The Biblical basis for ... blogging?

In returning to blogging after a long absence (see the posts in 2008-10 as an example) I have sometimes considered a rather fundamental question: "why bother?" There are many successful blogs out there, no doubt influencing the thoughts of thousands of people each, but do I really believe that mine would reach that kind of influence? And if it did, what'd be the point anyway? Why do people need to know what I think at all?

Answering a question about a specific case is often difficult unless you have some concept of the bigger picture. A simple way of getting to the big picture is to generalise your own question first, then see if it becomes easier to answer. So if I ask, why do people need to know what I think at all? I can generalise by saying, why do people need to know what anyone thinks or has ever thought? In other words, what is the basis for pedagogy? In today's news there are few articles about the subject of education that don't implicitly or explicitly assume that education is important. I don't think anyone really stops to think of why this is, and why not? Is it so obvious that it doesn't require answering? In some ways it is - it is fairly clear that education has been a large influence in the advancement of Western society to the technological state we experience today. But then once you assert that it's good for building civilisation you have to ask, what is the basis for the desirability of civilisation?

As a Christian I try to take my guidance from what the Bible says about such things. It has plenty of words advising parents to teach their children God's Law, and about the history of God's people. Those things are important but they don't obviously illustrate the basis for general teaching of accumulated knowledge that is not directly about God, by which I mean all we have learned through science, logic, mathematics, philosophy and history. To find the basis for trying to understand nature and ourselves we need look no further than Genesis 1 where God said to the freshly minted mankind: "Fill the Earth and subdue it, and have dominion." To prepare us for the special duty of having dominion over the Earth and being faithful stewards of it, he provided us with curiosity about Himself. This curiosity spills over into curiosity about nature so that we ask the following two questions: how can we be better stewards of the people and land over which God has given us authority? what can we learn about God's nature from His creation?

Taken together, those questions ensure pedagogy, because as much as we have learned about how to do the first and what we have found out through the second, we have to teach our children and fellows so that whatever we have found that improves our ability to live in creation continues to influence future generations without them having to rediscover it, and whatever we have marvelled at in creation, if we pass on that knowledge our descendants can improve and expand on it.

To think that we have achieved all we see only in the last hundred years is a mistake. The 20th century was preceded by the 19th, and they weren't exactly living in caves. We think we are so advanced and enlightened, and we are, but we stand on the shoulders of thousands of generations of enquirers who, through their persistance, and by passing their knowledge on, have blessed every generation that has come after them. The cumulative effect of all this skill is the modern information age in which we live, and we are charged to be equally diligent in asking those two fundamental questions so that future generations can be blessed by us.

So that's the long answer as to why I should blog: I think of things other people might not, and if I don't pass them on, then what is the good of me ever having thought of them at all?