Much of social media behavior today functions to undermine the design and authority of Christ’s church in the opening and closing of the kingdom according to these keys. And many of our problems come because the church has not been faithful to exercise the key that shuts the kingdom of heaven against those who stand against the truth.

Social media has become greatly destructive to the mission of the church. In much of our engagement with each other, there no longer remains a standard for objective truth or conduct among neighbors and gone is a recognition that there is an authority outside of one’s own sovereign determinations. Social media has now added to the lawlessness of our times by providing a platform for everyone to write whatever is right in their own minds. In this way, the church is constantly undermined as the pillar and ground of the truth.

The keys of Christ’s kingdom are not given to individuals outside of his church to determine the truth of a matter.

What is desperately needed today is a return to the basics of God’s ecclesiastical authority structure. “Woke” theology has made great efforts to cancel church ecclesiology. We need a robust re-education on the church as institution and what that means for our present challenges.

Of first importance in recovering our ecclesiology (the nature and structure of Christ’s church), is a reintroduction to the doctrine of the keys of the kingdom. The keys of Christ’s kingdom are not given to individuals outside of his church to determine the truth of a matter. No personal social media platform functions as a church assembly for someone with a grievance to become judge and jury over their own cause.

One’s electronic friends are not ordained elders, one’s writings are not of confessional status, one’s Twitter account is not an authoritative pulpit, and one’s Facebook page should not replace corporate worship as an alternate “service” of our own praise.

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