Sometimes I read things in the Scriptures that sound so up-to-date I immediately read them again. I did so with this passage, while visions of our social media soaked world danced in my head:

There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—having a form of godliness but denying its power.

I have a love/hate relationship with social media. I love seeing family and hearing from friends, and I like publishing this blog. But I hate trying to have a conversation with any depth or nuance. I hate the way people treat those they disagree with, and I hate the way I get drawn into the snarkiness of it all.

In so many ways, social media magnifies these qualities Paul described as characteristic of the last days. Every hour a new internet mob assails someone for a mistake, current or even long past. Reprehensible language machine-guns back and forth. A lack of goodwill permeates the digital spaces.

Then turn toward the way social media promotes love of self, love of money, love of pleasure and the ditching of self-control. All those influencers promoting all that stuff. How should I treat myself today?

To be frank, social media is the most powerful disseminator of ignorance in human history. While it’s not going away, we were better off without it. The opinion of a crotchety old man? Perhaps, but I present a powerful case made stronger every day.

I don’t normally give much thought to end-times prophecies. But these words of Paul from an ancient era point to deep fissures in our modern world. How ironic to discover the best evidence for the last days in the wondrous technological devices we carry everywhere we go.

2 Timothy 3 in reading the Bible cover to cover in 2022

Photo by camilo jimenez