Ep.55 - When Elon Musk Buys Twitter

Elon Musk sent the Twitter-verse ablaze a few weeks ago when he freed up enough cash to make an offer to buy Twitter that the shareholders could not refuse.  Ever since the offer was accepted social media has been buzzing trying to predict the fallout of a Musk led platform.  Elon left no doubt as to his purpose behind such a bold move, he wants to be a force for free speech.  Now media publications are all weighing in on their positions and concerns relating to this fundamental constitutional right.  In this episode, we will take a deep dive into two passages that shed a bright light on the way Jesus views our speech.  Are we able to be completely free?  Tune in and find out!

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right, and welcome back everyone to another exciting edition of the Christianing Podcast. Thank you as always for joining us today as we take the theology of Sunday and match it to the reality of Monday and what's more real than... What's been going on in this crazy world and we got billionaires buying social media platforms in the midst of all this culture war stuff and I know you just like me, we're stuck right in the middle of it all. So, got another great real life topic. Sorry, we're probably a couple weeks behind on this story, but I do want to reiterate, oftentimes it's not the story itself that makes these issues so captivating and riveting and really interesting from the Christian worldview perspective. Everybody's response to it is where the issue really shines forth. Whether or not Elon Musk should be able to buy Twitter, that's a pretty... a moral question. Billionaire can use his money however he wants, I guess, you know, but it's really how society has grown to react to such types of actions and what's the motivation for Elon Musk to even do the whole thing. So yeah, we're going to dive into the realities of How to Christian Well when Elon Musk purchases Twitter for$44 billion, I believe was the final agreed upon price. Now the sale won't be final and the transfer of ownership won't be final until probably it's close to six months now. So not a lot has changed as of yet. I did see... I am on Twitter, just so I can follow. I like following different Christian leaders I respect, and then also I'm a sports guy, so I've got my sports journalists and stuff that I check in on to give me the inside scoop on my favorite state of Michigan sports teams, because it's impossible. I live in California. It's impossible to get any reliable... Lions, Pistons, Wolverine, Red Wing content out here. So, anyways, I'm on Twitter. I'm just a passive observer. I'll throw some little comments up here and there, but that's about it. But yeah, Twitter has been ablaze since Elon Musk... um offered to buy it and all that good stuff and i am hearing rumblings that uh different conservatives are all sudden snap of fingers have gained tens of thousands followers uh because the belief there is there is a algorithm nobody is able to see the algorithms that twitter uses and there's you know kind of a belief out there amongst people on the right that the algorithm is skewed against conservatism as far as gaining followers and you know I don't know how all that works so I'm not that deep into it but the issue of the day because really the motivation so I want to I want to dive into the motivation of Elon's purchase of Twitter and then That same motivation is really the center of everybody's response to Elon Musk's actions. It's all about free speech. The reason Elon Musk was very clear in what his motivation was, what he said is Twitter is the de facto town square. It's the modern town square where ideas and debate... get kind of projected that we no longer have town square centers where different groups of people would gather to speak their thoughts and views and try to sway public opinion. That doesn't exist anymore because we can just sit on our phones and go on social media sites and do all that from the comfort of our couches and our desks and so on and so forth. So he said because twitter is the de facto times town square now there is a responsibility to keep that town square free of bias meaning that it has to be a place where the free exchange of ideas occurs and he feels particularly called i use a religious term but he feels particularly called or emboldened to be the person that redeems twitter to its original capability just being a a neutral place where people from the right side of the aisle can project their ideas people from the left side of the aisle can project the ideas even crazy people with crazy thoughts can uh project their ideas eat as long as it doesn't you know break uh long-held moral traditions like pornography and violent speech, things of that nature, that there's always been these well-accepted standards of things that are beyond the pale. We've never had an issue really identifying those in the past, and now we do have an issue because people call violent speech things that are just people sharing their thoughts and ideas. Again, I'm just kind of parroting Elon's talking points on all this. So It's been interesting, as always, to see the Christian response to these kinds of things. And so one thing I have noticed that we need to be very mindful of, we need to be very careful of before we get into really the heart of the matter is, as Christians, we have to be careful not to regard constitutional rights as biblical mandates. You know, we're seeing that creep up on a lot of different fronts. Where there are, we do live in a country where the Bill of Rights, the Constitution has enshrined in law certain inalienable rights that if you're a citizen of this country, you just, the fact that you're alive, you have the rights, these rights. And it's pretty, it's a very unique thing. Not many other countries have such protected rights and liberties. So obviously, as Americans, since America has now been around for a