Media and Communications

I believe that media is an essentially neutral method of communication. It is neither good nor evil. However, since humans are generally imperfect, so are their communications. However, we see in times past that God was not opposed to media. In fact, the Bible was written on parchment scrolls and stone tablets with a Phoenician-based alphabet about the time when writing was fully developed.

Oral communication was the primary media in those days. However, the early church rote letters and had them delivered by hand, before there was any such thing as a postal service.

Later on in human history, Gutenberg invented the printing press. What was the first thing printed? The Bible.

Much later on in human history, the telephone was invented. And then the radio. And then the television. And then computers, and then the internet, and then, lo and behold, now we have social media like Blogger, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube.

I have no reason to call these forms of communication "evil" simply because they are new. It is through these new forms of media that every single human being, good or bad, can express himself and communicate with the world. After all, the writers of the Bible kept up with the times very well.
The early church branched out and used Koine Greek for their communications, preferring globalization to isolationism.

What do we have today?

1. Increased literacy and access to technology
2. Increased breath of communication (global)
3. Increased speed of communication
4. Increased ease of communication.  

That  means that whatever message you want to put out, good or bad, can be quickly and easily communicated by anyone to everyone.

Social media today is what printing books and distributing them was yesterday. Now it's faster and easier. Like I said, I don't find any reason to reject modern communication. If I believed that human communication was dangerous, then I ought to, like the Amish, erect telephone shacks outside the house so that the "world" is kept at its distance.

Are we like the specific Pharisees whom Jesus criticized? (I mean no disrespect to Pharicism as a whole.) Do we think we're going to be more special and more holy by keeping off social media, and using letter-writing and telephone calls, which were novelties in their time? Do we think that we can be holy by keeping ourselves away from the "degenerate" world, and judge them for what they do? No, we don't judge unbelievers. We're supposed to judge those who are inside, the believers. 

Those who warn us to stay away from the people on social media are those who, 2,000 years ago, would have warned the disciples to stay away from the tax collectors, prostitutes, and Gentiles. 

We are responsible for our own righteous conduct. It is possible to be a disciple of Christ and use social media as part of your witness, in a very natural, organic way. If we're not on social media to participate in temporal pleasures and have fun, but to simply communicate and disseminate truth, then we are not in danger of being corrupted.

There is a danger when I say this, because of the cheapening and reduction of Christianity today, that some will take it as an excuse for drunkenness and revelry. Not so! I speak only of being a light in the midst of darkness, I do not speak of becoming darkness to reach darkness. There is still a great need for maturity, discernment, and walking by the Spirit.