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00:00:00.000 | I am James Hong and welcome to the Surpassing Value Podcast.
00:00:15.620 | The fuel and desire for this podcast was born out of a compulsion to flesh out what's
00:00:19.740 | been going on in the midst of an ocean of megaphones that may not actually withstand
00:00:24.600 | the test of scrutiny.
00:00:26.620 | As a signpost theologian, I will do my best to filter out the impurities and point people
00:00:32.300 | in the right direction.
00:00:39.300 | For episode 9, I wanted to take some time and talk about the concept of human dignity,
00:00:45.740 | the Imago Dei, and social media.
00:00:49.200 | This might not seem like a topic worthy of discussion because after all, who doesn't
00:00:53.760 | agree that all humans carry inherent worth and therefore should be treated with a baseline
00:00:58.620 | of dignity.
00:00:59.620 | I am going to state what is an uncontroversial statement.
00:01:05.920 | Everyone, and I mean everyone, regardless of whatever synthetic classification we desire
00:01:12.940 | to put ourselves in, possess inherent worth and that inherent worth is inextricably linked
00:01:20.580 | to human dignity.
00:01:22.460 | To pull it apart even further, whatever race, ethnicity, people group, religion or lack
00:01:28.880 | thereof, sexual orientation or preference, or socioeconomic status, or sordid past, or
00:01:36.740 | gender, whatever else, the treatment and perspective we should all receive from one another in
00:01:43.980 | theory should be equivalent to that of a sibling within our family, a sibling you love.
00:01:48.700 | To put it in layman's terms, there is never a reason we should see any other human being
00:01:54.440 | on the face of the earth anything less than someone we love.
00:01:58.820 | I know that sounds fluffy at first, but you're going to need to bear with me a little bit
00:02:03.040 | as I arrive at that conclusion and why the journey itself is so important to the conclusion.
00:02:11.080 | As a disclaimer, I want to say that as I name these different synthetic classifications
00:02:17.000 | that we all use, race, ethnicity, people group, gender, religion, etc., I seldom find them
00:02:25.880 | helpful.
00:02:26.880 | In fact, on balance, I find them to be much more harmful than helpful.
00:02:33.600 | One of the reasons I find them to be much more harmful than helpful is because these
00:02:38.100 | synthetic classifications begin to be the source of seeing another person as the other.
00:02:45.280 | We begin to see one another as groups belonging to that synthetic classification, straight
00:02:57.680 | or gay, Asian or brown, male or female, as opposed to just seeing each other as human
00:03:07.040 | beings.
00:03:08.480 | I want to give you an example.
00:03:10.840 | I could be in a restaurant with a bunch of other Koreans as that was the case for me
00:03:17.140 | growing up in Koreatown Los Angeles and feel right at home since I look like everyone else.
00:03:24.640 | As a side note, Koreatown Los Angeles has the highest concentration of ethnic Koreans
00:03:31.160 | outside of Korea.
00:03:33.920 | So growing up in Koreatown Los Angeles, I had Korean everything.
00:03:38.560 | There were Korean tutoring centers, shopping malls, auto repair shops, as I mentioned restaurants,
00:03:46.520 | Korean tax centers.
00:03:48.520 | There are about 100,000 Koreans residing in Los Angeles today.
00:03:53.840 | Not the county, I'm talking about the city.
00:03:57.080 | So that's a lot of people and a lot of Koreans residing within a small area.
00:04:04.320 | It is very easy to get lost in the community because you really don't have to learn English
00:04:11.300 | because the community itself is self-sufficient.
00:04:15.160 | Now going back to the restaurant, as I sit in this Korean restaurant in my head, I could
00:04:19.480 | feel like I belong because when I look at everyone, they look like me.
00:04:25.760 | But then what if I start seeing everything through the lens of one of the synthetic classifications?
00:04:31.560 | Age, sex, gender, religion.
00:04:36.440 | If I were to do that, I would go from a sense of real belonging to a very real sense of
00:04:45.020 | isolation and loneliness.
00:04:47.560 | In this restaurant, not everyone is the same age as me.
00:04:50.480 | In this restaurant, not everyone is the same gender as me.
00:04:54.080 | In this restaurant, and you can go on.
