“The Instagram Bible”
We could also title this article “The Facebook Bible,” “The Twitter Bible,” or to be more precise, “The Social Media Bible.” Now I have nothing against sharing Bible verses online. God surely gave us a wonderful and powerful tool to share our faith. But I agree with what Christian author Jen Wilkin wrote in her “Beware the Instagram Bible in 2017” article.
Beware the Instagram Bible, my daughters—those filtered frames festooned with feathered verses, adorned in all manner of loops and tails, bedecked with blossoms, saturated with sunsets, culled and curated just for you. Beware lest it become for you your source of daily bread. It’s telling a partial truth. … It shines a partial light. We must know it both for what it says, and for what it does not. [1]
Wilkin expressed her concern regarding believers who, instead of opening their Bibles, would only rely on verses shared online. The problem is, those verses might be misquoted or taken out of context. She painted a scenario where “every copy of the Bible was gone, except those portions we had preserved on Instagram.” [2] It’s not an encouraging picture.
It comforts but rarely convicts. It emotes but rarely exhorts. It warms but rarely warns. It promises but rarely prompts. It moves but does not mortify. It builds self-assurance but balks at self-examination. It assembles an iconography whose artists, by spatial necessity, are constrained to choose brevity over breadth, inspiration over intellect, devotion over doctrine. [3]
We tend to go for verses that tells us what we want to hear and not what need to hear. We end up being selective. But, the Bible not only comforts the afflicted but also afflicts the comfortable.
No, I’m not saying we should not share Bible verses on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or whatever social networking sites that might come up. What I’m saying is make sure you go to the source, that is, the Bible itself. Read not only the verses but the entire passage. Check the context. Study it. Meditate on it. More importantly, apply it. Then by all means share offline and online what you learned throughout the process.
This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. (Joshua 1:8, ESV)
Brothers and sisters, let us focus on to the Source.
Image credit: https://techcrunch.com/
[1] Jen Wilkin (2 January 2017), “Beware the Instagram Bible in 2017,” The Gospel Coalition, retrieved from https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article. Emphasis added.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
