As iron sharpens iron,
one person sharpens another. (Proverbs 27:17)
“Silence is often a way out. Silence is a way to neglect our responsibilities as a mentor or boss. Silence is an excuse not to fulfill what Scripture says about the older teaching the younger….The opposite is also true…. So how do we know when we should or should not respond?” - Treg Spicer
“What is the most frightening verse in the Bible?… for me, the scariest part of Scripture is Jesus’s words in Matthew 12:36: ‘I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak.’” - TGC
“…please (especially to my Christian friends, I beg of you) please stop • mocking • denigrating • demonizing • and dehumanizing people who hold opposing positions. They are image-bearers of God. And they are as deeply loved by their creator as you are.” - C.Leaders
“…A Way with Words is a much-needed book. It’s no doubt easy enough to think of all the other people who need to read it, but some self-reflection should show that all of us will benefit from considering the ways we speak and, particularly, the ways we communicate online.” - Challies
It is no revelation that social media are dominant forms of communication in this digital age, but the stats are breathtaking. A remarkable 78% of 18-24 year olds in the U.S. use Snapchat, and 94% of that age demographic are regular YouTube users, while 71% use Instagram. More than two-thirds (68%) of all U.S. adults use Facebook, and 75% of those users are daily users.
“In college, when we studied Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France, I realized my father was the disciple of a rather ancient set of values. He was a gentleman: someone who still practiced the art of manners, and as such, he was both inheritor and promulgator of the classical conservative tradition.” American Conservative
Verbal communication is one of God’s favorite inventions. He created speaking beings in His image and then spoke to them. Over the millennia, He gave visions to prophets and commanded them to speak or write what they had seen. And He inspired select prophets to write His words as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. He gave us a book.
So whenever we use words, we’re doing something of personal importance to God. And since we believers are at peace with God through Christ and represent God to a world that does not know Him, our writing and speaking carry that much more importance.
We should not be surprised, then, that Scripture has so much to say about how we use words. And we should attend energetically to how that instruction applies to posting in Internet forums.
Julian Assange, the Robin Hood of computer hackers, has been on the run for months. From the time he was young, his life has always been one of moving from one place to another, including thirty-seven times by age fourteen. Since founding Wikileaks in 2006, he has continually changed addresses and appearances. Extremely gifted, certainly charismatic, and in his own words “extremely cynical,”1 39-year-old Assange has become one of the most well-known people in the world. Convicted of computer hacking in 1995 and given a minor penalty, the Australian native and his organization have posted documents about Guantanamo Bay detentions, Sarah Palin’s personal Yahoo email account, and extrajudicial killings in Kenya and East Timor.2
Now he has taken on the US military and State Department. To many, including Daniel Ellsberg, Assange is a hero of extraordinary proportions. Time Magazine has nominated him for “Person of the Year.”3 To others, including an increasing number of his fellow Wikileakers, he has begun to lose touch with reality.
Assange sees the United States as the greatest political threat to the world—to the point that many of his co-workers say that he is obsessed with America.4 Far beyond the illusory dream of Woodrow Wilson, Assange believes that by taking on America via Wikileaks, he is making the world safe for democracy.5
But Assange has not achieved what he set out to attain. True, he leaked the information that a US gunship fired on the wrong target in Baghdad and killed, among others two journalists. But his leaks also produced little-known information about how America’s foe, the Taliban fighters, have repeatedly beheaded their enemies.6 And who would have expected that Wikileaks would have revealed that Saudia Arabia and Bahrain—not (US supported) Israel—are the real hawks in the Middle East against Iran? James Ruben writes in The New Republic that the disclosures “undermine the very worldview that Julian Assange and his colleagues at Wikileaks almost certainly support.”7
In the process of leaking information, Wikileaks has endangered lives and angered a host of nations. The conflict Julian Assange has begun is equivalent to taking on several grizzly bears in a fistfight. He doesn’t stand a chance.
Discussion