I created a Twitter/X account for myself, but also associated with this blog. If you’re a Twitter user, follow me @theSonwillrise1 and I’ll be sharing short thoughts and other interesting things I find.
Looking forward to seeing some of you there!
Tag Social Media
From Art to Dopamine Addiction
I don’t post a lot of external articles, but this one really caught my attention. It’s a fascinating explanation of how art became entertainment, which became distractions, and how those are becoming an addiction. And it’s not by accident.
Very much worth the read (about 8 minutes)
Don’t Fear Jezebel’s Algorithm
Sometimes we can get frustrated with the way the media, either traditional or social, seems to ignore or block out positive stories about God or Christianity. Online networks like X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook can be very efficient at this, using complex algorithms to filter information, but on top of that human editors can intervene and block users they decide don’t fit their “community standards.” However, resistance to spreading God’s word is as old as time, and God has never needed the assistance of any kind of media to accomplish what He wants to accomplish.
Consider the Old Testament story of Elijah, who prophesied during the reign of Israel’s evil king Ahab and his wife Jezebel. According to Who’s Who in the Bible, “Jezebel devoted herself to bringing the worship of Baal and his consort Asherah to Israel. She employed 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophetesses of Asherah (1 Kings 18:19), and persecuted the prophets of the Lord, including Elijah (1 Kings 19:1-9).”[1] Many prophets were killed.
Elijah despaired, as written in 1 Kings 19:10 – “I have been very jealous for the LORD, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.” It was as if all Christian voices but Elijah had been silenced by the authorities, and even he couldn’t feel safe.
Apostles also struggled to stay strong, including Paul. When he was frustrated at resistance and lack of progress in Corinth, “the Lord said to Paul one night in a vision, ‘Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people.”[2]
When Paul needed an example to encourage others to persist, he used Elijah’s story in Romans 11:2 – “God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel? ‘Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life.’ But what is God’s reply to him? ‘I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.’” Corinth seemed like a lost cause, but God reminded Paul not to trust his own judgment. God had it under control.
Therefore, our hope is not in the editors of our newspaper, or in social networks where we can share God’s message, or in the benevolence of the programmers of algorithms that choose who sees what we post, or in the regulators and legislators who monitor the public square, or in the founding political documents that give us rights. But:
“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
and do not return there but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” – Isaiah 55:10-11
Like Jezebel killing all the prophets while promoting Baal and Asherah, censorship of Christian content may seem to be everywhere. However, social network algorithms, editors, regulators, and governments are not our enemy, but our enemy is the one who tries to convince us we need these things more than we need the God who made them and who made us all. His word will accomplish its purpose, and we have Elijah’s and Paul’s words and actions as evidence.
“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?” – Romans 8:31
[1] Gardner, Paul D., editor. The Complete Who’s Who in the Bible. (1995)
[2] Acts 18:9-10
The World is Watching
In the Apostle Paul’s letter to the young church in first-century Philippi, he wrote: “Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us.”[1]
When Paul wrote this, the gospels of Mark and John probably weren’t written yet, and the other two may not have been broadly available. New Christians couldn’t easily read about Christ, so Paul recommends learning about Him through His other followers. What can people learn about Christ from us on our blogs, social media, and elsewhere?
“Out of a hundred people, one will read the Bible, and the other ninety-nine will read the Christian.” – Dwight L. Moody
[1] Philippians 3:17
The Tribulation of the Cross, Part 1
Do you ever get so frustrated with the world that you just want to check out? I certainly do. For example, as a blogger who posts to both Facebook and on WordPress, for me it is a lot easier to keep up with WordPress, since I can choose to see only what I want to see. Facebook, on the other hand, exists to sell advertising and sometimes the best advertising is the kind that sparks emotion – even (or especially) bad emotions.
While Facebook is great for keeping up with friends and family, it recently started adding a ton of posts with statements like “The time is coming when good people will have to do bad things to very bad people,” along with other sarcastic, angry, and bitter political posts. After a few days they must have tweaked their method again, and most of these went away. Like many, I like to have my comfortable space where I’m in control, and I didn’t want to be on Facebook while knowing they were trying (and, sadly, succeeding) at manipulating my emotions. I started feeling sarcastic, angry, and bitter, which was by their design. Sometimes I ask myself why I am even there?
Some surprising advice comes in Philippians 2:6-8, where Paul writes about Jesus that, “though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” In times when I want to check out from the uncomfortable parts of living in this world, these verses remind me that Jesus, as God, might have taken an attitude of preferring to stay in a comfortable space where He could be in control, but instead He jumped into the mess that is this world we see every day to show the world what love is.
Another verse that calls this to mind is the familiar John 3:16 – “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
When I’m struggling to face the world as I see it, I ask about John 3:16, “Exactly which world did Jesus love enough to die for?” The answer is this one. The world He died for is the one where sex, anger, bitter tribalism, and political partisanship sells. The one with a lot of sarcastic, angry, and bitter people. The one with a lot of people who are more like us than we’d usually like to admit. The one where it’s easy for our love to grow cold if we focus on the problems, and not on the cross, where God took the punishment for all of it.
To be continued tomorrow…
Driving Toward the Morning Sun 