00:04:57.440 | So instead of seeing people as people, if I start to see people through the lens of
00:05:06.360 | the synthetic classifications, I make within myself this cage of loneliness and isolations.
00:05:17.600 | Classifications, synthetic classifications, do have some utilitarian value.
00:05:23.000 | But what I'm saying is, on balance, they have been more harmful than helpful and have
00:05:31.240 | been the source and have spawned this sense of cynicism that has been fueled from the
00:05:38.040 | suspicion of the other.
00:05:42.560 | And that has caused us to see each other as less than people because they don't share
00:05:49.600 | the same synthetic classification as you.
00:05:53.000 | And if you have a distaste for a certain synthetic classification, you will begin to see through
00:06:00.240 | that lens of distaste.
00:06:03.800 | We automatically flood representative ideas of those supposed exemplars of said group.
00:06:13.360 | Nobody would ever explicitly articulate it as that, but isn't that what we are doing
00:06:19.080 | when we denigrate each other based on a certain synthetic classification?
00:06:26.160 | And aren't we all guilty of this at times?
00:06:30.760 | But this distaste is often flipped upside down when we share lives with one another.
00:06:36.100 | When you meet a person and share life with that person who is part of maybe a synthetic
00:06:40.520 | classification you have a distaste for, you begin to see that the said person is not all
00:06:46.400 | that bad.
00:06:47.980 | Maybe you even begin to like that person.
00:06:51.000 | Our distaste and our philosophy behind our distastes begins to get challenged.
00:06:57.000 | I would submit to you at this moment in time, in our culture, the biggest wedge, more than
00:07:01.900 | any other synthetic classification, is ideological.
00:07:10.860 | Ideological classifications drive the biggest wedge in society and the church.
00:07:17.980 | I am not saying that racism doesn't exist, ageism doesn't exist, and every other ism
00:07:27.160 | doesn't exist because it exists because sin exists and we all suffer from an innate posture
00:07:34.460 | of depravity.
00:07:37.020 | Many times we will judge the intentions of another's heart and classify it as some type
00:07:41.860 | of ism based on suspicions we have for one another rather than giving people the benefit
00:07:48.860 | of the doubt.
00:07:50.580 | That judgment then begins to become our reality, doesn't it?
00:07:55.420 | But that judgment, like we talked about many times, is smashed when we begin to interact
00:08:00.500 | with people.
00:08:01.900 | And that is partly why these lockdowns have been so detrimental for us as a nation and
00:08:07.860 | as a church because we are embodied souls and the sharing of lives many times contributes
00:08:16.860 | to breaking down real divisions and sometimes the ones that only exist in our head.
00:08:25.540 | That is the travesty of this whole thing.
00:08:31.520 | How many stories have you heard of family members no longer speaking to one another
00:08:35.740 | because one votes for another political party and both are appalled at their choices?
00:08:41.000 | How many social media posts have you read of people denigrating, disparaging, and even
00:08:46.160 | outright verbally assaulting other people or certain thought leaders because of a position
00:08:51.980 | they hold?
00:08:54.580 | Don't get me wrong, we should have substantive discussions about these issues because some
00:09:01.060 | of these issues are extremely important.
00:09:03.380 | Some are weightier than others.
00:09:06.180 | Some are even maybe of the utmost concern.
00:09:09.560 | But even then, shouldn't we speak and act in a way that correlates with the fact that
00:09:14.860 | all people are made in the image of God?
00:09:20.300 | All people are made in the image of God.
00:09:25.780 | Behind a digital projection is an actual person.
00:09:32.300 | Theologians like to use the Latin term "Imago Dei" for image of God, "Imago Dei."
00:09:39.260 | I want to park right here just for a little bit and expand on this term and flesh out
00:09:44.820 | what this means.
00:09:45.820 | And that's part of the journey that I was explicitly referring to in the beginning of
00:09:50.380 | this episode because it is really important to flesh this out.
00:09:55.340 | Kyle and Dalich in their Old Testament commentary write regarding the image of God, "The image
00:10:01.260 | of God consists, therefore, in the spiritual personality of man, though not merely in unity
00:10:06.420 | of self-consciousness and self-determination, or in the fact that man was created a consciously
00:10:11.940 | free ego, for personality is merely the basis and form of the divine likeness, not its real
00:10:18.780 | essence.
