Facebook has been a joy for me the
past three weeks because 2 years ago at this time, our family was on our big
Sabbatical trip to Russia, Ethiopia, and Egypt.
On the anniversary of Candy and I posting the pictures from that trip,
those pictures pop-up. So, every day, Facebook’s
daily memories feature has taken me back to a very happy and meaningful
time. I know not everyone uses Facebook,
and what I have to share will probably reinforce your decision to stay off it,
but I thank God for the way this technology has been a blessing. However …
Another use of Facebook is the
comment thread, where arguments rage. Person
1 posts a meme or a snarky quote. Or,
Person 1 posts an opinion. Every one of
his 400 friends sees his post, including those “friends,” he doesn’t really
know. He met this guy, Person 2, at a
convention last year and they discussed business so when Person 2 sent Person 1
a friend request, Person 1 accepted.
But
he doesn’t really know Person 2 and has not seen him since that
convention. Of his 400 Facebook friends,
50 are people he doesn’t really know. So
now, he posts his silly meme that pokes fun at some political figure. Business convention guy, Person 2, doesn’t
like the joke, so, in the comments section he writes a message railing against
this anti-American, racist, anti-Christian meme that Person 1 posted for a
laugh.
Person
1 is not online when Person 2 posts his angry comments. Person 1 has gone to bed. But, one of his other Facebook “friends,”
someone from his high school days, someone he hasn’t seen in 15 years, snipes
back. We’ll call this one Person 3. With
vitriol, he snaps back at what Person 2 wrote in the comments section of Person
1’s quote. Persons 2 and 3 don’t know
each other; they’ve never met. Yet here
they are fighting under Person 1’s post which was just meant to be silly.
In
fact before Person 1 gets back to his computer, 5 different people from his
friends group – all five completely unknown to each other – have become
embroiled in a no-holds-barred Facebook comments section donnybrook. Under his silly meme, there are 20 comments
that include profanity bad enough to make a sailor blush, accusations of
treason, and prophecies of the end of days.
This
kind of conflict – I know we don’t use this word in church often, but I’m going
to – is stupid. Massively stupid. And the even stupider thing is I get sucked
into these things. This is not
hypothetical or something I’ve heard about.
I get sucked in even when I have vowed not to.
This
week, I saw one of my friend post a meme and I spent about 10 good minutes
typing up my fiery response. Thank you Jesus, I deleted what I wrote
without sending it. Facebook, I have
learned things through conversations I’ve had on your platform. Because you remind me, I remember greats
times in my life. But Facebook, I am not
going to allow you to make me develop enemies or lead me into pointless
conflicts that accomplish nothing and go nowhere.
Some
of you who know me and know my Facebook activity are looking at me and
thinking, “O Rob, you already do that.”
All I can say is I’m not going to … anymore. At least I’ll try not to. Non-Facebook users, don’t judget those of us
who do use it. There’s a lot of good to
be done in that platform and even if you don’t use that form of social media, there
are chances you too have been in disputes that are pointless and avoidable,
just not there. The conflicts that develop in Facebook threads are not worth
it. Many conflicts in which we find ourselves can minimized or altogether
avoided.
However,
in 1 Corinthians 2, Paul, the author of this letter, sets up an “us versus
them” conflict that he feels is very important.
Speaking
of himself and the Christians with him he writes, “We do speak wisdom, though
it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age” (2:6). On one side, in the conflict Paul identifies,
stands the believers, those who, along with Paul, follow, serve, and worship
God as God is revealed in Jesus. Opposed
to the Christ-followers are the rulers of this age. In 1:18, Paul calls them “those who are
perishing.” They are lost, and without
Christ, lost to God eternally. In 1:19
he calls them “the wise,” in 1:20, “the debaters of this age,” and in 1:22-23
he implies that these are Jews and Gentiles who do not believe in Jesus. Paul believes without Jesus, people are lost. We can choose to reject God’s self-revelation
in Jesus Christ, and many do.
In
1:25, Paul refers to “human wisdom” and “human strength,” which is weaker and
less wise than God’s foolishness and weakness.
Paul calls them “rulers of this age” in 2:6 and again in 2:8. That phrase is key for our understanding
because it transports this teaching from Paul’s first century Roman-Corinthian
context to our 20th century American context. We have rulers and trendsetters and
influencers in our age who are as enamored with their own smarts,
accomplishments, power, wealth, and position as were the rulers of the age in
Paul’s day. Like in Paul’s day, rulers of
our age do not humble themselves before God.
They constantly seek glory for themselves.
Yelling
with exclamation points, all-caps, and angry emojis on Facebook accomplishes
little. But seeing it and understanding
that people are far from God, and often their lust for status is why they are far
from God is important. We don’t want to
emulate this worldly pursuit of Earthly glory – the American dream or the good
life or whatever you want to call it. We
don’t chase that. In fact, for Paul,
chasing after earthly things is destructive for our faith.