few hundred years, that newness has worn off and, you know, we kind of lose that perspective of how special our nation is to Americans. have a constitution that has been written so carefully, thoughtfully, and things of that nature. However, as much as I love the Constitution of the United States and will, in my non-religious circles or non-religious motivated, you know, life, whatever, I will, you know, I'll always advocate for adherence to the Constitution and continual strengthening and supporting the Constitution because it's an incredible, incredible document. But that can be true, and at the same time, Christians can take it way too far. In our zeal and our zest for the Constitution, what we can do is turn it also into a biblical mandate, and we could pull Jesus and the Bible into places where Jesus and the Bible never desired or intended to be. i guess lack of better word you know really garner their influence and that's not to say that our faith doesn't inform all aspects of our lives it's not the point but using the bible in jesus as the blunt motivation as to why a constitutional right should be upheld at all costs that's I think clearly as you get into the Bible, that's a bridge too far, as they say. So that's just a general statement that I think we all need to be mindful of. Because as Christians, we get excited about stuff. And when we get excited about stuff, our temptation is to take the authoritative word of God. Meaning like, this is the word of God. This is the highest of high wisdom and authority. and we attach things that we're very zealous for on on this physical earth and we attach it to the bible in order to kind of hammer down the things that we want to see happen and so that that's a temptation first of all we need to recognize in ourselves as i see it on all sides of all issues the bible gets dragged in and we just need to be very very careful constitutional rights are wonderful and they're great, but they are not biblical mandates. So we do need to have a healthy understanding of how those two things coexist at the same time. So that's one of the big things we do here on the Cushioning Podcast is we take relevant issues and topics and we try to show how the Bible can help us healthily have a high view of the Constitution, but not abuse the Bible in order to make our points. That's kind of what we're after. Or if you feel that the Constitution is lacking and it's incomplete or whatever, whatever your view of the Constitution is, again, we can hold these views and have an extremely high view of Scripture and walk in our faith as long as we believe adhere to what the actual biblical mandates are. So this episode, we're going to dive into free speech and really look into how do Christians view free speech? How does the Bible view free speech? Is the Bible for speech that is explicitly free? I think there's a lot of passages that shed light on that. We're going to highlight two in our word of the day, two passages that I think shed some great light, but as always, for time's sake, it's not exhaustive at all. So let's dive in. We're first going to be in James chapter 3. We'll make an observation. We'll jump into Ephesians chapter 4, make a couple more observations, and we'll let you be on your way. So let's go. James chapter 3, our first word of the day here. Verse 1, Verse 1 is such an amazing verse. It's such an important verse. We're not going to hang our hat on it today, but I just, again, I want to share these words with you. in context of how they're written. It is interesting that James' famous instruction about the power of the tongue is in the context of helping us understand the role of teachers and teaching, which of course is an audible phenomenon. Teachers speak words. They use speech in order to inform their students. And so obviously it's a heavy speech related activity, which is why I think one of the reasons why one of the biggest battlegrounds for free speech is on college campuses and school campuses because there is no education where there is no speech, where there is no words, and that education is used for a very intentional purpose. So that's just interesting. We haven't really dug into James 3.1 before. I think I've mentioned it, but this, man, I would really love to see more Christian organizations hold nearer to the wisdom of James chapter 3.1. It would help our churches from a lot of the mess that we get ourselves into when it comes to stuff like women in ministry and all these things like homosexual leadership at a church. All these things that just become these huge public eyesores of the church that we just don't have a clear witness when it comes to these issues and there's a lot of infighting within ourselves on this stuff like James 3 1 solves a ton of that but we'll leave that for another another episode but just I just say all that too that's the context for this very incredible teaching that he's going to dive into verse 2 for we all stumble in many ways and if anyone does not stumble in what he says again relating back to speech he is a perfect man able also to bridle his whole body that will come back to verse 2 because that's a key verse and really understanding how the gospel bears weight on this Very straightforward, moral teaching that we love James for. James is like the Proverbs of the New Testament. Very short, concise, straightforward, moral Proverbs, really, is what it's all about. Verse 3. If we put bits into the mouths of horses so they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. Look at the ships also, though they are so large... and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. Now this is where the analogy and the symbolism comes in for James to really drive home one of his big overarching points here about the tongue and speech. You have a huge ship, wind-propelled ship. When you just think about the strength of the wind of the sea and just waves and all this stuff and all of all of those