00:10:20.020 | This consists, rather, in the fact that the man endowed with free self-conscious personality
00:10:25.180 | possesses, in his spiritual as well as his corporeal nature, a creaturely copy of the
00:10:32.060 | holiness and blessedness of the divine life.
00:10:36.620 | This concrete essence of the divine likeness was shattered by sin, and it is only through
00:10:43.100 | Christ, the brightness of the glory of God and the expression of His essence, that our
00:10:48.540 | nature is transformed into the image of God again."
00:10:56.220 | John MacArthur states in a sermon with respect to the Imago Dei, now these are going to be
00:11:00.340 | some long quotes, but they are absolutely worth it.
00:11:04.220 | They are absolutely worth it.
00:11:06.020 | He says this, "God is a plurality.
00:11:09.920 | God exists in Trinitarian relationship, and I have been made for relationships.
00:11:14.660 | That is the ontological aspect, or the aspect of nature, which is the image of God, personhood
00:11:20.320 | and relationship.
00:11:22.060 | There are also some ethical things, and I've already hinted at them.
00:11:25.000 | As a person who is self-conscious, there are ethical features.
00:11:27.980 | I know right from wrong, I understand virtue, I understand morality, I understand righteousness,
00:11:32.820 | I understand sin, I understand holiness, I understand disobedience and rebellion, I have
00:11:37.460 | the capacity to do what is right, I have the capacity to do what is wrong, I have a capacity
00:11:41.980 | for a holy and loving fellowship with my heavenly Father, I have a capacity to know God, to
00:11:46.460 | know Christ, to know the Holy Spirit, I also have a capacity as a person in the image of
00:11:51.220 | God to know what's right and to know what's wrong, to know what's good, to know what's
00:11:54.980 | bad.
00:11:56.340 | It is true that as a human being, I resemble the creatures in my physical, corporeal form.
00:12:01.100 | I am made up of flesh, I am made up of the same components, I am made up of the same
00:12:05.180 | atomic material, the same raw elements.
00:12:07.860 | But what makes me distinct is my invisible part.
00:12:10.300 | It's the part that you can't find in my DNA.
00:12:12.300 | It's the part that is not in the chromosomes.
00:12:14.540 | It's that invisible self.
00:12:15.820 | It's that true person that makes me like God, that is capable of relationship with you and
00:12:20.420 | with God.
00:12:21.420 | And the question has been asked for the centuries, "Does the body of man bear the image of God?"
00:12:25.940 | No, not in the purest and truest sense.
00:12:29.460 | I don't want to get into splitting philosophical hairs here, but we are dust to dust and that's
00:12:33.740 | not like God.
00:12:34.960 | The personhood is eternal and that's like God.
00:12:38.140 | And we are capable and shall enjoy personal relationships forever with one another in
00:12:42.380 | the kingdom of God and with God himself.
00:12:44.700 | But while the body is not so much the expression of the image of God, the body does serve as
00:12:49.100 | a vehicle through which the image of God is manifest.
00:12:52.180 | To put it this way, if I didn't have a body, I'd have a hard time relating to you.
00:12:56.620 | So while the body is not the image of God, because God is a spirit and has not a body,
00:13:01.820 | my body gives me the vehicle in a corporeal world, in a physical world, for the image
00:13:06.680 | of God to manifest itself.
00:13:09.060 | Augustine used to say, "Man's body is appropriate for his rational soul, not because of his
00:13:13.980 | facial features and the structure of his limb, but rather because of the fact that he stands
00:13:18.260 | erect, is able to look up to heaven, and gaze upon the higher regions."
00:13:22.460 | John Calvin sort of felt the same way, that God has caused us to stand up so that we can
00:13:26.900 | face each other and so that we can look up and face him.
00:13:29.820 | Sort of emblematic and symbolic of our ability to have relationships.
00:13:33.860 | The body is not the image of God, but the body is a vehicle.
00:13:37.540 | Henry Morris wrote about this, wrote this about that, "We can only say that although
00:13:42.340 | God himself has no physical body, he designed and formed man's body to enable it to function
00:13:47.500 | physically in ways in which he himself could function without a body.
