As someone paid to spend too much time on the internet, I've noticed that many people think their posts on random websites are doing a great service to the Kingdom of God.
Last week, the terminally online folks decided to argue about the phrase "Christ is King" again because a few balloonhead racist types are using it to dunk on the Jews.
You may recall that former Daily Wire host Candace Owens used it during her very public fall into unsound thinking (to put it nicely).
Since then, for some reason, the internet addicts on the political right start throwing rocks at each other in the comment section every once in awhile over the phrase.
This is what kicked off the most recent fight:
The aforementioned Candace Owens quickly pointed out that most of the people associated with the study are Jewish:
Right-wing commentators immediately saw the viral trend and were split down the middle on the issue:
The fight over words isn't meaningless. Logos is the foundation of reality (John 1:1). You perceive the world through words.
This is why "politically correct" word salads are a major objective of Marxist movements. It's why some leftists now refer to women as "chestfeeders" and "people who bleed." This is why BLM forced people to say "Black Lives Matter" in the same way that some internet anons are forcing people to say "Christ is King."
But I'm not here today to do word studies. I could dive into the Apostle Paul's declaration in Philippians 2:9-11 that every tongue will profess that Jesus is Lord (including yours).
We could study the word "Lord" in the Greek (Kyrios). I could point out that the root of Kyrios means "to swell," with the idea of growing more powerful.
I could also note that Hellenistic Jews in the third century BC translated the Old Testament into Greek at the request of the son of a general of Alexander the Great. They used Kyrios 7,000 times to refer to the name of God Almighty.
I could even note that the English word "Church" comes from the word Kyrios.
But all of that would be missing the point.
Instead, I want to turn to John 4, where Jesus had a conversation with a disgraced Samaritan woman at the ancient well of Jacob in the town of Sychar.
'Sir,' the woman said, 'I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.'
'Woman,' Jesus replied, 'believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.'
The woman said, 'I know that Messiah' (called Christ) 'is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.'
Then Jesus declared, 'I, the one speaking to you — I am he.'
So often in our internet discourse, we fracture into factions at the behest of internet troll, egotistical personalities, and/or actual insane people.
Someone will say something and we immediately code them as a friend or enemy based on how they say it.
As we spend more and more time online, we become isolated in increasing echo chambers with people we deem to be the least heretical. We become obsessed with maintaining our own purity lest we become syncretistic heretics ourselves.
But Jesus' conversation with the woman at the well is startlingly different. It was astonishing that he would even be talking to a woman (Quote: "his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman"). It was even more astonishing that he would be talking to a Samaritan woman.
Samaritans were considered heretical half-breeds to Jews. After the Assyrians had carried off the northern kingdom of Israel as slaves hundreds of years before, they replaced the native population with slaves from other places. Wild lion attacks prompted the king of Assyria to send a Jewish priest back to Israel, however, to teach the newcomers how to worship "the god of that country" (2 Kings 17).
But the newcomers didn't follow what the priest taught them closely.
They worshiped the Lord, but they also appointed all sorts of their own people to officiate for them as priests in the shrines at the high places.
These heretical, extra-biblical religious practices and superstitions continued to Jesus' day. Samaritans claimed that they were the remnant of the Jewish tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, and that they had maintained the true faith while the rest of the Jewish people had deviated from God's commands. They believed Mount Gerizim, not Mount Zion in Jerusalem, is God's holy mountain.
'Sir,' the woman said, 'I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.'
When Jesus supernaturally perceived that this woman had been divorced five times and was living out of marriage with another guy, she responded with a theological debate premise ... much like you see on social media every day.
With one statement, she affirms he is a prophet. Immediately after, she calls his credentials into question.
"You Jews claim..."
Jesus could have gone straight into theobro mode and debated the accuracy of the Jewish Scriptures and the historical record, diving into word studies with demands that the woman profess a particular creed and tradition.
But he didn't.
