Facebook and Ephesians 5:11

There are many Bible verses that provide guidance for spiritual victory in the Internet age, and one of those is Ephesians 5:11 - “And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.” There are two simple commands and principles here. First, the child of God is to have NO fellowship with the works of darkness. This is a great protection. If I determine that I will not fellowship with darkness on Facebook, then I will not associate with, join hands with, link to, or befriend anyone or anything that pertains to spiritual and moral darkness. I will not befriend or “Like” or join in with communication threads pertaining to immodest dress or rock & roll (whether secular or “Christian”) or drinking or drugging or worldly partying or dating or vain philosophy or charismatic heresy or slandering of good churches. I refuse to have “a little fellowship” with darkness, because my God has instructed me to have “no fellowship” with it. The second command in Ephesians 5:11 is to “reprove them.” As a child of God, a pilgrim in a strange world, my responsibility is not finished when I avoid fellowship with evil and error. Separation is not enough. I must speak out against things that are wrong. This will tend to limit one’s associations and narrow one’s “tent,” but it is exactly what God’s Word commands. Godly reproof is light in the darkness, as we see in the same context: “But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever doth make manifest is light” (Ephesians 5:13). If you stand up for truth and righteousness as you should, you will not get along smoothly and comfortably with the worldly crowd. You will be like the pastor who shared the following with me recently: “I felt that when someone became my friend on Facebook they [should know] they had friended a Bible preacher. There were times I’d post Scripture and comment about Bible principles. As long as I was general about salvation, no big deal. But, as soon as I was specific about sin, I was attacked personally no matter how much Scripture I would use. One time I commented on Tim Tebow. I had been to his website to get some information about him and when his website loaded, a country music song about drinking on Friday night automatically played. I commented on Facebook about the bad testimony that was. That resulted in harsh criticism of me. One man said, ‘Tim Tebow will lead more people to Christ than you ever will.’ Many times Facebook created a forum for others to gang up on me. I made a comment about people being at the kids’ baseball game on Sunday instead of Church. Several ‘Christians’ criticized me.” This reminds me of something Jesus said: “If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you” (John 15:19).

​(Friday Church News Notes, December 7, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143)

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