Fair warning: I will be direct in this post.
Do y’all have Instagram? Or Facebook, Tiktok, any of those other apps?
If you do, you know that people tend to post the best version of themselves. That’s okay—we can make our pages look however we want them to and it can be fun—but, let’s be honest, it’s not always true to what’s really going on. We leave out the parts we’re not proud of. We can forget that.
And we really can’t afford to.
We also seem to forget that when we look at Christian social media pages, whether those pages belong to Christian influencers, to our friends or even to ourselves, we’re looking at something curated. I’m not at all saying that Christianity doesn’t belong on social media or that it’s bad to share our Bible verses and worship songs. I am saying, however, that we’ve got to be cognizant that social media is not real life (I know we say that, but I often struggle to actually register that, and I’m sure others do, too). Moreso, we have to be careful of caring about how our Instagrams look more than how our hearts look. In other words, if the only way someone would know you’re a Christian is by the social media presence that you’ve created, then there is a problem.
Let’s open up to 1 Samuel and Matthew.
In 1 Samuel 16, Samuel is choosing the new king of Israel when he comes upon Jesse’s sons. Now, Samuel sees Eliab and believes he’s found the one, because Eliab is tall and noble. What does God say to Samuel? “‘Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart'” (1 Samuel 16:7 NIV). I know I’ve mentioned this verse before, but it especially applies in the social media world. In modern times, Eliab might’ve had the most views on his reels and may have gotten the most likes on his posts, but his heart wasn’t in the right place, and the Lord saw that. That’s not to say that if you have lots of views and likes then your heart isn’t in the right place—that is to say that if it is in the right place, you’ll be more eager for God to search your heart than you would be for Him to search your Instagram.
We also can’t forget that sometimes we are someone’s first exposure to the Gospel. If we’ve got this beautiful, aesthetic profile that’s absolutely plastered in Bible verses and whatnot, but we’re nasty to people in real life, then that contrast is what people remember. They say to themselves, “she acts like a Christian on Instagram, but when I met her she spat in my face.” Then, that morphs to, “she says she’s a Christian, so would Jesus spit in my face, too?” I know that spitting in someone’s face is an extreme example, but when we do that, we can turn someone away from the Gospel, which is infinitely worse. When we have a social media presence that says to act like Christ but we don’t do it ourselves, then we become Pharisees. And, one after another, someone rejects Christ Himself because of that.
In Matthew 23, Jesus tells the Pharisees, ‘”Outwardly you masquerade as righteous people, but inside your hearts you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness'” (Matthew 23:28 TPT). Not only do we have to be cautious of becoming the people that Jesus refers to here, but we also must be cautious of idolizing and comparing ourselves to them. For example, you may see a popular content creator that makes videos about loving one another. You adore this creator and wish you could be more like them to the point where you start berating yourself because you’re not. But, unbeknownst to you, when they encounter someone who is less than their version of “perfect,” they scoff and turn them away. You don’t see that in their highlight reel. But when Jesus, who is actually perfect, encounters someone who is less than actual perfection, He holds them close. Don’t be like the content creator who turns people away. Be like the Creator who doesn’t.
I want to be clear here—I see nothing wrong with having a social media profile or being an influencer. When we use it properly, social media is fantastic for leading people to Christ and building connections with others. The issue arises when we don’t practice what we preach and compare someone’s Instagram aesthetic to our real lives. As I’m sure we’ve all noticed, social media often becomes a pedestal onto which people can set themselves and a knife that people can use to cut themselves down. We can’t contribute to that problem. Instead, let’s use social media to point to its solution, and that solution is, simply put, Jesus.
MEET THE AUTHOR:
Katie Pennington is a writer and editor who is originally from Hazard, Kentucky, but currently resides with her family in central Tennessee (though she frequently visits her Appalachian roots). Her favorite Bible verse is Psalm 42:5, which reminds her that in despair, there’s hope in God, and there’s healing in praising Him.