Ministry and the Internet

In Acts 17 the Bible describes the Internet in general, and social media in particular. A place where people spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing of something new. So, what do we do with that, and what can we learn from Paul?

I was looking again at Paul and his journeys and trials in Acts. In Acts 16 he is imprisoned in Phillippi, along with Silas, after having been beaten with rods for preaching the gospel and, ‘turning the world upside down.’

Before the end of the chapter the jailer and his family came to a living faith in Christ, and the police and magistrate came and apologised for their treatment.

They moved on from there to Thessalonica (Acts 17), preached Christ crucified, buried, and risen, only to find themselves being hunted down by a mob of jealous Jews. Not being found, and encouraged by the brothers to leave, they set out for Berea.

Finding some success with Berean Jews (who were reportedly more noble than those in Thessalonica) they found the Jews from Thessalonica had followed them to stir up the crowds against them. Paul then left for Athens and waited there for Silas and Timothy to join him.

Finding himself in Athens with time on his hands, ‘he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there.’ (17:17)

News of Paul and his ‘new teaching’ reached the philosophers of Athens and they invited him to come and give an account of himself. The Bible describes the scene, ‘Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.’ (17:21)

Did you notice, the Bible just described the Internet in general. social media in particular? A place where people spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new. Two things I wish to draw from these accounts of Paul and his companions.

First, Paul always sought to be where people are. Whatever the danger, even threat to life and limb would not deter him from being where he could encounter the lost, and the lost could encounter Christ. There are those who would argue that the Internet is dangerous for Christians, and it is true. The dangers are real and we need to be wise about these things, but Thessalonica was dangerous for Paul, yet he preached Christ in Thessalonica.

Secondly, Athens was dangerous for Paul, but in a different way. It was dangerous in the same way the Internet is dangerous for Christians today. How easy it might have been for a man of Paul’s education and standing to simply join in doing nothing but telling and hearing something new. If you are in a place where you are doing nothing but telling and hearing something new you can eventually find some philosophy to justify any sort of sin. If you are doing this on the Internet, then the Internet, like Athens, can serve up any sort of sin you choose to justify. Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow…

The difference between today’s Christian on the Internet and Paul in Athens is, Paul went to Athens and then Paul left Athens. Today’s Christian is in real danger of bringing Athens with them, when we should be prepared to go to Athens, but not prepared to have Athens come to us.

People spend countless hours in trivia, looking to fill the hole in their lives with entertainment. This world is best described in Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress as Vanity Fair. It is not a new phenomenon, it wasn’t invented in the Internet age, as the story of Paul demonstrates.

Paul travelled to all sorts of places to preach Christ, to earnestly appeal to people to abandon vanity and fill the hole in their lives with Christ. However Paul never stayed in the hullabaloo of aimless society, but sought good Christian company like Lydia and the congregation in Thessalonica, before moving on to his next mission field.

So for every Christian today. By all means, let’s be where the people are, but let’s not fall into the trap of settling for the novelty of telling and hearing something new, ‘always learning, but never coming to a knowledge of the truth.’ (2 Tim.3:7) Remember the counsel of the psalmist:

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.’ (Ps.1:1-2)

Time is passing, faster than we think, and a day of reckoning is coming...TikTok.

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