Oreoluwa had built her page slowly over four years. She posted short devotional thoughts in the mornings, pictures of the outfits she wore to church, the occasional recipe and, on Fridays, a reflection on a verse she had been reading. By the middle of last year she had a little over twenty thousand followers, mostly young women in Lagos and Ibadan, and a few brands had begun sending her products to review. She was careful about what she posted. Friends called her page “the sane corner of the internet.”
In March she had taken a length of green lace to Mr Anyanwu, a tailor who had kept a small shop near the market in Yaba for nineteen years. It was for her closest friend’s wedding in July. He took her measurements, they agreed on a style, and she paid half. Two days before the wedding she sent him a voice note asking whether the sleeves could be changed to something fuller, because she had seen a design she liked better. He replied that the fabric was already cut but he would try.
She collected the dress the night before the wedding. The sleeves were uneven. One hung lower than the other, and the stitching at the shoulder looked rushed. Sitting in her car outside the shop, tired and angry, she propped up her phone and recorded a ninety-second video. She held up the dress, pointed at the sleeves and laughed in disbelief. She panned across to the shop sign. The caption read, Lagos tailors will give you high blood pressure. If you love yourself, don’t take your fabric to this man. She tagged the shop’s small business page and drove home.
By morning the video had been viewed more than one hundred and eighty thousand times. It was far more than anything she had ever posted about Scripture. Strangers were sharing it with laughing faces. Someone had found Mr Anyanwu’s phone number and posted it in the comments. His business listing collected forty one-star reviews in a day, most from people who had never been near Yaba. And Oreoluwa, getting ready for the wedding, found herself refreshing the numbers again and again, with a feeling in her chest she did not like to name.
On the Sunday after, a message arrived from a young woman who said she was the tailor’s daughter. Her father was fifty-eight. Since the video, three customers had come to collect their fabric unsewn. He had sat in the shop most of the week without speaking. Then the daughter added a sentence that Oreoluwa read four times: You changed the design two days before the wedding, after the fabric was cut. He told you he would try. He did not charge you for it.
PunchlineOreoluwa scrolled back through her chats. It was all there. She had simply forgotten, or had not wanted to remember, while the camera was rolling.
An audience is made of people
Most of us would never have done what Oreoluwa did in person. We would not stand in the middle of Yaba market with a megaphone, hold up a man’s work and invite a crowd of strangers to laugh at him. Yet a phone makes that crowd invisible. We see a screen, a number and a row of reactions. We do not see the tailor’s face or the empty chair where his customers used to sit.
That is the first thing a Christian needs to recover about social media. An online audience is made of people, and the people we talk about are also people. Followers are not a figure on a dashboard. They are men and women made in the image of God, each with a conscience, a family and a story you do not know. The person you post about is a neighbour, whether he lives on your street or three states away.
Paul gives the foundation for this in a phrase that sounds as if it were written for a networked age:
Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another. Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: Neither give place to the devil. Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.
“For we are members one of another.” Paul is speaking first of the church, the body of Christ, in which every believer is joined to every other. A lie told to a fellow member is like one hand deceiving the other. But the passage also reaches outward. The word neighbour in verse 25 comes from Zechariah 8:16, where the prophet tells Israel to speak truth to the people around them. Our connectedness in Christ trains us to see how connected all people are. What I put into the stream reaches someone.
That is what influence means. Influence is simply the reach of your words and example into other lives. Some believers have a few hundred contacts. Some have tens of thousands of followers. A pastor’s status update may be read by more people than hear him preach on Sunday. A secondary-school student’s group chat can shape how forty classmates treat the new girl. The size varies. The responsibility does not disappear at any size, because every audience, however small, is made of people.
The old life and the new feed
Look again at the flow of Ephesians 4. Paul has just reminded the believers that they have “put off” the old man and “put on” the new man, “which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness” (Ephesians 4:24). Then he becomes very practical. The verses that follow are a description of what a new life sounds like.
Putting away lying. Truth comes first, because every other kind of trust depends on it. Oreoluwa’s video was not exactly a lie. The sleeves really were uneven. But it left out the fact that mattered most, which was her own late request. A post can be accurate in every detail and still deceive by what it leaves out.