Instead, he affirmed the testimony of the Scriptures ("we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews"), but pushed past it to a deeper matter ("a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem").
Jesus didn't spend time lecturing the woman about her extra-biblical, heretical beliefs. He didn't even condemn her for being a serial divorcee. He didn't press into the reason why she wanted to haul water, alone, at high noon instead of coming with the other women at sunrise or sunset.
Jesus confronted her about her personal sin and told her what true worship looks like.
(Hint: That's called sharing the Gospel)
To worship in spirit alone is to be like the pagans, obsessed with mysticism. There are some Christian churches that look like that today.
To worship in truth alone is to be a religious hypocrite like a Pharisee who knows God's commands but doesn't obey them.
When we look at an absolutely dumb internet debate like the "Christ is King" drama, we see people on both sides of this equation. Most of the anti-Jewish anons with Pepe the Frog profile pics fall into the latter category. People like Candace Owens - and even balloonhead Nick Fuentes - know the truth that Christ is King, but their spirit is rotten and not in line with the heart of Christ.
As Jesus said in Matthew 15, quoting Isaiah 29:13:
You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said:
"‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.'"
On the other side of the political aisle, you have many people that want to worship God in spirit. What is important is kindness and feelings and inclusion and connection, but all of that is devoid of truth.
"Christ is King" might offend someone (the worst sin imaginable, right?), just like the "Okay" hand sign might offend someone, so we need to stop using it because Jesus wants us to be nice and have a hecking good time.
Don't be like either of these camps.
These online personalities are engaged in "foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law" (Titus 3:9) that are "unprofitable and useless."
They are like the crowds that wanted to make Jesus king, or like James and John wanting to call down fire on the Samaritan village that rejected Jesus (Luke 9), but do not understand their Master's heart.
The debate of "Christ is King" versus "Jesus is Lord" is a beautifully stupid example of wasting your time, as is arguing about "THE JEWS!" and ethnic pride and how much better things were in Christendom in the 15th century - you know, when the Catholic Church was split between multiple popes and declared a crusade on Bohemia for defying the will of Rome.
All of this can be fun discussion for history nerds and theobros around a campfire. Other than that, it is mostly useless to the Kingdom of God, and a life filled with that sort of uselessness is tragic, to say the least.
From 1 Corinthians 3:
For we are God's coworkers. You are God's field, God's building.
According to God's grace that was given to me, I have laid a foundation as a skilled master builder, and another builds on it. But each one is to be careful how he builds on it. For no one can lay any foundation other than what has been laid down. That foundation is Jesus Christ.
If anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or straw, each one's work will become obvious. For the day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire; the fire will test the quality of each one's work. If anyone's work that he has built survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he will experience loss, but he himself will be saved — but only as through fire.
To those who don't like me poking at their routine of arguing with other people online about catchphrases and Jewish conspiracies: Get off the internet and into the Bible. Fall on your knees before God. Satan has you arguing with other social media addicts instead of ministering the good news to a world enslaved to sin.
You are a knight arguing in a tent over scraps of food while Satan's armies are advancing on the battlefield outside your door.
It is not your job to defend against every perceived heresy or wayward tradition, for God Himself is willing to work within our rituals and errors. He used a ritual familiar to Abraham to make His covenant (Genesis 15). He used concepts in the Mosaic tradition that would have been familiar to an ancient ethnic group in the Near East. He met the Samaritan woman where she was at. He is meeting you now where you are at, filled with all sorts of 21-century heresies and cultural blinders (or did you think that you alone in history were immune to such things?).
God is perfectly capable of defending Himself, whether or not that random person you are arguing with says "Christ is King." As CS Lewis said, "A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word 'darkness' on the walls of his cell."
So stop it. Understand what time it is. Listen to your King. Obey the orders He has given you instead of these useless debates. Share the hope of Christ with a dying world.
Learn to worship God in spirit and in truth.
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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Not the Bee or any of its affiliates.
