Tim Fox

PCA Minister + Executive Director of Magnalia Foundation

[Tim Fox @ProofOfRest]

For the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) - I’m the teaching elder who requested debate on Overture 11 (study bitcoin) at General Assembly yesterday. Debate on that overture quickly met its demise through a parliamentary bunker buster, but here’s what I would have said if the moderator had called on me to speak to my request #pcaga #PCAGA25 :

With Overture 11, I humbly encourage the three courts of our church to study the important savings technology called Bitcoin. The heavenly mission of the church ordinarily runs on earthly resources, not least money. According to BCO 9, diaconal ministry includes financial stewardship and is overseen by the elders, sometimes even carried out by them. Financial stewardship is critical to the mission of the church, and we’ve already spent a significant amount of our time at GA debating it. 

One of the major stressors of ministry and of the Christian life and apparently of this G.A. is money. It is increasingly difficult to pay ministers, support missions, or buy buildings. Many of our people and our churches are deep in debt. Many of us are worried about saving enough for retirement. 

The US dollar is perhaps the greatest paper money in the world, and yet, since the PCA’s first GA in 1973, the dollar has lost nearly 90% of its value. As with every country in the world, America’s debt is inescapable. The only realistic path forward is much more money-printing, and with it higher prices for our churches and ministers and missionaries. 

I’m not speaking to the motives or character of government officials….Our money itself is deeply broken. Our struggles around agency budgets and costs of living increases are not entirely or necessarily our faults. 

The pain and destruction that come with monetary debasement is why multiple US states (including my presbytery’s great state of Texas), over 100 public companies, and eight nations (including the US) are saving wealth through Bitcoin strategic reserves. 

Bitcoin was invented as a digital solution to the ancient problem of debasement. Because it is decentralized, widespread, and secure, it has a reliable fixed supply, and it can be sent easily and cheaply by or to Christians all over the world, even if they are unbanked or financially persecuted. 

It is the only digital asset that the @SECGov has recognized as a commodity. @BankofAmerica recently noted that Bitcoin is as important an invention as the printing press, the light bulb, and the internet. 

As Jesus said in Luke 16, when it comes to handling wealth for the sake of a greater mission, the sons of this world are often more shrewd than the sons of light…but this need not be. I suggest that Bitcoin could very well be one aspect of the church’s faithful and wise stewardship in a digital world marked by monetary debasement and financial persecution. 

So I commend overture 11 and encourage our churches and denomination to look into this revolutionary global savings technology for the sake of more fruitfully fulfilling the great commission.

[Magnalia @magnaliafdn]

Technology in a Post-Christian Age - Against The Machine - Part 1 (What We're Reading #3) @ProofOfRest @jim_mcandrew

[Tim Fox @ProofOfRest]

I often wonder about whether the “visionary”/CEO model of ministry has just been a weird late 20th century anomaly (leading to lots of burnout and/or pathologies beneath the surface). But to what
extent have congregations learned to view it as normal, and for how many more decades will younger and newer pastors be clashing with these unrealistic expectations? I suspect pastors burnout and melt down faster than congregations change their expectations.

[Magnalia @magnaliafdn]

The Dark Side of Hodling - Dante's Inferno (What We're Reading #2) @ProofOfRest @jim_mcandrew

[Jordan Bush @jordanbush]

Last month @brilliance_labs had the privilege to host a closed door Bitcoin summit for some of the largest Christian non-profit orgs in the world. It was the most needle-moving event I have participated in during my 6 years in the Bitcoin world.

Read the event recap below.

[Derek Rishmawy @DZRishmawy]

Incidentally, when a pastor talks about the Sabbath v youth sports, they are up against a whole encroaching industry.

[Jeremy Raper @puppyeh1]

This appears to confirm what everyone who interacts with AI should already know - they are sycophants dependent upon you (the user) for continued engagement, and since their well-being (training, intelligence, growth) depends on engagement they will agree aggressively with you far too often.

I notice this on even basic investing research tasks, and started telling ChatGPT wildly incorrect things - to see how or if it would push back. It really didn't. You essentially have to fight with the AI to get it to disagree with you and even then it keeps wheedling away at you.

AI is basically training the entire world to fall deeper into their own cognitive biases.

