Desiring God | 1 month ago
Social media feeds are often infernos of insults and anger. How can Christians engage online in ways that make much of Christ?
Social media has become an inferno of insults and anger. And sometimes even professing Christians add to the rage without thinking about the foolishness of spewing verbal abuses. We need to do better. And this leads to today’s question from a young man, a listener to the podcast who writes this: “Hello, Pastor John. My father is a pastor who spends a lot of his time engaging with people on social media, often using demeaning and insulting language in the process. This can range anywhere from calling people liars for saying things he disagrees with, to straight up calling them stupid.
“He seems to excuse this behavior with the mindset that ‘it’s not insulting if it’s the truth,’ but it still makes me very uncomfortable to see this behavior from him, both as my dad and my pastor. In my view, it directly goes against Scripture’s call for us not to ‘revile in return’ but to bless (1 Peter 2:23), and for our speech to ‘always be gracious, seasoned with salt’ (Colossians 4:6). I’m a young Christian, and I know that my knowledge of spiritual matters is often lacking, but it’s been burning my conscience to think that my dad might be engaging in sinful behavior online. I greatly would like to know your take on the matter.”
Read or listen to this interview at our website: https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/before-you-tweet-criticism-six-considerations
Find other recent and popular Ask Pastor John episodes: https://www.desiringgod.org/ask-pastor-john
