With the use of social media, articles are posted almost
daily about literally everything, from “The fifteen best vacation spots” to “
Ten good habits for Weight loss” blah blah blah. Being in the Christian circle we often see articles posted
about social justice issues. We
are daily confronted with numerous legitimate problems, but to what end? What is the point in posting these
articles? Is it to create
awareness, to strike up theological conversation, or is there another unspoken
motive. I’m going to get real
here, so bear with me. Often times
I believe that these articles not only get posted, but shared over and over simply to
gawk at other people’s sin. I want
to believe that this is not a conscious decision we make, we might even have great
intentions in the initial posting. But somewhere within the Facebook comments,
tweets and conversations that occur after the article is posted, the original
intentions might get lost. Too
often, we will see an article that is posted with good intention turn into a
free for all of passing judgment.
An article that was meant to raise awareness about a particular issue,
quickly turns into making a spectacle of a particular individual with comments
like “that person is disgusting!” or “How could someone ever do something like
this, I would never do that!” Daily, we see people getting high and mighty about sin under the guise
of “speaking the truth in love.”
Let me be clear about something, commenting about someone else’s sin
through a computer screen will never be the equivalent of speaking the truth in
love. When posts like this pop up
the question I wish would be asked is “How would Jesus respond to these people
or this situation?”
Throughout scripture we see Jesus interacting with sinful
people. Jesus did not seek out the
most righteous, but in reality he sought out the socially undesirable. Jesus made the most time
for the people that were often overlooked. Specifically I would like to focus on the story in John 8
about the woman caught in adultery.
In this particular passage Jesus comes across a terrible scene where a
woman is about to be stoned for her sins.
True to Old Testament law a woman in her position as an adulteress was
to be stoned to death. But Jesus,
the Son of God, steps in to intervene.
“Let any one of you who is without sin be the first
to throw a stone at her.”
One by one the Pharisees drop their stones and walk away
until only Jesus and the woman are left.
Jesus does not condemn her either and tells her to go away and not
continue in her sin. We see this
kind of miraculous display of grace over and over throughout the New
Testament. Jesus is in the
business of reconciling humanity to himself through grace and that should be
our concern as Christ followers as well.
The
reason I draw attention to this story is not necessarily to bring conviction,
but more so to bring a greater understanding of our New Testament call as
followers of Jesus. Jesus makes it
completely clear that our job is not to condemn those in sin because we
ourselves are equally sinful. When
an article comes out about someone in deep sin whatever that sin may be, our
immediate response should not be "Oh, how disgusting!" but rather an
aligning of our hearts with the heart of Christ.
While Jesus clearly takes sin more seriously than we ever will, and was
completely aware of the woman’s actions, He was not focused on her momentary
adultery; instead he was focused on the eternal condition of her soul. When we see someone being exploited on
the Internet we must immediately check our innate reactions of judgment and
replace it with the love that Christ has for the broken. Jesus saved the woman from her sin in
spite of her brokenness so how can we look upon the wreckage of our world today
and immediately condemn people to hell for their sin? If it is not something that Jesus did, then it is not
something that we should do. Our job is not one of condemnation,
but of reconciliation (the condemnation of sin belongs to God and God alone,
the only righteous judge). Judging
someone for their sin does not further the cause of Christ’s kingdom, however, loving someone does. So the next
time an article of questionable motive pops up on your news feed, which will
probably be sooner rather than later, I beg you to take a moment to align
yourself with Jesus before entertaining the idea of a response or repost.
by Alli Gould
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