told the Thessalonians: “We were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us” (1 Thessalonians 2:8).

Not just ideas. Selves. Souls. Presence.

Digital discipleship is a contradiction in terms. You can be informed online, maybe even inspired. But you cannot be formed. Formation requires presence. Accountability. Suffering witnessed and shared. C.S. Lewis warned that friendship begins when one man says to another, “What! You too?” But that only happens when men talk with mouths, not emojis.

Tennyson understood this too. In “Ulysses,” the aged king longs not for comfort, but for comrades: “Though much is taken, much abides…that which we are, we are… / One equal temper of heroic hearts, / Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will.” Ulysses doesn’t want a distant throng. He wants a crew. Men who row beside him. Shared will. Shared wounds. That’s the difference between consuming truth and living it: community.

In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle defines virtue as something cultivated through habit and community. You can’t grow wise in a vacuum. You need real eyes on your soul. Real feedback. Real pushback. But the modern man thinks a podcast episode is enough. That a Twitter thread is the same as counsel. That a sermon clip replaces submission.

It doesn’t.

Whoever the author of the letter to the Hebrews is, he didn’t mince words: “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together… but encouraging one another” (Hebrews 10:24–25). You can’t stir up another man from your bedroom. You can’t be sharpened by an algorithm. You can’t be known without being near. The screen gives the illusion of intimacy without cost. That’s not community. That’s counterfeit.

So what do we do?

You find a church that preaches the Word. You sit under a real pastor. You share a table with real men. You confess sins out loud. You ask hard questions face-to-face. You open your home. You get interrupted. You get rebuked. You hug the brother who just called out your pride. That’s discipleship. That’s truth. That’s the Christian life. Because the algorithm doesn’t love you. But Christ does. And He sends His love through His people. Don’t settle for signal. Seek presence. Truth needs flesh and bone.

And so do you.