“Let none of you suffer…as a meddler” (1 Peter 4:15).
That’s worth pondering. Social media is filled with unchecked destruction of reputations. Partisans bring out truth or dirt on their opponents. For example, one congressman tweeted, “Do your wife and father-in-law know about your girlfriends? Maybe tonight would be a good time for that chat.” The line between public and private is not always clear but in this case the House Ethics Committee thought it was clear and admonished the congressman. A question is not whether some charge is true but rather this: Who appointed you to reveal someone else’s personal matters?
Imagine no police department (I’m not talking about defunding the police). Imagine no state or federal prosecutors, no grand juries, no trials with strict legal procedures. That was Rome when Peter wrote; there was nothing like our civil service. So, how were issues of right and wrong, of actions good or harmful to the public welfare addressed? By informers, “delatores” in Latin. An individual would present truth or lies about someone to his patron, who then could haul his opponent into court, where trials were wild compared to America’s strict standards. If the patron won, the patron and informer could make big bucks, but the loser was often exiled or executed. If the patron lost, he and the informer could suffer the same fate. Making someone else’s secrets public was part of Roman culture. So, Peter says, “You Christians are called to be different!” “Let none of you suffer…as a busybody.”
“It is a common plague that everyone would rather hear evil than good about their neighbors…. To avoid this vice, therefore, we should note that none has the right to judge and reprove a neighbor publicly, even after having seen a sin committed, unless authorized to judge and reprove. There is a very great difference between judging sin and having knowledge of sin. You may certainly know about a sin, but you should not judge it. I may certainly see and hear that my neighbor sins, but I have no command to tell others about it” (Martin Luther, “Large Catechism”).
Unlike ancient Rome, the American system gives us ways we can report wrongs to authorities, but it’s not through social media. “Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed but let him glorify God in that name” (1 Peter 4:16). Inquiring minds may want to know, but they shouldn’t get it from followers of Jesus.
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