While many Christians avoid Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, pastor and author Paul Tripp has confessed his love for social media. Social Media, he argues, can be used as a tool for the teaching the gospel, for encouragement, for building up, and teaching.
But we’ve all seen Social Media used hurtfully, and most of us have made mistakes in who we trust, what we view, what we say, and how we spend our time.
“Social media is just like a screwdriver — a screwdriver you can build beautiful things with … but you could also stab somebody in the face with. It it’s just a tool and social media is a tool that can be used for enormous good.”
Who should you listen to?
“Who are the authoritative voices in your life and how do you know those voices are trustworthy?”
“Be careful who are you listening to, who have become moral authorities in your life — authorities for parenting, authorities for marriage, authorities for building relationships, authorities about moral cultural issues. All of the sudden anybody can rise to a position of authority collect an audience and begin to have followers. Be careful.”
What do we let ourselves drift into online?
“There’s a huge temptation to start one place and to end up in a place that you would be embarrassed if others knew this is where you were spending your time.”
“This tool that is an enormously beneficial for good is also a powerful tool of sin and temptation — and we need to be honest about that.”
“The church is being weakened by that by the fact that we are now comfortable with exposing ourselves to things that we should have we should never expose ourselves to.”
How will we talk online?
“The Bible says I should I should never speak unwholesome communication. By the Bible definition, what follows is not a list of four-letter words that you should never speak. It says speak only what is needful for the moment that gives grace to the hearer. In other words I should always speak in an other centered way. I want everything I say to result in benefit — let me say it this way: God’s definition of benefit — to the person who is listening.”
“I wish this horrible communication that is disrespectful, and negative, and harmful was only outside of the Christian community, but it’s not. I’m amazed even in the Christian community the kind of communication that I don’t think we would do face-to-face. There’s something about the fact that you’re not standing in front of me that makes me able and willing to do things in communication I would never do if you were in the room. It’s wrong and it’s harming us.”
“How much have you allowed yourself to be part of the outrage culture that’s just looking for a reason to be angry — looking for something to rip?”
How will we spend our time?
“There are three areas that God has designed to be the major investments of your time: first is your relationship with him that — personal devotion devotional worshipful time with your Lord. The second is your love of the people in your life — your investment in those relationships. . . . Third is your life of labor: even before the entrance of sin in the world, God ordained human beings to work.”
“When something begins to eat up time, it’s got to eat into something else in my life [like my time with God, my time with my loved ones, or my time working]. So if something like social media with all of its attractiveness and all of the clickbait that keeps you coming back begins to eat up time, it’s got to eat up into priority things that God has called you to invest in. I think that’s happening.”
“It kills me when I’m in a restaurant and I look at a family and mom and dad are on their phones and the two children are huddled in front of an iPad; there’s a wonderful time for a family to be together for the schedule to stop and for them to actually relate to one another.”
“Should Christians Be On Social Media? Ask Paul Tripp”
https://youtu.be/s3BjE9nwfOE