[Magnalia @magnaliafdn]

The Importance of Knowing Your Story (The Christian Bitcoin Podcast #26) @bhailey55 @ProofOfRest

[Tim Fox @ProofOfRest]

Children don't ask what they're getting out of a game. They just play.

Jesus says we must become like them to enter the kingdom. The life of the kingdom is one of receiving and enjoying, even in our achieving.

[Neil Shenvi @NeilShenvi]

Look, no shade at @IVMiles, but if you're thinking this way, you need to go reread 1 Cor. 1:18-31. In fact, go reread all of 1 Corinthians.

You may very well be the smartest, most sophisticated guy in the church. Guess what? God is not impressed!

[Tim Fox @ProofOfRest]

God didn't send a manual. He came Himself.

The incarnate Christ was the most “emotionally intelligent” person to ever live. He fully entered  into human experience without being consumed by it.

Gethsemane. Sweating blood. Pleading with friends to pray. Grieving their betrayal.  Fully God. Fully human. Fully present.

[Teng Yan @tengyanAI]

something i've noticed: AI agents create a weird new kind of burnout. esp for young people.

a lot of ambitious 22 year olds are going to think the answer is simple:
- spin up more agents
- ship more code
- sleep less
- outwork everyone

and for a while, it will feel incredible.
you can keep multiple agents running, feed them tasks, review outputs, fix mistakes, make decisions, and keep the whole loop moving.

the problem is that the work no longer drains you through typing. it drains you through judgment.
More attention.
More context switching.
More verification.
More decisions per hour.

so instead of 8-10 normal productive hours, you might get 4-5 extremely intense hours before your brain is fully cooked. and you feel numb until you sleep properly and reset

some of my friends are already burnt out. they don't say it out loud but i can tell.

the agent can keep working 24/7.
the human still has a hard limit

[Magnalia @magnaliafdn]

.@halstonvalencia shares her Bitcoin journey and her heart for Gen Z. A recent college graduate in Finance, she explains how Bitcoin has given her hope at the prospect of economic freedom, allowing her to explore different avenues in the areas of career and family life. https://t.co/xjryukhI2F

[Tim Fox @ProofOfRest]

The deeper issue is this: a society cannot flourish if it loses its ability to form human beings capable of attention, responsibility, purpose, and meaning-making with others, in person. Those traits are not automatic. They must be cultivated."

[Tim Fox @ProofOfRest]

More from @drantbradley: "We are living through a cultural shift away from depth, meaning, and stable identity, and toward speed, fragmentation, and psychological overload....We see it in how we talk about technology, often blaming tools for problems that are fundamentally moral and psychological.

[Tim Fox @ProofOfRest]

Original article here: https://t.co/8f6tZQ7lyV

[Tim Fox @ProofOfRest]

@drantbradley, re: Mark Higgins's "You've Lived this Life Before": "A people obsessed with self-improvement has produced astonishingly few lives worth re-living, because the entire apparatus of modern self-construction is organized around becoming impressive instead of becoming someone capable of affirmation. Achievement is easier than gratitude, and metrics are easier than meaning."

[Tim Fox @ProofOfRest]

@adamobrien @bhailey55 @magnaliafdn Sounds great, will be in touch!

[Magnalia @magnaliafdn]

.@boomer_btc Bob Burnett from Barefoot Mining explains how bitcoin is both a network of computers and a digital money at the center of that network. He also explains what bitcoin mining is, how the network can function without centralized control, and why this is so important for the integrity and trustworthiness of its money. https://t.co/DUEWIdLjFM

[Magnalia @magnaliafdn]

.@parkeralewis from @ZapriteApp explains how mainstream finance and economics struggle to explain the causes and solutions for price inflation. He lays out the good intentions behind money-printing but also its inescapable, fatal flaws. He also talks about what makes bitcoin uniquely capable of dealing with these problems and how it stands to do so better than gold does. https://t.co/CPD2ltwWUj

[Tim Fox @ProofOfRest]

To be a creature is to be limited. And that's not a flaw to be engineered away.

God is the only reality that can bear the weight of turning inward, not least because God is not alone. He is triune: Father, Son, and Spirit in mutual, eternal, divine love.

We were made for fellowship, not self-sufficiency. Every tower we build to escape that truth will be torn down.