In Step with the Spirit, Out of Step with the Internet
There is more than one way to sin online, but with Christ, there is power
This Sunday at church the pastor preached a sermon on Galatians 5:16-26. If you grew up in church, you know this passage well. I can probably quote most of it from memory. The pastor preached a really good message about the freedom and power of living in step with the Spirit. He spoke about engaging in the spiritual disciplines and thus cultivating a desire for what is true, good, and beautiful versus what is ugly, destructive, and enslaving.
It’s a battle to wake up every day and step into the power of the spirit. I know, as a pilgrim in the journey of the Christian life for over four decades now. The temptations don’t go away, the longer you are a Christian, but you can find some measure of victory and progress against the flesh, as good habits build. Still, we can resonate with Paul who, in the middle of his journey, still looked within and said, “What a wretched man that I am (Romans 7:24-25).”
What struck me this Sunday with this familiar passage was just how much the sins of the flesh mapped onto the digital age. People were sinning before the Internet, but certain behaviors are made easier, and certain temptations more acute, because of the way the World Wide Web shapes our minds and souls.
To be sure, I’m not a Luddite. I think the Internet can be wonderful. I’m writing this newsletter on the internet and you are receiving through the internet. I like that I can read articles, publish essays, listen to good music, watch sports, read Bible commentaries, stream Christian messages, Facetime my family, get a map for long trips, and a thousand other good things because of the connection of tubes and waves and wires that Al Gore invented.
Still, we should be sober about the ways this new era can lead us into temptation. Just read this passage from Galatians 5:16-26
I say, then, walk by the Spirit and you will certainly not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is against the Spirit, and the Spirit desires what is against the flesh; these are opposed to each other, so that you don’t do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
Now the works of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, moral impurity, promiscuity, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambitions, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and anything similar. I am warning you about these things—as I warned you before—that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The law is not against such things. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.
It’s interesting here how Paul divides the works of the flesh between sins of the body, sins of the heart, and sins of the tongue. The internet brings sexual temptation so much closer to us. Pornography at the tap of a few keystrokes. Cascading images on Instagram. Seemingly innocent chats with high-school flames on Facebook turn into something much more. Paul was writing to Christians in a very sensual age and he’s writing to Christians today, also in a very sensual age. Sexual sin always kills. It always promises life but brings death. Christ forgives, but the impacts always have far-reaching ripples.
But in this list are also sins of the heart. Idolatry. In Paul’s day, this was the actual worshipping of false gods and graven images. In our day, this is often disordered loves, taking a good gift of God such as money or position or family or even country and making it ultimate. Idolatry invests in lesser goods the ultimate good and thereby both leads away from God but also toward despair.
Lastly, we see sins of the tongue. It’s interesting to me that Paul lists these here as deadly works of the flesh. “Outbursts of anger,” “dissensions,” “factions.” He’s speaking to Christians. The tendency to divide over trivial things, to form smaller and smaller factions, to yield to fits of anger. These are a kind of lust that springs from idolatry and then flows through to the tongue.
In a sense, Paul is giving Christians a way to diagnose the state of their hearts. He both lists grievous sins and then lists traits that embody a life living in step with the Spirit of God. The preacher on Sunday made sure to mention that it’s “fruit” of the spirit and not fruits. To put it plainly, how will people see that you’ve been with Jesus? It’s pretty simple: does your life embody the set of vices or the set of virtues?
Now let’s think about the structure of the Internet. We know how it promotes the sensual and sexual. This happens, not merely from seeing these images and thereby cultivating wrong desires, but by adopting worldviews that say such desires are good. One’s life and doctrine can be shaped by social media.
Still, it’s subtle the way the algorithms reward these sins of the heart and sins of the tongue. And Christians can willingly indulge in these, sometimes while being convinced we are doing the Lord’s work. I think about this when I think about the conversations on what is often called “Christian Twitter.” Too often these conversations move toward “dissensions”, “factions,” and “outbursts of anger.” We are often being manipulated by powerful social media engines that incentivize the sins Paul describes here in Galatians as “hatreds” and “jealousy,” which often work hand in hand with sins like “ambitions”, which I take to be ungodly, rather than godly, motivations. A desire to become known, to build a following, based on tearing others down.
This is not to say that conflict among Christians is always bad. Often wrong theology and sinful behavior must be confronted. Paul was no shrinking violet when it came to this, urging Timothy to “stand strong in the faith (1 Timothy 1:19).” But we must recognize there is a way to sin, to be captive to the flesh, by the way we argue, by the way we talk about our brothers and sisters in Christ. Paul was not shy about this. He said that a persistent posture of divisiveness, of looking for ways to go after Christians based on fleshly ambitions, is, well, a work of the enemy. I’m reminded that it is Satan, who is the accuser of the brethren (Revelation 12:10) seeking whom he “may devour (1 Peter 5:8).”
Often the Internet—and those of us who have been held captive by its rhythms—rewards what the Bible calls destructive and mocks what the Bible calls life-giving. The alternative to this is a life in step with the Spirit, increasingly marked by “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”
To many whose minds have been conditioned by the internet, those traits sound weak, lame, and even foolish. But they are the signs that a man or woman is following after Jesus.
Conflicts among Christians will arise. Debates are often necessary. Accountability is essential. But we should periodically ask ourselves if our engagement online is cultivating the fruits of the spirit or the lusts of the flesh. Are our social media habits, our reading habits, our text threads, and the words we speak: do they help us walk in step with the Spirit or in step with the perverse incentives of the digital age? Are my spiritual disciplines shaping me or are my media habits shaping me? Am I increasing in my love for my fellow brothers and sisters in obedience to Christ and as a witness to the world (John 13:35)?
Thankfully, we have help in this endeavor. We have the same Spirit that hovered over the waters at creation and rose Jesus from the dead is present in those Christ has redeemed (Romans 8:11). We can resist the wiles of the devil (online) with the power of God.
Reminder: my book Agents of Grace is available from Zondervan