Be ye angry, and sin not. Paul does not forbid every kind of anger. There are things that should make a Christian angry. But he warns that anger left to run becomes a doorway: “Neither give place to the devil.” The word place suggests a foothold, a bit of ground. Anger that is posted at night, with an audience waiting, gives that foothold in public. It is very hard to reason with your anger once twenty thousand people are watching how you express it.
Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth. The word corrupt was used for rotten fruit or decayed fish, something spoiled that spreads its spoiling. The positive test Paul gives is remarkably useful for anyone with a phone: “that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.” Before I post, I can ask: will this build someone up? Will it give grace to those who hear it, including the person I am talking about?
Grieve not the holy Spirit of God. That is a tender phrase. The Spirit who sealed us for the day of redemption is a Person who can be grieved. He is present when we type. He is grieved when the mouth He was given to bless becomes a weapon.
Then Paul lists what must be put away: “bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking.” Clamour is the noise of a quarrel shouted aloud, an outcry raised so that others will join in. It is an almost exact description of what we now call a pile-on. Christians are called to take no part in it, whether we start it, join it or simply share it with a laughing face.
And in its place: “be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” The model for how I speak about others is how God has spoken about me in Christ. He knows all my faults and has not posted them.
When applause becomes the editor
What happened in Oreoluwa’s heart as she watched the numbers climb is worth slowing down to examine, because it happens to many of us in smaller ways. The video was popular precisely because it was cruel. Mockery travels faster than kindness. A sharp sentence about someone else’s failure gets more attention than a careful one about our own growth. And attention, once you have tasted it, becomes an editor. It begins to shape what you are willing to say.
John records a sobering sentence about some of the leaders who heard Jesus:
Nevertheless among the chief rulers also many believed on him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him , lest they should be put out of the synagogue: For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.
These men believed. They had heard and seen enough to know that Jesus was who He said He was. But they kept quiet, because the opinion of the Pharisees mattered more to them than the approval of God. “They loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.” The Greek word translated praise is doxa, often translated glory. They wanted glory from people more than glory from God.
On social media the same love can push in the opposite direction. Those rulers stayed silent to keep their standing. Online, we may say too much, or say it more harshly, to gain standing. The audience rewards outrage, so outrage grows. The audience laughs at mockery, so mockery becomes our style. A believer who started out posting about the goodness of God can slowly become a commentator on everyone else’s failures, because that is what gets shared.
Jesus asked the religious leaders of His day, “How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only?” (John 5:44). Hunger for human honour does not stay neutral. It bends what we see, what we say and finally what we believe.
So it is worth asking honest questions. Would I post this if nobody could react to it? Am I saying this about another person because it is true and needs saying, or because it will perform well? If the comments were turned off, would I still feel the need to say it? These questions are uncomfortable, and they are meant to be. They help us notice when the desire for attention has quietly taken the pen.
NuggetWhen the desire for attention starts deciding what you are willing to say about another person, it has become your master. A Christian’s words about others belong to Christ, and they are measured by love, not by reach.
Speak to him before you speak about him
There was a conversation Oreoluwa could have had before she recorded anything. She could have walked back into the shop and said, “Sir, these sleeves are not right. What can we do?” She might have found out that he had worked late the night before to try to accommodate her change. She might have found him willing to fix it in an hour. At the very least, she would have heard his side before telling the world hers.
Proverbs has a word for this:
Go not forth hastily to strive, lest thou know not what to do in the end thereof, when thy neighbour hath put thee to shame. Debate thy cause with thy neighbour himself; and discover not a secret to another: Lest he that heareth it put thee to shame, and thine infamy turn not away.
“Debate thy cause with thy neighbour himself.” Go to the person directly. Do not broadcast your grievance to others before you have raised it with the one it concerns. And the proverb gives a warning: “Go not forth hastily to strive, lest thou know not what to do in the end thereof, when thy neighbour hath put thee to shame.” The person who rushes out to make a public case often finds that the other party has facts he did not know. The shame then falls on the accuser.
Jesus gave the same order for His disciples: “if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone” (Matthew 18:15). That instruction concerns relationships among believers, but the wisdom behind it applies widely. Private before public. Person before audience. Conversation before content.
