“A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” -John 13:34-35
Tonight I nearly incited a riot on Facebook. I put up a status basically stating that I hate the word till (preferring the word until). I thought it was written in such a way that people could tell I was joking around and not that I was harboring actual hateful feelings. I was talking about a word after all. A rather innocuous 14th century word. The status created a firestorm of controversy. The way that one of my friends responded you would think I wrote that I hate a member of her family or something. She began talking about the power of the tongue and blessing and cursing and sent me a private message saying that more people would be in the church if I watched my mouth more. I was flabbergasted. It was a joke! About a word! Really, it was just me expressing a pet-peeve of mine, but I miscalculated how it would be received.
Several friends came to my defense since they recognized the intent of my post. Unfortunately, this resulted in my Christian friends arguing back and forth on my status. This made me incredibly sad. All I could think about is all my non-Christian friends who were reading it. I couldn’t help but think that seeing Christians lashing out at each other over something so petty would be more likely to keep them out of church than the fact that I used the word hate in my status. Perhaps I shouldn’t have used that word; it is certainly a learning experience for me; but oh, how I wish we Christians could learn to disagree in love. I implore all my brothers and sisters to please please consider how people in the world perceive us when we attack each other like this. Even in cases where one of us might be theologically or doctrinally wrong, we need to be gentle and conscientious when discussing these matters in front of the lost.
In the end I opted to post the song below as a gentle reminder. It seems to have worked as the woman who messaged me then apologized. I wrote back stating there were no hard feelings and I would be more careful about how I worded things in the future. So far the riot appears to have been quelled. I am disturbed that a religiously and politically neutral post could so quickly spiral out of control, but that is the world we live in these days. I take comfort that there was peaceful resolution. As Christians I would like to encourage us all to strive to avoid offense, turn the other cheek, and love each other better.
In His Love,
Rebekah L
Being Rebekah 
Seriously, people just need to take a chill pill! Thanks for your transparency and encouraging posts! Be blessed.
Tobias
Sometimes I think people just like the sound of their own voice. Once I put up a status due to boredom saying I dont like the Comic Sans font. Oh. My. Word. It was not in reference to anyone but this one girl started a major argument with everyone and ended off with “you should know better”. Huh? A font? Seriously? I just rather deleted the post before it continued. Ridiculous!
Isn’t it crazy how a seemingly innocent word can cause something so over-the-top wacko? My biggest beef with our posts is that no one can see our expression, or hear the tone of our voice…so conclusions are made that are not accurate, and silly responses given. Maybe someday they’ll figure out how to snap our photos while we’re blogging…and post them alongside the words so folks can see our frame of mind! 😉
Meanwhile, Christians come across as a petty group of nincompoops! All to the glory of God??? Hardly. {sigh}
\o/
I read something written by an unbeleiver once that said basically this: Why should I believe in a God or join a faith where none of the ‘beleivers’ can agree on any thing?
Honestly, the tendency to fight is carnal, fleshly – when these things happen it’s a sign to those who are paying attention that it’s time for fasting and prayer. A time to ‘kill’ the flesh. Unfortunately there is a lot of carnality in the Christian body today, more and more actually. This leads to in-fighting and division, in short, it’s prime ground for Satan to work and you’re right, it causes unbelievers to look-on in disgust and derision. How can we compel others to Christ when we’re busy fighting one another?
The same type of thing happens to us all from time to time. As for me, when I was young pastor, several times when I was harmlessly joking about something from the pulpit, it was taken in the wrong way and problems followed. As I grew older I learned it was best to not joke from the pulpit fearing it would be taken the wrong way.
Lord bless you.