those strong strong forces that you would think would be just completely unable to be controlled you can control a vessel on a ship by a very small rudder that sticks in underneath that you can drive a ship straight into the face of wind If you have the sail set right and you have the rudder operating correctly, you can fight currents and you can fight these strong forces of nature because of the rudder. And so it's very important as he's building kind of his symbolic case here, verse 5. So also the tongue, this is where he now says, brings it down to kind of the point he's trying to make. So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire. Third analogy. We got ship on a strong weather sea. We've got the tongue in the body. And then now we've got a forest fire that starts by a spark. Verse six, and the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set upon our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life and set on fire by hell. So taking a step back, you know, not getting too deep into the nitty gritty, just taking those six verses and just pulling back. What is the big thing? The big point that James wants us to walk away from before anybody can really dive into the nitty gritties of all this incredible language here is our first takeaway today is, I believe what James wants us to understand is speech is mankind's superpower. Speech is mankind's superpower. He's trying to help us understand that this this kind of nonchalant activity of everyday life that you and I just, look at me, I'm on a podcast, just blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm just blattering around. And rarely do we stop to really consider the power that we are exercising every time we open our mouth. That's what he's, James is really the big thing that God here is trying to get us to do. wrap our minds around it. So we need to wrap our minds around this as much as possible. We go to the movies. My kids are trying to get me to spend hundreds of dollars to take them to go see the new Doctor Strange multiverse thing that maybe we'll get to it this weekend. Because we're enamored by these mystical powers and these abnormal strength and all these things that we go to the movies to see and see these scenarios play out in front of our eyes. And what James is trying to get us to understand is In reality, that happens every day in the most normal circumstances. We have this ability with our mouth, with our lips, with our tongue to speak words that can entirely change the course of a lifetime. I mean, think about it. Just think about what do you remember as you look back on your childhood? And I just... I work with youth and everybody that I talk to, you know, when they're talking about things that have hurt them and things that they hold on to, things that have shaped them, it always goes back to something somebody has said at some point in their life. And if anybody is... even more unfortunate to have those words matched with physical abuse. Obviously that's just, that's horrendous. So I'm not trying to take away the power of the fist, but what's so even more powerful about the tongue is the things that we say can be completely in bounds according to the law. of the land and the law of even human decency there's things that we say to each other that would cause nobody to lose a job or have any bad consequence and yet it completely derail and devastate the life of the person that's hearing it it is the superpower of mankind that's I think that's a huge, huge thing for us to just sit on and really reflect and really, it sobers you. It really sobers you to think, yes, you, person sitting there right now, listening to the Christianing podcast. I know we're just normal folks. This is not a big, I'm not a big, speaker with a massive following. We're just normal folks. Somehow you got connected to this thing by a friend or maybe you know me personally or you know somebody in my family or whatever. We're just normal folks and us normal folks have a hard time really wrapping our heads around the fact that we have a superpower, but we do. I have four minds young minds in my home right now that they don't even realize it but they live or die on every word that comes out of my wife and I's mouth they do we have that much power over their lives today something we say today will shape them for the rest of their days it's just it's incredible so all that sets up a conversation about free speech, that has to be the foundation of any conversation about free speech is a sober understanding of the power contained in words. Because with great power comes great responsibility. We know that anybody who wields power has to wield it in a responsible manner. We know that to be true about every powerful person that we see in our culture. We beg and we plead and we complain until they wield that power with responsibility. It's the only way a society can flourish. So same with you and I. We have to understand we have a superpower. And because we have a superpower, there's tremendous responsibility. So any conversation about free speech... That doesn't center around the concept of responsibility. You're deviating from the biblical path. You're deviating from the biblical path. We'll get more into that as we jump to Ephesians chapter 4. So let's jump over. Ephesians chapter 4, we'll start in verse 25. Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth. Again, context of all the... Of all the nuggets of gold that Paul is going to weave into these next few verses, come to the context of putting away falsehood and speaking the truth with his neighbor. For we are members of one another. Be angry and do not sin. So again, connect the two concepts. How do we sin in our anger? We misuse our speech. We misuse our words. Obviously, yes, it can go to our fists. It can go to physical. But nine times out of ten, it doesn't go that far. And it stays in the realm of speech. So speak the truth to our neighbor. Because we're members of one another. Be angry. Do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger. And give no opportunity to the devil. Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. That's a whole other, that's such a rich verse. We're just going to kind of meander through it real quick to get to verse 29. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouth. Again, back to speech. Starts with speech. Verse 25, therefore, speak the truth. 29, let no corrupting talk come out of your mouth, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion that it may give grace to those who hear. Just huge verses. Ephesians 4, 25-29 and James 3, 1-6, they dovetail. They are two sides of the same coin. Because all of this really gives us a healthy biblical understanding of the way Jesus wants us to think about our own speech. So, first thing we learned, speech is mankind's superpower. Second thing we see here, speech is a power to be used for good. That is why God... gave us words to speak. He spoke. Jesus is the word, according to John 1. God the Father spoke words, and all of creation came to be. God is a God of speech, of revelation, of communication, and so we mirror that, and we mimic that, but all of God's speech was what brought good, order, forgiveness, redemption, love, Everything that is good was brought forth through God's speech to us. So when we mimic God with our own speech, obviously it is for the same end. It is for the same purpose, which is good. But only such is good for building up as fits the occasion that it may give grace to those who hear. So that's... That's important. We're kind of doing a pyramid of logic here. The baseline of that logic is speech is a tremendous power. The next level up, if you have a tremendous power, what's its purpose? It's for good. It's for the good of every single person around us. So we're at that level right now. And a quick note, because he starts, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor. So there's this, now, this is where we need to take the concept of good, such as good for building up, and we have to have a deeper understanding of what is good. Modern Americans, we take that biblical concept of good and we translate it to mean things that make me feel good. things that I want to hear. So if someone says something to me that I don't want to hear, that is a violation of a biblical mandate. No, we cannot be such superficial Christians. We have to have a much deeper, nuanced understanding of the concept of good. Because here's the reality. Good can be uncomfortable. When it says, speak the truth with his neighbor, that truth that you may need to share with me could be the last thing that I want to hear that day. It could be. But again, my Christian neighbor has a biblical mandate. If they have found something to be true about me and my life and my impact on those around me, they speak that truth. And that's can be uncomfortable. So we can't have such a thin-skinned, narrow understanding, shallow, I'd say, understanding of what is good to mean it has to make me feel better. It has to be what I desire to hear at all times. That's the way normal American Christians typically live. We stay on that plane. Okay? We... We have to be deeper understanding. So we have to understand good can be uncomfortable. God brings tons of beautiful, amazing things in people's lives through uncomfortability. However, uncomfortability is not an excuse to be a jerk because there's the other side of it as well. There is the hyper-truth crowd in the Christian world They just take so seriously their mandate to tell everybody what is true. But they do it in a manner that is just jerks. We have, yes, a lot of jerks running around in our faith. I'm not going to name the public ones or whatever. I'll let you kind of use your own brains to figure that stuff out. But notice,"...such as good for building up as fits the occasion." that it may give grace to those who hear. So hard truths are in bounds in good biblical speech, but it has to fit the occasion and it has to give grace to those who hear. The outcome of that conversation needs to be someone who says, who just feels so cared for and so loved that you would approach he or she with that truth because it was done in such a way that fit the occasion that that person just like, that person walks away feeling closer to the person who spoke the truth, more loved by the person who spoke the truth. That really, really matters. Okay, so we have two things. Me, as a listener, I have to have a deeper understanding of what is good, not just to mean what I'm comfortable with. So I have to have it deeper. And then as the speaker, I have to be very careful in those uncomfortable moments. Be just very compassionate in those uncomfortable moments. And I approach those things with such grace and patience so that the person... They may have got slapped upside the head with a rebuke, with an admonishment, but they just felt so loved in the process. The Spirit will draw that line for you. He will. Just submit to it. Submit to Him in the moment. And do everything you can to keep your anger, judgment, frustration out of it. That's very hard for me. It's very hard. very hard you know but god has been has been good and gracious to me thus far so i am grateful for that so again moving on speech is mankind's superpower speech is a power to be used for good however good can be uncomfortable but uncomfortability is not an excuse to be a jerk last thing top of the pyramid where where does all this lead what What finally rests on the top of these biblical solid understandings? Speech then must be controlled to achieve its purposes. Yes, I just said it. I'm sorry. Free speech advocates, please advocate for free speech in the constitutional sense, in the physical kingdom sense, because you believe that's what brings about the best ideas. Just don't make that constitutional conviction a biblical mandate because