There are guard-rails here, and they matter. Not every public statement about wrongdoing is gossip or slander. Honest reviews of a business are part of normal life and can help others make good decisions, provided they are fair, factual and proportionate. Where someone is defrauding people, where a product is dangerous, or where a person is abusing others, there may be a real duty to warn, and Scripture’s call to go privately first does not oblige a victim of abuse to confront an abuser alone. Report abuse to those who can act on it, the police, the relevant authorities or trusted leaders, and seek safety first. But much of what we post about others is none of these things. It is irritation looking for an audience. The Christian learns to tell the difference, and when in doubt, begins with a private conversation.
Speech seasoned with salt
Paul wrote to the Colossians from prison, and near the end of his letter he gave a short instruction about how believers should conduct themselves among people who did not share their faith:
Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time. Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.
“Walk in wisdom toward them that are without.” Them that are without means those outside the church. Paul knew that unbelievers form their impression of Christ largely from the conduct of Christians. Every believer with a phone is now walking in front of them that are without, all day long. Your timeline is read by colleagues, classmates, relatives who left church years ago and strangers who have never heard the gospel properly explained. What they see there is part of your witness.
“Redeeming the time.” The phrase means buying up the opportunity, seizing the moment for good. Paul saw every encounter with an outsider as an opening. Social media multiplies those openings. It also multiplies the opportunities to waste them.
Then verse 6: “Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt.” Grace is the dominant note. Christian speech should carry something of the kindness and generosity of God. Alway includes the comment section. It includes the quarrel about football, the political argument, the reply to someone who has insulted you first.
Seasoned with salt adds a further quality. Salt gives flavour. It also preserves. Some have suggested that the phrase means speech that is wholesome, thoughtful and worth hearing, without being bland or merely polite. Grace does not mean having nothing to say. It means saying true things in a way that serves the hearer. A believer can disagree online, correct error, defend the faith and even rebuke wrongdoing, but the manner of it should be recognisably different from the bitterness all around.
“That ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.” Every man suggests that different people need different answers. The honest seeker needs patience. The mocker may need a short reply, or none at all. The grieving need gentleness. The response that fits one person can wound another. Before you hit send, ask who will actually read it.
The tongue with a wider reach
James wrote some of the strongest words in Scripture about speech. “Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!” (James 3:5). He compared the tongue to the small bit that turns a horse and the small rudder that turns a ship. A little thing with a very large effect.
If that was true of words spoken in a village where news travelled on foot, how much more is it true of words that can be shared a hundred thousand times before you wake up? Social media has not created a new sin. It has given an old one a much wider reach. A careless remark in a market might wound the person in front of you and a few listeners. The same remark posted can follow a man to every job interview for years.
James also points out how strange it is when the same tongue blesses God and curses people: “Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God” (James 3:9). Oreoluwa’s page had Bible verses at the top and a mocking video in the middle. Most of us have done something similar in a smaller way: a devotional status in the morning and a sarcastic comment about someone in the afternoon.
The Proverbs offer a simple remedy:
In the multitude of words there wanteth not sin: but he that refraineth his lips is wise.
“He that refraineth his lips is wise.” Restraint is not cowardice. There is wisdom in posting less, commenting less and waiting longer. Not every thought needs to be published. Not every irritation needs a caption. A believer who learns to leave a draft unsent has learned something valuable. Many of the posts we regret most are the ones we wrote quickly and alone, late at night, while we were angry or hurt.
Salt and light on a screen
None of this is an argument for Christians to leave social media. It is a call to be present there as Christ’s people. Jesus said:
Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
Jesus does not say, “Try to become salt.” He says, “Ye are the salt of the earth.” It is a statement of identity before it is a command. The people of Christ already have a distinct flavour in the world because of who they belong to. The question is whether that flavour is still present in how they live, or whether the salt has “lost his savour.”
Salt was used in the ancient world to preserve meat from decay and to give it flavour. A believer online can slow the spread of corruption simply by refusing to take part in it. When a pile-on starts and one person asks a gentle question, or declines to share, the decay slows. When a false story circulates and one person says, “I have not seen evidence of that,” the decay slows.
