Formation through Social Media
This month we’ve been examining how various forms of media both form and deform us to look more or less like Jesus. There is a song from Seeds Family Worship that I used to sing with my kids. It is from Matthew 12:34 and the line that often comes to mind is “out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.” I looked that passage up this week to read the verses around it and remember what Jesus was talking about.
Matthew 12:33-37 (The Bible for Everyone)
You must make up your mind between two possibilities, Jesus went on. Either the tree is good, in which case its fruit is good; or the tree is bad, in which case its fruit is bad. You can tell the tree by its fruits, after all. You’re a family of snakes! How can you say good things when you’re bad inside? What the mouth speaks is what fills the heart. A good person produces good things from good storerooms; an evil person produces evil things from an evil storeroom. Let me tell you this: on judgment day people will have to own up to every trivial word they say. Yes: you will be vindicated by your own words - and you will be condemned by your own words.
In the few verses before these, starting in verse 22, Jesus was talking to the Pharisees. Jesus had just healed a demon-possessed man and the Pharisees accused him of being able to cast out demons because he was in league with Beelzebul, the prince of demons. Jesus dialogues with them about how it wouldn’t make sense for him to cast out demons if he were in league with them - if he were evil, why would he want to diminish the evil around them? It doesn’t make sense. But then he says something remarkable in verse 28. “But if I’m casting out demons because I’m in league with God’s spirit - well, then, God’s kingdom has arrived on your doorstep!”
God’s kingdom has arrived on your doorstep! Think about that. This declaration is incredibly profound - both then and now.
In verse 33 when Jesus says you must make up your mind between two possibilities he is saying to the Pharisees either you believe I am evil and causing division among my own clan, or I am good and bringing hope, and life, and redemption on behalf of Almighty God. Then he basically says to them if you can’t see this let me say it another way. “A good person produces good things from good storerooms” or “an evil person produces evil things from an evil storeroom.”
What we really believe eventually comes out in our words.
So when we think about the idea of social media I think it is worth pausing and asking the question what do our words convey? Do they demonstrate hearts transformed by love, or do they depict something vile?
I think it is equally important to ask how the words we consume are conveyed. Are they words that lead us to be more loving, or do they incite us to rage and anger?
I want to challenge you to take a look at the settings on your phone this week. If you use an Android I’m sorry these steps won’t apply, but I bet you still have this data somewhere on your phone. If you use an Apple phone open your Settings and then click on Screen Time. Go ahead and hit See All Activity. Take a minute to scroll through this data.
You can see that your daily and weekly numbers are broken down by how your time is spent online via your phone. If you scroll down a little further you can see how many times a day you pick up your phone. All of this is just data. It isn’t a judgment, it is just an observation. But it is data worth sitting with and asking questions about. Are you happy with what you see? Would you change anything? At the end of the day did your time online help you look more like Jesus?
If we want good fruit to come from our storehouse we have to pay attention to what is filling those rooms. I’m not suggesting we ignore the hard things of the world, or that we never engage in online spaces, rather I’m suggesting we remember that God’s kingdom has arrived at our doorstep and we need guidance from the Spirit so that the overflow of our heart leaves others wanting more of Jesus, not less.
May our words be beacons of light in every space we enter this week.
~ Melissa