An Observation
There is a place to which the kingdom of God has not extended in the American church, and that is Facebook.  Christians seem to think that though God can probe our deepest thoughts, he can’t read our online accounts.  Facebook is to Christians what a long stretch of empty highway is to a compulsive speed-demon, that is, the one place where the authorities can’t see you get away with it.

Except on Facebook, everyone sees it.  I once talked to a man who wouldn’t even consider church because, he said, he looked at what Christians had written on Facebook.

When Jesus says things like “love your enemy,” “turn the other cheek,” and “bless and do not curse,” those commands actually extend not only finally but firstly to our casual daily interactions that seem virtually insignificant.  Those teachings extend primarily into the mundane.  I look at Christians’ Facebook pages that are a long string of insults of political figures, divergent ideologies, and other religions, and I wonder what they’re trying to accomplish.  No one is converted by hatred.

Facebook is a center for childish gossip among those who claim to believe that action without love is just noise (1 Cor. 13).  I once confronted someone about gossip and he told me I just had a different definition of gossip than him.  Going around and talking about what you don’t like about an individual is gossip, no matter why you feel justified in doing it.  We may think a political figure is a viable target, but an intelligent and kind-hearted follower of Jesus should know how to critique a political position without spewing venom. When we talk about our enemies, we are still required to speak in love.  If you don’t love, you don’t know God (1 John 4:8).

A Challenge

Scroll back through your Facebook page and ask yourself a question about each recent post.  “Does this show that Jesus loves a lost world?” (Do this on your own social media accounts, not on someone else’s.)  And maybe as an act of holy worship today, you need to delete some of the junk you shouldn’t have posted in the first place.

A Disclaimer

You get a pass for pictures of food, cats, Star Wars memes, and so forth. ; )