Light is the other image. “A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.” Jesus expects His people to be seen. He does not want the lamp hidden under a bushel. Christians are free to post about their faith, share Scripture, tell testimonies, encourage others and show the goodness of ordinary life lived with God. That is light on a hill, and many people have found faith through a verse shared at the right moment.
But notice the purpose clause in verse 16. “That they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” The light is meant to point beyond itself. When people see what we post, the hope is that they will think well of God. If the light is mainly drawing attention to us, our looks, our success, our clever wit, our moral superiority over others, it has lost its direction. The test of Christian influence online is where the glory goes.
That gives us freedom. You do not have to become a famous Christian content creator to be faithful. You do not need a large following to be salt and light. A faithful believer with three hundred contacts who encourages, tells the truth, shows grace and points toward Christ is using influence well.
Questions before you post
It may help to carry a few questions in your mind. They are not a law, and they should not make you anxious every time you open an app. They are simply a way of letting love examine what you are about to say.
- Is it true, and have I checked it, including the parts that make me look less good?
- Would I say this to the person’s face, with the same words and tone?
- Have I spoken to them privately first, where that is possible and safe?
- Is the attention I expect part of the reason I want to post this?
- Will this build up those who read it, including the person it concerns?
- If I was wrong, am I willing to correct it as publicly as I posted it?
That last question is important. Where we have used our influence badly, love requires us to repair what we can. Delete the post. Apologise to the person directly. Where the harm was public, make the correction public too. It will cost you something. It may cost followers. But the influence God has given you is for the good of others, and sometimes the most Christlike use of it is to say, in front of everyone who saw the first post, “I was wrong.”
Oreoluwa took the green dress back to the shop in Yaba on a Tuesday afternoon. Mr Anyanwu was sitting behind his machine with no work in front of it. When he saw her he stood up slowly, as though he expected another camera.
She did not film anything. She told him she was sorry. She told him she had forgotten about the voice note and had not asked him anything before she posted. He listened without speaking for a long time. Then he took the dress, turned it inside out and examined the shoulder seam. “I should have told you it was not possible,” he said quietly. “I did not want to disappoint you. Come back tomorrow.”
PunchlineThe next morning the sleeves hung evenly. He would not take money for it.
That evening Oreoluwa took down the original video and posted another. She explained what had really happened, including her own late request, and asked anyone who had left a review without visiting the shop to remove it. She tagged his page again. The second video was seen by about six thousand people. Some of her followers left. A few sent messages calling her weak.
She told me later that the numbers on the second video were the lowest she had seen in two years, and that she had never posted anything she was more glad to have posted. Within a month, Mr Anyanwu’s daughter sent her a photograph: four new customers standing in the shop, holding fabric, one of them saying she had come because of the apology.
You have influence. It may be twenty thousand followers or twenty members of the family group. Either way, the people on the other side of the screen are real. Use what God has given you so that they see something of your Father, and so that the people you speak about would recognise themselves fairly in what you say.
Teaching Companion
For Reflection
- Think of the last time you posted or shared something about another person. Would you have said it to their face in the same words?
- Where have you noticed the desire for attention shaping what you are willing to say online?
- Which part of Ephesians 4:25-32 most challenges the way you use your phone?
- Who among “them that are without” regularly sees what you post, and what impression of Christ are they forming?
- Is there a post you need to correct, delete or apologise for?
This Week
This week, before posting or sharing anything about another person, wait at least an hour and ask the questions listed above. Once during the week, use your platform deliberately to build someone up: thank a colleague publicly, encourage a friend or recommend a small business that served you well. If you remember a post that harmed someone, take it down and send that person a private apology.
A Prayer
Father, thank You that You know all my faults and have not exposed me, but have forgiven me for Christ’s sake. Forgive me for the times I have used my words to wound others, to gain attention or to look clever at someone else’s expense. Let my speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt. Make me salt and light where people can see me, and let my posts point to You rather than to me. Give me courage to speak to people before I speak about them, and humility to correct what I have done wrong. Holy Spirit, I do not want to grieve You. Guard my mouth and my fingers. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Truth received brings freedom. Truth believed establishes the heart.
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version. · Illustrations using first names only are composites unless stated otherwise.