00:13:52.540 | God can see, hear, smell, according to Genesis 8.21, he can touch and he can speak, whether
00:13:58.540 | or not he has actual physical eyes, ears, nose, hands, or mouth.
00:14:02.500 | Furthermore, when he has designed to appear visibly to man, he has done so in the form
00:14:07.860 | of a human body, such as in Genesis chapter 18, and the same will be true of angels.
00:14:12.420 | They are spirits, and there are occasions when they take on bodies.
00:14:17.060 | There is something, says Morris, about the human body, therefore which is uniquely appropriate
00:14:21.500 | to God manifesting himself on occasions.
00:14:24.180 | He must have designed man's body with this in mind.
00:14:27.060 | Accordingly, he designed it not like the animals, but with an erect posture, with an upward
00:14:31.380 | gaze and countenance, capable of facial expressions corresponding to emotional feelings, and with
00:14:36.020 | a brain and a tongue capable of articulate, symbolic speech.
00:14:39.820 | He knew, of course, that in the fullness of time, even he would become a man, and in that
00:14:43.980 | day, he would prepare a human body for his son, and it would be made in the likeness
00:14:48.540 | of men, just as men have been made in the likeness of God.
00:14:52.500 | Well said.
00:14:53.860 | So we are created in the image of God, personhood, relationship, and understanding of right and
00:14:59.260 | wrong and morality, which is critical to all our relationships, particularly our relationship
00:15:07.100 | to God."
00:15:10.700 | That was John MacArthur in a sermon, and I took that and I didn't want to truncate it
00:15:18.700 | because not only is it so relevant, but because I didn't want any of the details to be missed.
00:15:27.620 | Elsewhere, John MacArthur states concerning man in a different sermon, "First of all,
00:15:36.060 | he was made in the image of God.
00:15:38.100 | That's the first thing.
00:15:39.540 | He was made for personality and relationship.
00:15:42.660 | Second thing, he was made as king of the earth to rule and subdue creation.
00:15:46.940 | The third, he was made as propagator of the human race to populate the earth, and fourth,
00:15:52.600 | he was made to be the recipient of rich and plentiful bounty all around him."
00:15:56.980 | Far above the animals, one last distinguishing characteristic.
00:16:00.180 | If you're going to talk about personality, if you're going to talk about relationship,
00:16:04.060 | listen carefully.
00:16:05.060 | You'll have to talk about language, right?
00:16:07.180 | How much of a relationship can you have if all you can do is grunt?
00:16:10.700 | You say, "Well, I'm working on it with my husband.
00:16:12.860 | That's about it."
00:16:13.860 | Well, and that's right.
00:16:15.780 | Relationship comes down to communication, doesn't it?
00:16:18.420 | Animals can't relate.
00:16:19.840 | They don't have self-consciousness.
00:16:20.840 | They don't have personhood.
00:16:22.460 | They don't have relationships.
00:16:24.260 | They do whatever they need to do instinctively to achieve one end in life, and that is food
00:16:29.180 | and preservation.
00:16:30.180 | But when you come to mankind, you come to the ability to speak language.
00:16:34.280 | This is remarkable, and I told you a few weeks ago that there was a whole article in Newsweek
00:16:39.140 | magazine, scientists trying desperately to figure out unsuccessfully how man evolved
00:16:44.460 | the ability to speak languages, to speak abstractly, to reason abstractly.
00:16:50.420 | Linguistic studies demonstrate, as Oler and Omdahl, two linguists, have stated that apparently
00:16:55.540 | human beings and only human beings are specifically designed to acquire just a range of language
00:17:00.200 | systems, just as the range of language systems that we see manifested in the world's 5,000
00:17:05.680 | plus languages.
00:17:07.060 | Interesting.
00:17:08.060 | There are about 5,000 languages in the world, and only human beings can acquire those languages.
00:17:13.780 | You say, "Well, what about a dolphin?"
00:17:15.760 | When you say jump, don't they jump?
00:17:17.360 | They don't jump because you said jump, and they abstractly understand that those letters
00:17:21.140 | form a word, and that means to go into the air.
00:17:23.900 | There's a certain sound that results in a fish going into their mouth.
00:17:26.740 | They learned that.
