Greetings Warriors and Scholars.
A couple weeks ago I saw a post in a board game group in FB that caught my eye. It was a general post that I think was asking for suggestions of games. There was one guy who commented on there about the Christian faith of the guy who posted. He essentially claimed that mankind doesn't need religion and basically attacked faith.
I had so many things I could say, but I said nothing. You see, Proverbs warns us about answering some people who start arguments. He was looking for an argument and showed no interest in understanding other people.
Here are a few questions to ask when seeing such comments and posts:
1. Are you calm enough for a healthy conversation or are you just responding out of anger or another negative emotion? Getting riled up and angry does not point people to Jesus. There is such a thing as righteous indignation but Jesus rarely ever used that. He tried grace mixed with truth more than that and he really loved using story telling to make points.
2. If this is a comment on a post, is the orginal poster responding? If not, then do you really need to? Sometimes it is best for the poster to respond first. Other times it might be ok for you to respond. This is one of those questions of observation. Just feel it out.
3. Does the commentator or poster seem interested in healthy conversation? Are they asking a question or using logic? Sometimes it is better to leave attacks as they are. Ignoring a bad direction can leave you open to pursue a better one.
4. If a comment, does it fit the goal of discussion set by the actual post? Is it a rabbit trail? We have all seen strange comments. You have probably also seen people lead huge argument trails in a post that have nothing to do with the post. Again, some things can be a ignored.
Many people of different paths and beliefs have often gotten flame wars going because they would not ask questions such as these. There are reasons we should "think before we leap". Remember, you do not have the time or the necessity to respond to everything you see on the internet.
A couple weeks ago I saw a post in a board game group in FB that caught my eye. It was a general post that I think was asking for suggestions of games. There was one guy who commented on there about the Christian faith of the guy who posted. He essentially claimed that mankind doesn't need religion and basically attacked faith.
I had so many things I could say, but I said nothing. You see, Proverbs warns us about answering some people who start arguments. He was looking for an argument and showed no interest in understanding other people.
Here are a few questions to ask when seeing such comments and posts:
1. Are you calm enough for a healthy conversation or are you just responding out of anger or another negative emotion? Getting riled up and angry does not point people to Jesus. There is such a thing as righteous indignation but Jesus rarely ever used that. He tried grace mixed with truth more than that and he really loved using story telling to make points.
2. If this is a comment on a post, is the orginal poster responding? If not, then do you really need to? Sometimes it is best for the poster to respond first. Other times it might be ok for you to respond. This is one of those questions of observation. Just feel it out.
3. Does the commentator or poster seem interested in healthy conversation? Are they asking a question or using logic? Sometimes it is better to leave attacks as they are. Ignoring a bad direction can leave you open to pursue a better one.
4. If a comment, does it fit the goal of discussion set by the actual post? Is it a rabbit trail? We have all seen strange comments. You have probably also seen people lead huge argument trails in a post that have nothing to do with the post. Again, some things can be a ignored.
Many people of different paths and beliefs have often gotten flame wars going because they would not ask questions such as these. There are reasons we should "think before we leap". Remember, you do not have the time or the necessity to respond to everything you see on the internet.
Awesome Wisdom! That list of 4 questions is really concise and helpful for discernment in interacting via social platforms!
ReplyDelete