we do not have freedom of speech in the Bible. We can say whatever we want because we're saved by grace. However, the Bible is very clear. Why would you? When the speech that brought me salvation was a speech that was Only intended for good. That's how we worship God with our speech as we say, God, thank you for the freedom to say whatever I want because I have been saved by your works, not my merits. So I can't speak my way to heaven. So I'm covered by grace, but I recognize the salvation that I enjoy was given to me by the word and the word alone. was only pure and good. So I want to reflect that goodness with my speech so I will control. I will control my speech, not only me. And this is where Christian controlled speech deviates from governmental controlled speech. Because it's fundamentally a question of who controlled by who. Christians, our speech is controlled by the Spirit of God, not the government of the United States. So yes, if you don't want the government to get involved with speech, great. That's fine. Just don't conflate the two ideas. And in your advocation, even more important, in your advocacy, we'll say, of your beliefs about free speech, you don't have... freedom in Christ to violate the speech rules here in Ephesians 4. Yes, as you advocate for your positions, it can't be corrupting talk. It has to be such as good for building up and it has to fit the occasion and it has to give grace to those who fear that's how the spirit will control your speech we submit to the spirit we submit our speech to the spirit of god to mirror and mimic his purposes and his speech to us that's what we want so Yes, free speech, I hate to burst the bubble, is not a biblical concept. We Christians have believed in controlled speech forever. Our speech, because we're sinners, is we do everything we can. We put in accountability measures. We pray. We do whatever we can so that what comes out of our mouth is ultimately for good. Which brings us back to, if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body. And that's where James assumes the gospel in this passage. For we all know we're not perfect, so how do we become perfect? By letting go. The Spirit of God do the miraculous work inside of us of controlling our speech. When I want to open my mouth to speak an insult, the Spirit dives in my soul and steals the words before they even get to my lips. Not because I am perfect, but because Christ is perfect and that's what He does in me. And I can't tell you how many times He has done that for me. Again, I'm a work in progress just like you, but I just am so grateful for the moments the Spirit has indeed controlled my speech and I ask Him to do it more. So please, please do not, please relish in controlled speech. Relish in that. And as you advocate for free speech in your community, make sure that everybody is seeing an example of spirit-controlled speech as you share your ideas that may challenge people, that may make them think deeper or whatever, but it's shared in a way that the person walks away and be like, man, that person really cares for me. I completely disagree with everything that they said, but that person wasn't there to hurt me. to belittle me, to make me feel worse. Man, and if we Christians could get that, man, our witness would just go through the roof because we know how the free speech debate is happening, how it's being engaged in the secular world apart from Christ. So I'm one of those crazy people. I want Christians to dive into those conversations. I'm not a void believer. These are opportunities for us to showcase what non-government controlled speech, when you have a higher authority, the spirit of God controlling your speech, just how amazing, amazing relationships can become. And that's why I just, I'm never, I hope my words are never interpreted to encourage Christians to step out of these controversial political situations. arenas, but really just as we fully submit ourselves to the much better, higher authority in all things, we will engage in these issues and these conversations in such an incredible, life-giving way that I don't know. I believe it will move the needle in our culture and our society and it will bring a lot of people to Jesus. I'm convinced of that. So yeah, I think that's all we have today on free speech. And hopefully that helps. If you've been listening to some people that are getting, Christians that are getting pretty geeked up about this free speech debate and how they believe that, you know, Twitter and different woke universities and all this are trying to steal, you know, our, you know, constitutional rights, free speech. You know, maybe share this episode with them to kind of help them engage in that, engage in that zeal that they have in just a much, a much more biblical way for lack of a better word there. So yeah, hope that helps. I think, I think that's it for now. Uh, just kind of heads up. I have not missed the whole Roe v. Wade thing that popped up this week. I've just been sitting on that and kind of ruminating, um, really thinking deeply on that. And obviously want to share thoughts. If I have something, um, kind of useful and good to share. It's a whole kind of abortion thing right now, not maybe the issue just purely itself, but just how it's impacting our society. Yeah, it's been an interesting one. So I'm there. I'm seeing it. So Lord willing, maybe we'll have a conversation about it in the near future. But for now, I think we're good with Elon. Have a good one. More power to him. Buy Twitter. Enjoy. Just, guys, don't be jerks when you're on his site. All right. Have an amazing day. We love you. And as always, Christian Well, my friends, we'll see you next time.

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He taught me how to live my life as it should be. He taught me how to turn my cheek when people laugh at me. I've had friends before, and I can tell you that he's one who will never leave you flat.