00:17:27.740 | Oler and Omdahl have said that the rate of vocabulary acquisition is so high at certain
00:17:32.660 | stages of life, and the precision and delicacy of the concepts acquired so remarkable that
00:17:38.820 | it seems necessary to conclude that in some manner, the conceptual system with which lexical
00:17:44.740 | items are connected is already substantially in place.
00:17:48.660 | Wow.
00:17:49.660 | That's technical language.
00:17:50.940 | To say there's something going on in the abstract reasoning capability of a human brain
00:17:56.100 | that demands the acquisition of language to satisfy it.
00:17:59.740 | We all begin to see that with children, don't we?
00:18:01.980 | They begin to speak, and they begin to acquire the complexity of communication and language.
00:18:06.420 | Noam Chomsky, who is a great Jewish linguist, has shown that the ability to learn language
00:18:11.060 | is given in being human.
00:18:13.180 | He demonstrates that even the higher apes are unable to deal with a number system or
00:18:17.020 | with any abstract properties of space or in general with any abstract system of expressions.
00:18:22.340 | Chomsky speaks elsewhere of initially given structures of mind and deep structures in
00:18:29.340 | humans which give rise to universal grammar.
00:18:33.020 | Listen, invariant among humans.
00:18:36.300 | That's true.
00:18:37.300 | You can take any language that exists and translate it into any other language that
00:18:40.540 | exists because the structural components of language are identical.
00:18:45.100 | They're literally part of the fabric of the image of God so that we who are relational
00:18:49.740 | beings with personhood can connect.
00:18:53.100 | All the hard wiring is there.
00:18:55.440 | His research, by the way, this Noam Chomsky, on the uniqueness of the human species as
00:18:59.780 | regards to language is so convincing that he is not welcome in evolutionist circles.
00:19:05.580 | They have labeled him as a creationist, which he denies.
00:19:10.380 | Unlike apes and other living creatures, human capacity for language is a door into the eternal
00:19:15.340 | realm, it's a door into the presence of God, and it demands the recognition that we
00:19:20.580 | have been created on a heavenly platform for communication with one another and communication
00:19:26.060 | with our Creator who made us in His image.
00:19:28.820 | All are in Omdurait.
00:19:30.340 | Our capacity for language cannot have originated within the narrow confines of any finite duration
00:19:35.560 | of experience.
00:19:36.740 | If all the eons of the space-time world could be multiplied to clear infinity, the material
00:19:41.940 | world would still fail to account for the abstract conceptions that any human being
00:19:46.420 | can easily conceive of through the gift of language.
00:19:50.300 | Amazing.
00:19:52.040 | Only a speaking God could have made speaking persons, right?
00:19:57.740 | God communicates and so do we.
00:20:00.060 | So we are made thusly in His image.
00:20:03.100 | Next week we'll go to those remaining points, man being king of the earth and propagator
00:20:07.880 | of life and recipient of rich blessing."
00:20:18.060 | Noam Chomsky.
00:20:20.020 | He is not a Christian.
00:20:23.780 | MacArthur is quoting him here extensively and talking about his research to drive home
00:20:30.980 | the point that within our ability to speak and the varied languages that exist, they
00:20:40.560 | inherently point to a Creator.
00:20:47.360 | Does this remind you of any event in the book of Genesis?
00:20:55.480 | I want to quote John MacArthur one last time, and this will be the last one.
00:21:01.360 | This is with respect to man.
00:21:03.880 | John MacArthur states with respect to man, "Man is transcendent.
00:21:09.880 | The truest part of man cannot be reduced to any chemical formula.
00:21:13.860 | The truest part of man cannot be seen in DNA.
00:21:16.800 | It cannot be found in chromosomes.
00:21:18.380 | It cannot be found by dissecting his brain.
00:21:20.720 | It cannot be found by cutting open his heart.
00:21:23.360 | It cannot be found by tinkering with his nervous system.
00:21:26.520 | You can take all of the scientific experiments you want on the anatomy of a human being,
00:21:31.120 | and never will you discover the true part of man, which is that intangible reality that
00:21:35.940 | he is a transcendent being which has no chemical constituents.
00:21:40.160 | Man is distinct from every other created creature."
00:21:43.280 | In Ecclesiastes 3, verse 11, a wonderful statement is made.
