The other potential problem with tweeting is this: It is sort of like a Protestant equivalent of the Pope’s ex cathedra statements. We all have a pope in our belly, said Luther. Well, twitter has given the Protestant church a million popes who daily (sometimes hourly) pope off, I mean, pipe off one-liners as though they spent the first 10 years of their life living in a fortune cookie. 

 
Twitter can be a dangerous place for trying to do theology. Information sharing is one thing; but “tweeting” – is that a word? – theology is quite another.

Personally, theology is not easy at the best of times – you know, when you’re listening to Air Supply or Metallica in your office and your Facebook friends like the last article you wrote. Theologians over the centuries have had to work very hard and long in order to provide the church with theology that not only remains faithful to God’s Word, but theology that is also not easily misunderstood.

The type of preaching that drives me nuts goes like this:

A topic is stated (e.g., “Gluten Free Diets Are Biblical”), and then the preacher takes the congregation on a proof-texting safari through the Bible, without paying much attention to the context of the verse cited. As one learned theologian said, “context is half the interpretation.” We are not Jehovah’s Witnesses – actually, we are, if you think about it…but I digress.

Just consider the context of Paul saying, “I can do all things through him who gives me strength” (Phil 4:13). You can’t just quote that before a baseball game, hoping to hit .500. You could if there was a shortage of hot-dogs at the game, though, but I digress.

Similarly, “tweeting” has two potential problems, as I see it:

1) You can very often prove or disprove the tweet. Or sometimes the tweet is outright false (i.e., stupid).

Consider this tweet: “You can’t make God more pleased with you based on your obedience.”

Well, that is both true and false. God’s blessedness is infinite. He does not have passions like us. He is not more or less happy; he is not more or less sad because of what we do or don’t do. He is infinitely happy.

God also has a benevolent love for his people that is unconditional. It does not depend upon anything we do. He simply loves us because he loves us. There is, however, the fact that the Scriptures very frequently remind believers they can please God as well as displease God (Col. 1:10; 1 Jn. 3:22; Heb. 11:6; Heb. 13:16; 1 Thess. 2:4; 2 Sam. 11:27; 2 Kings 17:18)

So the statement above requires a host of qualifications, explanations, demarcations, and pontifications in order to make any sense. It dies the death of a thousand qualifications. I wish it would just die, but I don’t want to break the 6th commandment.

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