“Thou shalt not steal.” Exodus 20:15; Romans 13:9
Twitter, as you may have heard, has locked the account of the Babylon Bee. The Bee, if you’ve been living under a rock someplace cold and dark, and humorless, is a satire news organization. It has been serving the Lord for the last few years by helping us laugh at the clown-show that is life in modern America. Their “crime”, for all intents and purposes, was jokingly declaring Rachel Levine, the transgender Assistant Secretary for Health, “Man of the Year.” That, you see, is unwoke. The new commandments of the Left are that one must never, never, never criticize anything they approve of – especially the LGBTQ folks/movement.
Can someone say “blasphemy laws?”
We’d like to point something out about this – something that’s a critique of the modern evangelical. Some of us, you see, have an awkward relationship with free speech and censorship. It’s awkward for the lone reason that the modern Christian mind is akin to an obese fellow who hasn’t had meaningful exercise since high school. Indeed, the fact is, if the average Christian mind were to try and jog around the block it would collapse in a heap of breathless cramps. Sorry. It’s true.
Our greatest crisis isn’t Joe Biden. It isn’t COVID. It isn’t inflation. The greatest crisis, assuming we’re saved at all, is being conformed to this world’s way of thinking. Instead of thinking biblically about every detail of life, we let the world lead, lest we cause waves. It’s being illogical and inconsistent, which is to say, stupid. And, yes, it’s sin to be stupid. And by stupid I mean irrational. And by irrational I mean, in the vein of Proverbs 12:1 and Romans 12:1-2, a brazen doofus who doesn’t care that they’re irrational. It’s the inability to think in categories and apply the principles of Scripture to everyday life.
Let me put it this way, since people are tempted to think this whole thing is harsh: when you don’t care about truth and logic, you don’t care about Jesus Christ. When you embrace irrationality, you stand with Pilate, not Jesus. It was Pilate who said in John 18:38, “what is truth?” If God doesn’t care about logic, why does Jesus bother to call Himself the Way, the Truth, and the Life? Why bother writing the book of Proverbs? Go ahead and check Proverbs. Really check it. If you think what I’ve written is offensive (or insensitive) wait until you read what God says about being “simple.”
Okay…so, what’s up with this broadside and what does it have to do with Twitter? Easy. Many evangelicals, being of flabby mind and body, have accepted the canard that Twitter, being a private company, is correct in suppressing free speech. Get that? Christians are missing one of the greatest opportunities ever given to the church to preach Jesus Christ! They are. When we’re told to “take every thought captive” for Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5) and “not be conformed to this world” (Romans 12:1-2) we skip right over that part. It’s icky. It causes conflict. We just wanna keep our heads down and wait for the rapture. Who cares about confronting the world’s pride and preaching Christ to sinners (Matthew 28:18-20). We’ve got a church picnic to plan.
So, check it out…to claim that Twitter has a right, as a private company to ban speech it doesn’t like, if true, must rest upon an immutable principle. Right? How do Woke atheists account for immaterial principles such as this? They can’t. But in this case, they rest their support of Twitter’s action on the principle of private property. A-ha! This is an excellent way to show the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ (and teach a thing or two about life on earth until the King returns).
As the argument goes, the waves of free speech end on the shore of private property. What people mean when they say Twitter is a private company is “thou shalt not steal.” In other words, I can’t go to your house and tell you what to do and vice versa. Private property is sacred. But the only way for private property to be sacred is if the Lord declared it so. And this has massive ramifications downstream because it means that no person can be forced to do what they don’t want to do. If God didn’t command us not to steal then we have no basis for the security of property. Private property, insofar as it’s a moral issue, doesn’t exist in nature. It can only exist if the Triune God does.
All we need to understand this is to go out in the woods with a hamburger. If a bear wants your burger he won’t be deterred with your protestations that he didn’t pay for it. Ever have a picnic near an ant hill? They don’t care either. Only humans – made in the image of God – are constrained and governed by moral law.
Now for the sword thrust.
If someone says that Twitter has a right to abridge speech on their private platform – for any reason, because it’s their platform – we should wholeheartedly agree. We agree, that is, in the name of the Lord who guarantees property. To not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ is to beg the question. Why should anyone have private property if there’s no God? Why shouldn’t the strong take all the trinkets of the weak? Why should a weak fellow drive a better car or have a nicer house than the strong dude? I’m pretty sure I can beat the bejabbers out of the average tech-nerd working at Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Why do I have to listen to them at all? It’s nice that they made such cool things. But now I want them. So, there!
The funny thing is how those who believe in Darwinism are the least likely to ever win a real fight. Zuckerberg and Dorsey should be deliriously happy that there’s no dueling anymore.
But, yeah…God’s law gives Twitter the right to ban the Bee. And He commands us to explain to them that it’s His moral law that gives them that right in the first place. If they have a right to private property, and they do, it’s because God has given it to them. It doesn’t just exist out of nowhere. Thus, they should repent of their sin and glorify the Lord Jesus Christ for such a common grace as this.
Oh, and there’s more – deliciously more!
We must be consistent in our thinking. Remember that? Irrationality is a sin because God is a God of truth. It’s not sinful to arrive at an error; it’s a sin to refuse to correct course thereafter. Again: are we like Jesus or Pilate? Truth matters. On the subject of the 8th commandment, stealing is prohibited. I can’t steal your jacket, money, time, labor, or anything else. In other words, your life, labor, mind and property are yours to do with what you wish. It’s none of my business. That’s the principle Twitter is standing on – and rightly so.
The problem is that it works both ways. It must since God is the One who issues the commandment, not men. Since it’s His commandment, no human agent may abridge it. A thief, a rapist, a murderer…they all “steal” the choice and freedom of the victim. Slavery is properly understood this way. To enslave someone is to deny them their God-given liberty; it’s to deprive them of their choice. The 8th commandment forbids the piece-meal or whole enslavement of any person, regardless of any human distinction (race, class, sex, etc.). What the Twitter supporters are unwittingly saying is that they must also support the Christian cake-maker who doesn’t want to make cakes for homosexual weddings. Or imagine if a business owner says, I don’t like this or that type of person here. Do they have property rights then?
Are you huffing and puffing now? Are we getting philosophically winded? See what I mean?
God’s commandment against stealing means that every person must be free, has to be free, and is free. Sin is what causes the fractures of culture and families. But we can’t fix these fissures with more abridgment of liberty. To live peaceably with all (Romans 12:18) requires the admission that only God is God and that no man (ourselves included) has the right to demand anything from their neighbor. The man who supports income and property taxes violates this commandment. The man who demands that others, in any way shape or form, give up their property (including time or labor) must repent of their sin. The 8th commandment covers every single aspect of human relationships. Sin is crafty, though, always crouching at the door of our hearts, confusing us and getting us to drop the context. Sin is a context dropper!
You see, when we apply the principle of private property to the whole of life, we see how unbelievably sinful we are. We see how we violate God’s righteous commandment in a thousand ways great and small. And we can show supporters of the Twitter defense that they aren’t consistent with the principle themselves. This is the gist of the article! By understanding and explaining the “category” of the 8th commandment, we bring sinners to the cross. By isolating the principle upon which they stand, and showing them the moral law of God they’re presuming, without acknowledging Him, we can then show them the gospel. Every mouth will be stopped and the whole world will be held accountable to God (Romans 3:19) so that we might show them their sin. And once we do this, we show them the glory of Jesus Christ and the forgiveness of sin through faith alone.
See? From Twitter to free speech to property rights and then, gloriously, on to the cross of Christ. What a wonderful opportunity to serve the Lord and reach the lost with His gospel.
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