Chapter
2 verse 7 indicates that “us versus them” mindset Paul has. While “they” are doomed to perish, he writes
in verse 7, “we speak God’s wisdom” and “none of the rulers of this age
[understand]) (v.8). Are Christians
smarter than non-Christians? Not by a
long shot. That we can see God in Jesus
does not come about from our supreme intelligence. In chapter 1 Paul wrote, “Consider your own
call, brothers and sisters, not many of you were wise by human standards, not
many were powerful, not many of noble birth” (1:26). So how do we who are in Christ understand
who Jesus is and give Him the worship and allegiance he is due?
Paul
writes in 1 Corinthians 2:9 that the wisdom of God is prepared “for those who
love Him.” I want the wisdom of
God. How do I get to be counted among
“those who love him?” Is it as simple as
saying, I really love God, and
meaning it? Maybe. But I don’t trust myself. I know I can love something one minute, and
then get caught up in something, like an inane Facebook argument or a minor
annoyance or something bigger, and that love I professed for God recedes to the
back of my mind. As I tried to
understand 1 Corinthians 2:9 and tried to grasp who it is that loves God and
receives this knowledge, I looked to the Gospels.
In
Mark 5, Jesus freed a man who was enslaved by 1000 demons. They drove the man crazy. When he was freed and made right by Jesus, he
began to truly love God. In Matthew 9, a
woman who suffered non-stop bleeding for 12 years, possibly an obstetric
fistula, was healed by Jesus. She was regarded
as “unclean;” Jesus called her “daughter” as he healed her. She understood what it is to love God. So did the wealthy, despised tax collectors,
Levi in Mark 2 and Zacchaeus in Luke 19. Others hated these me. Jesus welcomed them.
This
sent me on a journey into the gospels. I
went 11 different stories – rich and poor people, healthy and sick, Jewish and
Gentile, powerful and peasant, innocent and guilty – all were marginalized by
society and loved by Jesus. Each one was
aware of the need to humble himself or herself before God, revealed in
Jesus. When they lowered themselves and
saw their own need, they were ready to receive the healing or forgiveness, to
hear the call, and respond to God in faith.
These and so many others in the Gospels are those who love God. I want to be part of that group.
It
is to this group that God has revealed all things through the Spirit. Paul writes that the Spirit “searches
everything, even the depths of God. … No
one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God” (1 Cor
2:10-11). The Holy Spirit is in all
places and possesses all knowledge. The
Holy Spirit sees into the deepest parts of each one of us. Nothing is hidden from God the Spirit.
Of
course our way of experiencing the world is going to be different than people
who have no relationship with Jesus.
Verses 12-13 say “we have received not the spirit of the world, but the
Spirit that is from God.” Without the
Holy Spirit, we cannot understand God’s wisdom.
Once we have humbled ourselves before God and expressed faith in Christ,
we are filled with the Spirit. Then, we
must not go back to seeing and acting in the flesh, from a worldly perspective,
as if God had not acted in us.
This
is one more way Paul points out the conflict between Christians and the rulers
of the age. “Those who are unspiritual,”
as it is worded in verse 15, “do not receive gifts of God’s Spirit.” They cannot understand God’s ways and are cut
off from God as their gaze is fixed on human ideas of power and wisdom and
success.
So,
if we want divine perspective, holy joy, and eternal life, we need to be among
those who love God in Christ and receive the Holy Spirit. As we have already said, the first step is to
humble ourselves as sinners in need of forgiveness. Humbled before God, we confess, repent, and
receive Jesus.
But
then what? We are among those who are in
Christ, the recipients of God’s wisdom through the Holy Spirit. What about the world around us, the people
still stuck in the world, still cut off from God? Are they lost forever?
Of
course not. Jesus’ death on the cross is
effective for the salvation of all sinners.
How do we help unbelievers turn to God?
Hint: we don’t do it through red-faced angry Facebook arguments. We don’t get there through in-person
arguments either. We follow Jesus and
our friends see Him in us. The Holy
Spirit has to reveal their sin to them and need for God. We stand by as friends, invite them to
church, love as Jesus has loved, and help them when they decide to turn to
Him.
God
has given us his wisdom through His Spirit not to be hidden away or hoarded,
but to be shared. So that’s what we
do. We follow Jesus, we love our
unchurched friends and co-workers and neighbors, and we help them turn from the
vapid promises of our present age to eternal life as children of God, a life
lived by all who have turned to Jesus.
We start by putting needless conflicts behind us and humbling ourselves
before God.
AMEN
No comments:
Post a Comment