Thus you will know them by their MySpace

Posted on Jul 04, 2007 under The Social Christian |

 

 

 

I’m sorry I mean Fruit

“Matthew 7:15-20″

15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.

16 You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?

17 So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit.

18 A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit.

19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

20 Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.

I have put off writing about this for a long time. My wife has a friend that she cares a lot about who is a big fan of MySpace. She claims to be a child of God but sometimes you wonder by her MySpace page. I never thought that much about it till I found out a Christian band that I was a big fan of in my younger days had put out a new record. So I went in search of their website so I could possibly check it out. I come to find out they do not have a website. They do however have a MySpace page. I click the link and lo and behold I am greeted by the obligatory friends list. I am shocked to see most of the friends really need some clothes. I close the link in my web browser and begin to get really angry. I count to ten, calm down, and then I begin to formulate an email to send them asking why they are allowing all these mostly nude women to be listed as their friends. Are we not to abstain from even the appearance of evil?

“1 Thessalonians 5:21-22″

21 but test everything; hold fast what is good.

22 Abstain from every form of evil.

I was quite blown away; I could not understand why they would allow this. I can understand if you can’t afford a website. But you could always find some fan to monitor your MySpace page and delete friends that violate the code of conduct I would expect from someone who calls himself or herself a Christian. This is a problem all across MySpace. So we need to answer some questions for someone who may not know what MySpace is.

What is MySpace?

MySpace is a social networking site. It is a place where you network with your friends. In the process you may see some other people that your friends may have in their list. You then get to know these people, and your friends begin to multiply faster than the tribbles in star trek . So now you have this big pool of friends. Some you know well, some you may just be getting to know. This is the problem; you see Satan is a slick guy. He uses every tool at his disposal, and this is one of them. So this brings me to my wife’s friend, I am not picking on this person. I just have personally watched this with my own eyes.

What is Blog?

One of the facilities of the social network is a blog. What is a blog you ask? It is kind of like an online diary. So with most of the social networking sites this diary is open to the entire network of people, unless you limit it to only people who you have accepted as your friends.

So back to my wife’s friend, this was a person who loved God, and God seemed to be the focus of their life. My wife met this person around six or seven years ago when she was looking for a job. This person became my wife’s best friend and my wife really came to love this person. We were not married yet, and time went on and we fixed that. Right after we were married my job took us to Knoxville, but this did not cool their friendship. When we moved back we discovered something though. My wife’s friend had a lot of friends from school and they were all part of this new thing called MySpace. We got to see all their blogs, and we could tell really quickly these people were not Christians.

“1 Corinthians 15:33″

33 Do not be deceived: Bad company ruins good morals.

What we saw next was just that. We could see really quickly the dangers that were coming. We began to see blog posts discussing how good a television program that celebrated homosexuality was. We began to see their list of non-Christian friends grow and Christian friends shrink. We began to look at this person’s friends post to see what they were like. We saw one of them was a post-modernist in the typical view of “who are you to say that Christianity is the only way”. As more and more blog posts happened that were contrary to the ways of God and the Bible. The more distant my wife’s friendship became. After reading a series of posts where this person and their friends had been going to homosexual bars we felt it was time to confront them. We told them how concerned we were and how we had been reading MySpace. The response we got was to be blocked from a lot of the future posts. But the purpose of this whole story is relating to the post they put up immediately after the confrontation. The post basically stated that MySpace is not who they were as a person. Since that day that same thing has been repeated on this persons blog about other things they have posted.

The problem with this logic is that it is wrong. The problem with social networking sites whether they are MySpace, Facebook, or the site that started the whole trend Friendster is that you are opening your life to who ever happens to come across the site. Now we all are sinners so I am not picking on anyone (1). I think the change that has happened in this generation is lack of shame. We all have had issues we have struggled with in our lives. But are you ashamed of your sins (2), and do you only (3) relate them to people you want to (4) help keep you accountable unto God. Or do you only keep them between you and God. Either way we are supposed to be the salt and light of this world and these are the appropriate ways to handle our shortcomings.

(1) Now we are all self-centered instead of God-centered. We generally live to please ourselves and many Christians struggle with this so I am not picking on any one person.
(2) struggles, selfishness and shortcomings

(3) wisely and exclusively

(4) who will “James 5:16″

“Matthew 5:13-16″

13 “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.

14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.

15 Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house.

16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

What does salt do?

There are so many ways to look at this. It was valuable, often used as currency. It was a disinfectant, it was rubbed into wounds (ouch), it was used to preserve meat and keep it from turning rotten. These were a few uses, and we know we live in a rotten world. Some people take it as a call for evangelism because meat can’t be cured if the salt is not rubbed into it. We can also look at in regards to reformed theology. Salt itself, sodium chloride, is extremely stable and cannot lose its flavor, so salt that has lost its flavor cannot ever literally refer to actual salt.

Being a light has just as many things to look at especially in regards to being a city on a hill, put on a stand, and not hid under a basket. Matthew states that the lamp shines on all who are in the house, implying conversion from within the community; Luke has the lamp shining for those who come into the house, implying new people joining it. What you are seeing in Matthew is the true use of social networking, and evangelism. Our biggest opportunities to share Christ are within our spheres of influence. Not yelling at people on street corners, or begging for donations on television.

I do not see this on MySpace from the bulk of people who call themselves Christians. The people who profess Christianity but yet have the newest rap song playing on their site that is filled with profanity and degradation of women. Or the comments that are posted by their friends that include so much profanity you can’t read them. The saddest thing is the so-called Christian bands that allow the mostly nude people on their friend’s lists allow this same behavior as well. These are the role models that a lot of these people look up too. I have commented on the way Christians are supposed to present themselves to the world. To say “do not judge me by my MySpace page” is just as real in the secular arena as well. Here are some links to just a few articles relating to people who have lost their jobs, denied a diploma, and denied jobs all over their MySpace pages

1. Entry Level Job Seekers - It’s Time To Reconsider the Web
2. You Only Have Yourself To Blame: People Losing Jobs Over Social Network Profiles
3. Lis Riba says she learned about indiscreet blogging the hard way
4. Restaurant GM Fired Over MySpace.com Photo
5. MySpace Web Page Costs Teacher Her Job
6. Meteorologist Fired After Friend Posts Nude Picture of Him on MySpace

One of the things I have learned as a father is that my child watches everything I do, good and bad. The world watches Christians in the same way. We are to be the light in a dark world. So when you are posting in your blog on your favorite social networking site. Remember you are putting out your fruit for the world to see. Is it good fruit or is it rotten?