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Writer's pictureJulie West

Finding Forgiveness on Social Media...Sand and Stone, Forgiveness and the Law of God

Updated: Oct 24, 2023


Frightening, inflexible, and worst of all unforgiving, tragically, that is how some have been taught to view the Law of God. In truth, those words likely offer a better portrayal of social media than scripture. Enduring, unchanging, immovable, and mighty better represent the word of a God who cannot be eroded by tides or times.


Like the commands Moses chiseled in stone, God's word is not a fluid mush which pours through our grasp. It is a rock. In the same way, the broken boulder shielded Moses as the Lord passed by, Exodus 33:22, scripture protects us. We can lean on it when we are weary. We can count on God's law to hold us up and hems us in. It guides us when we don't know which way to go. The world changes. Cultures rise and fall. The Word of God stands forever, Isaiah 40:8. Jewish sages taught the Word of the Lord existed before creation itself, Psalm 119:89. It does not change with the whims of culture. It cannot be erased, Matthew 5:18.


In contrast, as if to distinguish themselves from a God whose words are unchanging, even today, observant Jews do not make any permanent writing on the Sabbath. However, they were and are permitted to write in the dust, Jeremiah 17:13, John 7:38. Thankfully, the names of those who turn away from God are scribbled in sand; they are not etched in stone, John 8:2-8. Even in the Sotah ritual, for the woman accused of adultery, the scroll containing the accusation was to be completely erased in water before the woman was even tested, Numbers 5:13. We are not cling endlessly to a record of wrongs, 1 Corinthians 13:5. Our sins are meant to be wiped away, Isaiah 43:25. We are meant to forgive and be forgiven, Ephesians 4:32.


Life is not a rigged game with a cruel God changing rules arbitrarily, Hebrews 6:17-18. God’s law is clear. Boundaries are firm. Forgiveness is meant to flow. Perhaps, this is why there is an innate discomfort with so much of what happens on social media. It is an inversion of life as God intended.


How many tragic tales have been told about lives destroyed by people miles away because of a perceived slight on some platform? For too many, finding relief or forgiveness on social media has been all but impossible. Online, standards constantly shift. What brought celebration months or years ago could evoke outrage today or tomorrow or... The rules in these imaginary worlds are written in sand to be washed away with every breeze and wave of emotion. Lives are devastated in these tides. At the same time, new media canonizes our greatest failures and memorializes mistakes as we crumble.


Drawn from Deuteronomy 20:19, forbidding the destroying of fruit trees in a siege, because doing so would cause needless suffering, God’s people once understood, at least instinctively, carnage for its own sake displeases the Lord. Forgetting the biblical directive, do not destroy, even strangers pile on joining in the pointless shattering. We cannot. Believers are called to a higher standard. Do we abandon the virtual world? No, we are called to be salt and light everywhere, Acts 1:8, Matthew 5:13-16. Still our identities are not to be rooted in an often cruel and unsteady world of likes and hashtags. The Word not the wisdom of the world, virtual or otherwise, must define us. Finally, no matter what voices from screens may shout, real forgiveness is still available and found in Christ Jesus. That is Worth Remembering.


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