There’s a young girl, probably in her 30’s, that keeps popping up on my Facebook feed. She has thousands of followers. What we might label an influencer. But what she’s influencing or promoting in her space is nothing more than warped theology. The first time I turned on my sound to hear what she had to say, I realized immediately she is a hater of our president. And she’s using Scripture to back up her claims. In one post, she posted a picture of well-known pastors standing beside President Trump. She said, “We should never worship power.” But this picture was showing pastors and Christians leaders praying for the president, not worshiping him. In another post, she was bashing Franklin Graham simply because he was a supporter of the president.
I read some of the comments on that post and people were saying, “His father (Billy Graham) would be so disappointed in him.” And “Franklin Graham is a tool of the enemy.” I normally don’t respond to such nonsense, but this got under my skin. I said, “Why? Because he has literally brought thousands to Christ? Because he has offered aid to multitudes of people in crisis through his organization, Samaritan’s Purse? Because, after the president was heard to say that he didn’t know if he was going to heaven, Franklin Graham sent a letter to President Trump explaining the way to salvation?” I think his father would be absolutely proud of what his son has accomplished for the Kingdom of God.
What this girl is offering to people is a place to spew all their hatred and negativity… their opinions that are not based on truth. She’s not promoting the gospel… rather, she’s promoting things that are turning people away from Christ. Let’s think about this for a minute… Peter and Paul wrote to their audiences during a time of great persecution on Christians. It was when Nero was emperor of Rome. Nero was the Hitler of the first century church. But never once do we read about their hatred, nor do they promote organizing a revolt. Rather, they tell the people of God how they must respond and live out their faith in the midst of their trials and hardships.
Our key verse from 1 Peter tells us that as royal priests, it is our responsibility to show people the goodness of God. We are to promote the Kingdom of God not the kingdom of this world. Most of us are on social media in some capacity. Therefore, we must be VERY careful to not create a space for negativity, hatred, or warped opinions. But we MUST promote the goodness of God. We also MUST be very careful to keep the Word of God in its context, looking at the whole of Scripture as our guide. Anything other than this is false teaching. Hope this spurs you on today.