00:21:47.680 | He has made, speaking of God, everything appropriate in his time.
00:21:51.940 | He has also set eternity in their heart.
00:21:54.960 | What a great statement.
00:21:56.340 | He has set eternity in their heart.
00:21:59.200 | That's true only of man.
00:22:01.520 | Down in verse 21 of Ecclesiastes 3, "Who knows that the breath of man ascends upward, and
00:22:06.560 | the breath of the beast descends downward to the earth?
00:22:09.640 | The writer is saying, 'Man, his spirit goes up.
00:22:12.780 | Any other creative being upon death, his spirit goes down, goes into the ground as if it were
00:22:17.940 | out of existence because God has set eternity in our hearts.
00:22:23.380 | You can take away our body, and we will live forever.'"
00:22:26.140 | So the image of God isn't talking about some kind of physical form.
00:22:29.480 | The image of God indicates attributes not shared at all by animals.
00:22:33.480 | And the bottom line word I gave you was personal.
00:22:36.880 | Man is a person, personhood.
00:22:39.520 | These are his distinctives, self-consciousness.
00:22:43.000 | Animals are conscious, but they are not self-conscious.
00:22:45.660 | They're conscious to their environment, they react to their environment, but they don't
00:22:48.820 | know they're reacting to their environment.
00:22:51.020 | It's merely instinctive.
00:22:53.300 | But man is conscious, and he reacts to his environment.
00:22:56.980 | And he knows how to react because he reacts cognitively.
00:23:02.900 | Man has reason rather than instinct.
00:23:05.500 | Man has a capability to think abstractly.
00:23:08.100 | Man has the ability to appreciate beauty, to feel emotion, to be morally conscious,
00:23:11.660 | and above all, as we all pointed out last time, man the capacity and the need to personally
00:23:19.700 | relate to others, to other people, and especially to God.
00:23:23.140 | Being able to love Him and worship Him, that's personhood.
00:23:26.780 | Man has the ability to love.
00:23:28.420 | Man has the ability to fellowship, to converse, to commune.
00:23:31.340 | And man is the only creature in existence, in time, space, world, that has language.
00:23:37.140 | Now all of that points to the Trinity.
00:23:39.460 | And that's why, as I told you the last time, verse 26 indicates, "Let us make men."
00:23:44.460 | For the first time, God is introduced here as more than one, because He is making man
00:23:48.620 | in His image, and man is made for personal relationships.
00:23:52.500 | God discloses the fact that He Himself is a Trinity, as we well know, and as unfolds
00:23:57.780 | throughout the rest of Scripture, particularly the New Testament.
00:24:01.540 | So that God, in the relationship of the Trinity, establishes the pattern for man's relationships.
00:24:07.700 | Now that's the ontological essence of man, the ethical essence of man.
00:24:11.980 | He has a capacity for moral behavior.
00:24:14.540 | He has a capability to be holy and righteous.
00:24:16.980 | He has the ability to be sanctified.
00:24:18.980 | He has the ability to obey God.
00:24:20.860 | He has the ability to receive divine and eternal salvation."
00:24:29.020 | Human dignity is inextricably connected to the Imago Dei.
00:24:40.260 | Do you see why attributing human dignity to every single person who walks on the face
00:24:48.260 | of the earth is so important, and why we need to be reminded of this, especially in the
00:24:56.340 | era of the internet troll, in the era of the grumbler, the murmurer, the gossiper, the
00:25:08.220 | divisive person, the divisive man or woman?
00:25:13.940 | Because the vast majority of us live in what I'm going to call the public celestial sphere
00:25:21.060 | of the digital world, it is so easy for us to forget that behind a digital projection
00:25:27.460 | is an actual human being.
00:25:31.580 | But the nastiest of trolls will come out, the lamest of gossipers, the ungrateful coward
00:25:39.900 | ready to tear down the one, because at some point the one has offended them, or they haven't
00:25:50.300 | gotten what they wanted, never doing it face to face, but planting little traps with whispers.
00:26:00.420 | Things we would never say and shouldn't say to one another come out with ease, because
00:26:06.380 | we've reduced the other as less than human.
00:26:11.820 | At least that is one reason amongst many other contributing reasons.
