How Social Media Use Can Rival God – Jen Wilkin

We might attempt to build a framework for how to use social media by making a study of negative patterns to avoid. But the Bible reminds us that wisdom begins in a very specific place: with the fear of the Lord (Ps. 111:10).

It was the fear of the Lord that Adam and Eve lost sight of in the garden. When the serpent suggested to Eve that she eat the forbidden fruit, he promised her a benefit that was exceedingly strange: “You will be like God” (Gen. 3:5). Be like God? She already was! God had formed humankind in his image, after his likeness. If they were already God’s reflectors, what did the fruit stand to gain them?

What the serpent offered was knowledge that would cause the humans not to reflect God, but to rival him. He offered them a kind of knowing that was not meant to be known by limited creatures, but only by God himself. They weren’t built for it. It would certainly crush them. Yet the draw to surpass their God-given limits overcame the desire to bear his image as they were made to do. And the rest, as they say, is history.

There’s a way to use social media that reflects God. And there’s a way to use it that rivals him. Wisdom seeks the first way. But how, specifically, does social media draw us into rivalry instead of reflection? Let me suggest three truths we deny when we use it unwisely.

1. We are changeable; God is not.

Consider how unlike us God is when it comes to mutability. God is unchanging. He is un-influenceable. He never reads a social media post and alters what he thinks or how he acts. He has never once redecorated or changed his fashion sense. The Rock of Ages is eternally the same. He transcends our changing times, governing them with the steady hand of his immutable rule.

We, on the other hand, are open to influence, able to be swayed. Think about your daily life for a minute. How has social media affected it? What did you see there that shaped what’s in your pantry, your medicine cabinet, your workout routine, your wardrobe, or your home decor? Now think about your thought life. What current events or faith discussions have been shaped by what you’ve seen on social media? We cannot help but be shaped by what we look at.

We cannot help but be shaped by what we look at.

Social media forms malleable humans into an image. How Christians use it determines whether it yields us well-formed or malformed. Where we cast our gaze, and for how long, influences not just how we live but who we are. We dare not tell ourselves that we are unaffected by what we fix our eyes upon. Instead, we must steward the fact of our imitative design to yield the fruit of righteousness.

2. We are time-bound; God is not.

Time-wasting has always been a temptation for humans, and an addictive one at that. A desire to lose our sense of the passage of time is evidence that we want to be like God in an unhealthy way. We subconsciously covet his eternality. We tell ourselves that there’s plenty of time and we can spend it without thought.

But only God is capable of existing outside the bounds of time. Only God can dispense of his duties without the tyranny of the clock. He sets no reminders or alarms, and he acts at just the right time all the time, with no forgetfulness or sloth. He created us to live according to a timeline and to number our days with accuracy so that we would use them wisely (Ps. 90:12).

For time-bound humans, all time spent on social media is time that will not be spent elsewhere. We dare not tell ourselves that we can afford an unlimited or unbudgeted use of social media, even if we use it in profitable ways. And we dare not ignore its addictive nature. As with all things that promise us we can be like God, its pull will be strong. Those who think soberly about social media use will lash themselves to the masthead of godly wisdom so that their limited time is spent well.

3. We have bodies; God does not.

God is spirit, and because this is true, he’s able to be present everywhere. The implications of this are many, but for the purpose of our present discussion, consider the relational significance of God’s omnipresence. He’s able to create and sustain an unlimited number of personal relationships with others. But what is relationally possible for God is relationally impossible for his image-bearers.

When God made us, he joined our spirits to physical bodies. A body is a set of limits. It’s the reason we can only be in one place at one time. Because we’re not omnipresent, we can only create and sustain a limited number of relationships. We know this intuitively. It’s why we prioritize time with some people over time with others. We categorize people according to depth of relationship: family, friend, acquaintance. We speak of work-life balance as a means to ensure we’re physically present with those we hold closest, recognizing that we can either be present at work or present at home, but not both.

Social media offers us a sense that we’re not limited to one place at a time.

Social media offers us a sense that we’re not limited to one place at a time. It suggests that we, like God, can create and sustain a virtually unlimited number of relationships. If we fail to recognize that a friend on Facebook is not the same as a friend face-to-face, we’ll allocate precious proximity to screens instead of to actual, embodied humans.

Reshaping Our Habits

If we want to be wise about social media use, and if the fear of the Lord truly is the beginning of wisdom, we’ll begin to reshape our habits by reminding ourselves that only God is immutable, eternal, and omnipresent—and by reminding ourselves that we are not.

Thus is resolved our first and most vital social dilemma: that God is ours to reflect but not to rival. With our identity as image-bearers firmly in view, we’re free to partake of social media in ways that don’t define who we are or why we’re here. We are made in God’s image for his glory.

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