Sundays Reasonings
"The Internet Expert"
News First:
1) Managed to restore alot of my computer after a "pernicious" malware attack. No data files really affected but lost Google Chrome. 24hours of computer time wore me out with all the Info and fixes FOR Chrome when it is corrupted. Unless they get a Chrome Fix it Progrma for me, I did all the detailed and normal routines and "IT AIN"T HAPPENING", so Chrome now goes the way of Firefox and Internet Explorer sitting unused on Computer. So safari and flock are arguing over my Ram and trying to stay running while I cut and paste and post........,
Lord are you sure this is the way Elisha started?
2) Looks good for J. Vernon McGee Audio postings. Prayed about and it seems a positive promotion to provide for everyone.
3) Hit the 5,000 daily reads for the total of all blogs. It humbled me and helped me to evaluate the enourmous time challenges this presents. In a ministry under a "umbrella" of accountablity and financing, it is much easier to just "go for it" because you ahve the safety net of ministry. In a "totally free and clear of ads" ministry it is REALLY REALLY REALLY different. But since God said "if it is even for just one person, at one moment in time, needing one word, or one post, or one thought, than it is my will it be done for I shall speak to just that one person; and you will never know...," <<<<<<AWWW Gee Lord, thanks for tha ahhh......Encouragement? LOL
4) Still praying about "scheduling" some posts to only appear on certain days.
5) REALLY REALLY REALLY, Did I say really? wanting to move "up to" Vid posts like last years Last Call but I can tell it "feel' right but the pieces onece again are not all in place. (and I haven't figuered out how NOT TO SLEEP yet)
"The Internet Expert"
Have you met an "internet expert" yet? I did.
We all have available to us the greatest tools Christendom has ever possesed short of Jesus himself appearing. It is called the Internet and your resource "ought to be" GOOGLE IT!!!!
This week I had the chance to meet someone who used my favorite line and favorite "short answer" by posting the words "Google it." The interesting thing was He wanted me to "google it" after starting a conversation with "ALL the BIBLE SCHOLARS ARE WRONG".
Of course, that made me perk up and listen.........(yeah right).
But the point was this person seemed to think they had an "original" idea about some well documented and factual piece of scripture. Each and every point He made flew in the face of Logic and as the person wrote you could see they "liked" the sound of their own thoughts on paper and made wilder and wilder statements. By the time the post was done, you could read that the person had convinced himself..........,but no one else.
Posting is like that. Alot of people "feel" like Instant Experts because they are "posting" on the Internet. The "see" themselves in Big Lights of thier own Monitor "ON THE WEB" and thier is "instant" ego boost. ( Most people on the internet "get over it" realizing that somethings on the Internet, though rarely removed from every source, also are most likely never seen unless God brings it forward.)
But that also reminds us if we are on FACEBOOK and other social, media, and "fellowship" exchanges; PROVE ALL THINGS.
As with this gentleman posting, there is a "force" of emotion that Does Invoke a responsive chord in readers. This is a "spiritual aspect" to the "eye" and reading. It is area that influences our soul by way of "conduit" into our mind and can "create" in us an emotional response. THAT ALONE is a very dangerous area for ALL people because Propaganda, Error, DECEPTION, even Foolish Venting can produce consequences most people do not "think thru"
When I directly answered this man in a protracted post that addressed each point He made, I hit enter and the post wiped. I thought, bummer......, (it was a good piece of writing), yet when I went to bed and tried to sleep, God talked to me. (and kept me up most the night...GRRRR)
The jist was, this person was convinced he was right and nothing said or read would change his mind because He wants to be right so bad he refuses to be wrong, in order to be right.
LEARN FROM THIS
It is Ok to be wrong. Learning is a process of developing the skills to learn How to evaluate and process information. If you think by the church you go to, or the training you recieved that you will never be wrong, you are decieved. God will make you wrong, at some point in time, to show you right.
And How will you know?
Be open to the Processing of Information. No one is ALL WRONG and most certainly, NO ONE IS ALL RIGHT. NO ONE. NADA. NInguno. NYET. Not you and not me. That is why being an "internet expert" can be good or bad. But what you read on the Internet or find in "google it" is not ALL EXPERT or ALL IDIOT, it is as Jesus once said to a "group of experts"
You do err no knowing the scriptures...., WHOAH that was a slap like a punch in the nose because these guys prided themselves on Knowing the Scriptures, but they were wrong. That means you, me, a pastor or anyone CAN BE wrong a times.
So what do we do?
We listen and carefully weigh the information. No one Bible Teacher will say all the "right things" because A) they might be wrong B) God is not applying it to you. So it it crucial to become not an Internet Expert, but a expert at carefully examining and proving what is stated or posted or taught. LOOK FOR those who disagree and see if the point is valid or some point is and see if there is an answer. Google the question and Google the answer and you'll get alot to play with, but you will get the jist of it. THEN you can evaluate accurately information.
The One Thing I admired about my encounter with the "internet expert" this week was, UP FRONT he said, "I reject all the Bible Scholars." Later, "NO JEWS UNDERSTAND" and some other "all" statement which meant, NO he didn't GOOGLE IT like He said and READ ALL the information because the point he was trying to make had alrady been said and done and refuted and posted and frankly left "out there" as a learning tool to not follow in the same mistake.
But, when a person, Old or Young< wants to come up with something "new in scripture" they have no idea usually that after all this time, it's been done and said.
If you are an Internet Expert, you can "see" the errors from the fallacies and forest from the trees and you need only to google enough sites and you will have a handle on HOW to Process Information.
HOW and WHAT you do with that Information will make you a "Internet Expert" like my friend, or an "Information Expert" like me.
(but I could be wrong)
Michael James Stone