00:26:16.940 | The ironic aspect to this is that the vast majority of online tough guys or the keyboard
00:26:23.820 | warriors are perhaps a little less than what their digital projections convey them to be.
00:26:30.700 | The vast majority of gossipers will claim to be doing it out of some noble pursuit,
00:26:35.180 | and many will claim to be tearing down of a godly zeal when their own life shows very
00:26:41.380 | little actual spiritual fruit.
00:26:46.300 | To add more meat to the bones here, let me quote to you several places in the New Testament.
00:26:52.800 | Matthew 12, 36, Jesus states, "But I tell you that every careless word that people speak
00:26:59.780 | they shall give an accounting for in the day of judgment."
00:27:02.980 | Matthew 15, 15-20, Peter said to him, "Explain that parable to us."
00:27:07.900 | Jesus said, "Are you also still lacking in understanding?
00:27:12.620 | Do you not understand that everything that goes into the mouth passes into the stomach
00:27:17.120 | and is eliminated?
00:27:18.780 | But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and those things defile
00:27:24.460 | the person.
00:27:25.460 | For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, acts of adultery, other immoral sexual acts,
00:27:32.420 | thefts, false testimonies, and other slanderous statements.
00:27:37.540 | These are the things that defile the person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile
00:27:42.940 | the person."
00:27:43.940 | Galatians 5, 13-15, Paul exhorts us, "For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters.
00:27:52.620 | Only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but serve one another through
00:27:57.540 | love.
00:27:58.620 | For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, 'You shall love your neighbor
00:28:03.780 | as yourself.'
00:28:05.220 | But if you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another."
00:28:12.420 | We're definitely seeing lots of consuming right now, aren't we?
00:28:21.860 | With respect to social media, as this ties in, at least for the purposes of this episode,
00:28:30.220 | listen to what Jaron Lanier has to say on this issue.
00:28:33.500 | Jaron Lanier, J-A-R-O-N, last name Lanier, L-A-N-I-E-R, he's been working in Silicon
00:28:41.100 | Valley since the '80s, and he's known as the founding father of virtual reality.
00:28:47.580 | He wrote a book called, "10 Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Account Right Now."
00:28:54.100 | "10 Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Account Right Now."
00:28:59.020 | He gives these 10 reasons.
00:29:00.380 | Now I'm not saying that I wholeheartedly agree with everything that he says, but this is
00:29:05.180 | extremely insightful.
00:29:07.380 | These are his 10 reasons.
00:29:11.780 | Social media is dismantling your free will.
00:29:14.140 | Number one, social media is dismantling your free will.
00:29:18.220 | Number two, quitting social media is the best way to push back against the craziness in
00:29:22.740 | our world.
00:29:23.880 | Number three, social media is turning you into a jerk.
00:29:27.420 | Number four, social media is killing truth softly.
00:29:31.180 | Number five, social media is rendering your voice meaningless.
00:29:35.140 | Number six, social media is ruining your ability to empathize.
00:29:38.980 | Number seven, social media is making you less happy rather than more.
00:29:43.340 | Number eight, social media is intentionally harming your economic dignity.
00:29:47.680 | Number nine, social media is poisoning political process.
00:29:52.260 | Number 10, social media hates your soul.
00:29:58.300 | He goes on to talk about how social media companies are really just behavior modification
00:30:03.540 | empires.
00:30:05.820 | And I hate telling people to watch the movie rather than read the book, but there is, I
00:30:10.460 | think still on Netflix, a film called "The Social Dilemma."
00:30:14.280 | The film is called "The Social Dilemma," and it captures the same points that Jaron Lanier
00:30:18.860 | is bringing up.
00:30:20.240 | And he also happens to prominently appear in the docudrama as well, in the film as well.
00:30:26.420 | He points to one degree or another, and in totality, these are all valid because every
00:30:32.000 | single one of us are made in the image of God.
00:30:36.380 | We are embodied souls, and embodied souls are meant to share meaningful relationships
00:30:43.200 | with one another and not digital projections of one another.
00:30:48.260 | Now, as you know, the fullest extent of this is found and only found when we have a correct
00:30:56.020 | vertical relationship with God, giving us that correct horizontal relationship, that
00:31:02.260 | unimpeded horizontal relationship that we can have with one another, and those relationships
00:31:10.020 | are pregnant with meaning and purpose.
