by Jeremy Paschall
If you regularly use computers and e-mail, you have most likely received an innumerable quantity of “junk” e-mails. You have been warned about HIV-contaminated needles placed in coin-return slots of pay telephones and in seat cushions at movie theaters. You have been promised thousands of dollars and trips to Disney World if you will forward a particular e-mail to everyone you know so that Bill Gates and Mickey Mouse can test their email tracking programs. You have been told about a poor three-year-old child in some country you have never heard of who is dying of some disease you have never heard of, and some non-profit organization you have never heard of will give the sick child’s family a certain amount of money for every time you forward that e-mail. You have been warned about flashing your car’s headlights at cars who don’t have their lights on at night because some gang’s initiation process involves a new-comer chasing after and killing the first driver who flashes his or her lights at him. You have been told that if you forward this particular email to twenty people within the next five minutes you will see this really cool animation pop-up on your computer screen. You have been warned about viruses that will delete every file on your computer unless you forward that email to everyone you know within thirty seconds. You have been sent stories and poems about friends, family, our country, and God, and you have been told that you are a cold-hearted, uncaring, unloving, unpatriotic, God-hater unless you send this stuff to everyone you know. And my personal favorite — you have no doubt received countless e-mails that have supposedly been around the world, and every person who has ever received it and forwarded it to ten friends has received whatever it is that they wished for, but everyone who has ever received it and not forwarded it has had miserable luck ever since.
Who in the world believes this junk?!? Well, obviously some believe it because they keep passing it on to their friends and family via e-mail. But all of these stories have been proven to be urban legends and/or hoaxes. It is disturbing to think about just how gullible some people really are.
We live in an unprecedented time. Television, radio, newspapers, telephones, and “the information super-highway” (the internet) give us access to worlds of information. Unfortunately, much of it is misinformation. You simply cannot believe everything that you see, read, and hear. Solomon spoke on this very subject:
“The naïve believes everything, but the sensible man considers his steps.” (Proverbs 14:15)
This is a particular danger in spiritual matters. When we read or hear some religious teaching, we need to examine it carefully in the light of God’s Word (John 17:17) before accepting it as truth. John encouraged his audience in this regard:
“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.” (1 John 4:1)
What we all need is discernment — the ability to understand what is true and what is false, the power to perceive the difference between reality and fiction — especially in spiritual matters. We must learn to seek out the truth and do it, setting aside everything that is determined to be false in light of God’s Word. Our eternal well-being depends on knowing the true will of God and acting on it (Matthew 7:21). My prayer for you is the same as Paul’s for the Christians in Philippi:
“And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment…” (Philippians 1:9)