Monday
Psalm 1.1 “Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers…,”
Many governments are putting a lot of time and energy into regulating the content of social media. In a best case scenario, the policies that are eventually applied will aim at removing what is thought to be harmful or hateful. But there is also a clear Christian responsibility for self-regulation. As Christians we all have to find ways of processing what we read, watch, and listen to online. That means paying attention to what we ‘like’, the comments we make, the content we ourselves post, so that it’s neither harmful nor hateful. As a start I suggest regular reading of Psalm 1. It is about the company we keep, the ideas to which we give living space in our heads and hearts, how we speak and respond to others - remembering God, not Facebook, is our moderator!
Tuesday
Psalm 1.2 “…but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night.”
The law of the Lord provided the conditions of God’s covenant relationship with his people. Loving obedience to God’s Torah (Instruction) would lead to a healthy community in which justice, honesty, fairness, mercy and kindness would flourish, and consequently so would the people. In our online world, at its worst populated by shameless self-promotion, avalanches of fake news, and anonymous nastiness, Christians living out the teaching of Jesus and the Gospel realities of the transforming Spirit of God, can be salt and light and agents of grace. Love faithfully contradicts hate, truthful words work at rebuilding trust, and habits of encouragement offer support to folk who are struggling.
Wednesday
Psalm 1.3 “That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither — whatever they do prospers.”
A well irrigated tree stays healthy, fruitful and has deep roots. Likewise the person who delights in and meditates on ‘the law of the Lord.” And when that Scripture soaked mind applies itself to the keyboard or smartphone, those fruits become evident - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Now that’s a set of filters that would revolutionise and regulate the content and impacts of social media!
Thursday
Psalm 1. 4 “Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away.”
‘Wicked’ is a catch-all word that includes most of the ways we cause harm to others and to the world around us. The wicked have no interest in the common good, no felt obligation to care for others, use words as weapons and delight in anything that makes them bigger and others smaller, make up their own truth and couldn’t care less about the damage they cause around them so long as they are OK. They have no moral kernel, no grain of responsibility, no seed of goodness that contributes to a more just, kind and safe future. Christians cannot be keyboard warriors – we are called instead to “like and share” the teaching of Jesus and the hope of the Gospel!
Friday
Psalm 1.5 “Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.”
The wicked, those who undermine community, damage the social fabric, who are the enemies of compassion, for whom God is irrelevant and God’s ways are a nuisance, - they won’t have a leg to stand on. Like every sinner we all stand self-condemned by the way we have walked the way of our lives. But to have found Jesus as “the Way, the Truth and the Life”, is to be renewed, forgiven and given a ministry of reconciliation. As Christians we belong to God in Christ by the power of the Spirit. Our presence online, and in fact our behaviour wherever we are, becomes a sharing of our renewed true self as we are in Christ.
Saturday
Psalm 1.6 “For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked leads to destruction.”
This is the classic contrast. The narrow way and the broad way, the wise man and the foolish man, right and wrong, truth and lies, righteous and wicked. There’s no room here for smug complacency that we are the one or the other. Our calling is to live worthy of our calling, to “shine as stars in a dark universe”, to follow faithfully after Jesus – and in our time that includes our online presence. Be a star in the night sky of whatever online platform you use – and in whichever encounters and conversations make up your daily life in family, neighbourhood and church, and as you try to walk the way of the righteous, remember the Lord watches over you.
Sunday
Philippians 4.8 “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”
If Paul was writing that today he might change only that last phrase, and urge Christians living in the digital age – “post about such things”!
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