WWJT: What Would Jesus Tweet

It’s no surprise that I have a set of standards when it comes to how one tweets. I typically don’t get any push-back from adults with these rules, but some of the high schoolers, well they downright despise me for my Twitter opinions.

I heard that one of them was telling others how my rules are stupid. Of course I just laugh at that thought and respond, “Who’s tweets are more annoying? Mine, or theirs?” The answer is obvious. However, in reply they said, “Well that’s how you use Twitter, but they can use it how they want to as well.” But later I was thinking about how ridiculous this thought is. You can’t say there are no rules for how to use Twitter. That’s like saying, “I can drive a car however I want. I don’t need to follow the speed limit.” Good luck with that one. This may be an extreme example, but it’s true.

Why do some people hate the rules? I’m not saying if you hate my Twitter rules, then you hate rules in general. Not at all. However, our culture practically begs you to ignore the rules. It’s filled with, do-whatever-makes-you-happy. This kind of thinking is what leads us to say, “Well that’s how you use Twitter, but they can use it how they want to as well.” Our society is big on tolerance. In other words, for the sake of peace we can agree to disagree. You don’t tell me what to do, and I won’t tell you what to do. Sound familiar? Arguments like this probably happen within your family on a regular basis, I’m guessing.

There’s a problem with this thinking though…it’s not biblical. 1 John talks about being led astray, painting this picture of good vs evil. It talks about letting our hearts guide us to action, and that we’ll know what to do by the Spirit God gave us. Then chapter 4 says, “do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God.” As Christians, we’re actually called to test whether or not what we see around us is from God. There’s a sense here then that we don’t just do whatever we want. If it’s not from God, be careful not to be led astray.

Our society gets it wrong. We actually SHOULD be listening to each other and coming to an agreement on what to do and what not to do. Because…NOT.EVERYTHING.IS.FROM.GOD.

My point here is not to use 1 John to defend my Twitter etiquette. That would just be silly. My point is to get you to think, using Twitter as an example. What happens when I ignore the rules? You know the answer here. What I’m getting at is order. We have rules to control the order. To prevent chaos, or…mayhem (which occurs when you blow up my Twitter feed). If you tweet all day long about nothing important, just blasting out all of your random thoughts, what good does that do? How does it contribute to the order? And if we don’t agree on some sense of order, mayhem will result. You can take offense all you want to my suggestions, but I guarantee you are contributing to the mayhem if you just blindly tweet all day about nothing.

There are more important things in life than Twitter, I know. So listen to your family. Have healthy conversation about what is from God and what isn’t. Then figure out how to do the good things.

And listen to your youth pastor as well. And for the record, yes, it all starts with Twitter. #stopthemayhem