00:31:13.620 | Moreover, you begin to see even greater weight to the imperatives that are given to us with
00:31:22.020 | respect to human conduct, right, a.k.a. the one another's of the Bible.
00:31:30.100 | One another is actually one word in the Greek, allelon, allelon.
00:31:37.380 | We do not fulfill the allelons of scripture when we bite and devour one another, or when
00:31:45.300 | we internet troll one another, or when we gossip about one another, or murmur about
00:31:51.460 | one another, or create division with one another, as opposed to just taking the non-coward's
00:32:02.020 | way and having a frank and honest dialogue.
00:32:06.900 | I'm going to end this episode here, but here's a list of what we disobey when we fail to
00:32:14.500 | see each other through the lens of the Imago Dei, and therefore impede on the practice
00:32:22.780 | of the allelons.
00:32:26.740 | Be at peace with one another, Mark 950.
00:32:29.740 | Be at peace with one another, Mark 950.
00:32:33.660 | Don't grumble among one another, John 643.
00:32:37.580 | Be of the same mind with one another, Romans 12.16.
00:32:40.660 | Accept one another, Romans 15.7.
00:32:43.020 | Wait for one another before beginning the Eucharist, 1 Corinthians 11.33.
00:32:50.420 | Don't bite, devour, and consume one another, Galatians 5.15.
00:32:54.420 | Don't boastfully challenge or envy one another, Galatians 5.26.
00:32:58.700 | Gently patiently tolerate one another, Ephesians 4.2.
00:33:01.980 | Be kind, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, Ephesians 4.32.
00:33:06.620 | Bear with and forgive one another, Colossians 3.13.
00:33:10.780 | Seek good for one another and don't pay evil for evil, 1 Thessalonians 5.15.
00:33:15.500 | Don't complain against one another, James 4.11.
00:33:18.500 | Confess sins to one another, James 5.16.
00:33:21.220 | Love one another, John 13.34 and many others.
00:33:24.700 | Through love serve one another, Galatians 5.13.
00:33:27.700 | Tolerate one another in love, Ephesians 4.2.
00:33:30.260 | Treat one another with a kiss of love, 1 Peter 5.14.
00:33:34.180 | Be careful with that one.
00:33:35.300 | Be devoted to one another in love, Romans 12.10.
00:33:38.460 | Give preference to one another in honor, Romans 12.10.
00:33:41.660 | Regard one another as more important than yourselves, Philippians 2.3.
00:33:45.220 | Serve one another, Galatians 5.13.
00:33:47.220 | Wash one another's feet, John 13.14.
00:33:49.900 | Don't be haughty, be of the same mind, Romans 12.16.
00:33:53.020 | Be subject to one another, Ephesians 5.21.
00:33:55.820 | Close yourselves in humility toward one another, 1 Peter 5.5.
00:33:59.540 | Do not judge one another and don't put a stumbling block in a brother's way, Romans 14.13.
00:34:05.580 | Husbands and wives, 1 Corinthians 7.5.
00:34:09.100 | Bear one another's burdens, Galatians 6.2.
00:34:11.780 | Speak truth to one another, Ephesians 4.25.
00:34:15.140 | Don't lie to one another, Colossians 3.9.
00:34:18.460 | Comfort one another concerning the resurrection, 1 Thessalonians 4.18.
00:34:25.020 | Pray for one another, James 5.16.
00:34:27.300 | Be hospitable to one another, 1 Peter 4.9.
00:34:32.380 | There are many more.
00:34:35.540 | There are many more.
00:34:38.900 | Encourage and build up one another, 1 Thessalonians 5.11.
00:34:42.260 | Stimulate one another to love and good deeds, Hebrews 10.24.
00:34:50.100 | Human dignity, the Imago Dei, and social media.
00:34:57.260 | For us, here and now, these are all interlinked.
00:35:04.300 | Theology is immensely practical.
00:35:11.020 | Thanks for making it to the end.
00:35:12.700 | I'll continue to try to make the journey worth it.
00:35:17.060 | To Him be honor, glory, and eternal dominion.
00:35:20.540 | James Hong out.
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