Remind them to be nice

Remind them to get along

[Remind them] to speak evil of no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing all humility to all men. – Titus 3.2

Just a few days ago I was following a series of Facebook posts by a Christian friend. The person was having a conflict with another believer and was posting things publicly on Facebook and making all sorts of harsh statements. I approached my friend and they pulled down what they had posted with a sweet spirit. That person just got carried away.

That was something of a wakeup call and it really caught my attention. I suspect that every single one of us has been in situations where we are tempted to act the same way and we may even have carried through. 

If you have ever seen Christians in a word fight you know what I am talking about.  I have seen some arguments and debates among professing believers that are much more than embarrassing. Like my friend we can all embarrass the church and hurt the cause of Christ by our words and actions.

But look at these words:

Don’t speak evil of anyone (anyone?)

Be peaceable

Be gentle

Show humility to all men

In other words we need to do all we can do to get along. There is no room for this evil speaking or fighting or ugliness or pride.

Christians should never, ever be the ones with the ugly names and insults and contempt. The friend I mentioned doesn’t have much of an example, especially on social media.

We Christians may very well be more seen than we ever have been because of Facebook and Twitter and all the rest. I wonder how our own feeds would look if we never said anything evil about anyone. I wonder what would happen if every post was motivated by being a peacemaker. What would happen if gentleness was the tone for our posts? How often is sweet humility seen from us online?

Obviously all of these points should be adhered to in our every conversation as well. But in 2014 social media is the way many of us are seen the most in public and sadly it is the place where it is easiest for large numbers of people to see our speech and attitudes.

Let’s try to apply these four simple principles to all we say, all we write, and all we post online. Let us give no one cause to despise us because of what we say.