A Way with Words: Using Our Online Conversations for Good

Table of Contents

Introduction: A Book about Words

Chapter 1: Ever Learning, Never Arriving

Chapter 2: Slow to Tweet, Quick to Listen, Quick to Get the Whole Story

Chapter 3: Biting and Devouring

Chapter 4: You Shouldn’t Be Teachers

Chapter 5: More Highly Than We Ought

Chapter 6: Act Justly, Love Mercy, Post Humbly

Chapter 7: Whatsoever Is True

Chapter 8: As Much as Possible

Chapter 9: An Analog Church in a Digital Age

Chapter 10: The Internet for Good

Appendix A: 10 Things the Bible Says about Our Speech

Appendix B: How to Read the News

Notes

They must be among the most intimidating words Jesus ever spoke: ‘I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak . . .’ Each one of us is responsible for our every word. In an age of ubiquitous and lightning-fast communication, we need to hear and heed this warning like never before, and for that reason, I’m thankful for Daniel Darling’s call for both responsibility and civility in every word we speak—not to mention every word we write, blog, or tweet.

Tim Challies, blogger at challies.com and author of The Discipline of Discernment

"Online interactions shape and impact all of our lives, and yet there are so few helpful, biblical guides on how to have healthy online conversations. Fortunately, Daniel Darling has written just that. A Way with Words is a timely resource for those of us who find ourselves utilizing email and social media to work, learn, or keep up with friends and family. Dan writes with humility, wit and a gospel-centered perspective, making this a valuable read."

JD Greear, pastor of Summit Church and author of What Are You Going to Do with Your Life? and Above All

"A Way with Words offers much-needed wisdom and practical counsel on one of today’s greatest discipleship challenges: our behavior online."

Thomas S. Kidd, author of Who Is an Evangelical? The History of a Movement in Crisis

"This is not just a book about words, but a book about the weight and power of words—and how we use them. A Way with Words ought to be required reading for all who enter the public square, whether as professionals, pundits, armchair theologians, or merely social media users—that is to say, all of us. Dan Darling is always wise and always pastoral. This book is Dan Darling at his best."

Karen Swallow Prior, author of On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life through Great Books and Fierce Convictions: The Extraordinary Life of Hannah More—Poet, Reformer, Abolitionist

Talk on the internet so easily makes us into our worst selves. Thank God, then, for Daniel Darling’s incisive new book about the problems we make for ourselves. His thoughts on discernment show both humble self-examination and careful observation, not to mention pastoral sensitivity. Highly recommended for any Christian looking for guidance through the rocky terrain of online discourse!

David Zahl, author of Seculosity and editor of The Mockingbird Blog

Copyright © 2020 by Daniel Darling

All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America

978-1-5359-9536-8

Published by B&H Publishing Group

Nashville, Tennessee

Dewey Decimal Classification: 302.2

Subject Heading: SOCIAL NETWORKING / SOCIAL MEDIA / SOCIAL ETHICS

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Christian Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible® and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers.

Also used: New International Version® (

niv

), NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Also used: English Standard Version (

esv

). ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

Also used: King James Version (

kjv

), public domain.

Cover design by Micah Kandros

It is the Publisher’s goal to minimize disruption caused by technical errors or invalid websites. While all links are active at the time of publication, because of the dynamic nature of the internet, some web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed and may no longer be valid. B&H Publishing Group bears no responsibility for the continuity or content of the external site, nor for that of subsequent links. Contact the external site for answers to questions regarding its content.

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To all those who have nurtured my writing life:

—Mrs. Birginal for telling an awkward junior high boy that he had talent

—My father for constantly telling me I’d be a writer one day

—My first boss, Julie Dearyan, for pushing me to get published

—My mentor, Bill Swanger, for reminding me that writing is a ministry

Acknowledgments

This is my ninth published book and I don’t take any of this for granted. To have anyone publish your work at any level is a privilege and not a right. So first and foremost I’m thankful to Taylor Combs for seeing the vision behind this book and to B&H for publishing it. Every decision a publisher makes is a risk, and I want to thank B&H for taking this one on with me. The entire team at B&H has made this a wonderful writing process from idea to editing to publishing to marketing.

I’m also indebted to my agent, Erik Wolgemuth, who has been a wonderful guide in this writing journey. Thanks for fielding all my ideas, rapid-fire, even when many of them are not good.

I’m thankful for the wonderful friends I have at ERLC, where I was privileged to work for six years, especially Dr. Russell Moore for allowing me to serve alongside in helping us help Christians think well about the culture. I grew so much at ERLC and my writing ministry flourished there.

I’m thankful for my new colleagues, especially Troy Miller, at NRB, where we are helping to shape the next generation of Christian communicators.

I’m thankful for my pastor, Daryl Crouch, who encourages me in this and every endeavor.

Last, my wife Angela has been an indispensable and lifegiving partner on this journey. And to my kids: thanks for putting up with Dad hunched over his laptop looking off, eyes glazed, into the distance while gathering another writing thought. This is why.

I know nothing in the world that has as much power as a word. Sometimes I write one, and I look at it until it begins to shine.

—Emily Dickinson

I’ll never forget hearing my oldest daughter, Grace, speak her first words. Angela and I and our family on both sides had waited so long for the moment her verbal communication rose above grunts and animal sounds to something resembling what humans speak. What would she say? How would it sound? Would she talk at all?

Like most first-time parents we worried irrationally, consulting baby books, our pediatrician, and other parents. Google was a bit rudimentary back then but I’m sure we also consulted the search engine for help.

Eventually Grace did speak, and her first word wasn’t mommy or even daddy. It was the simple, but rather effective, No!

Chasing Words

Hearing Grace speak was a joy, even if the words that came from her mouth were, even at her vulnerable age, a testament to her strong will and her independence. They excited me as they would excite any parent hearing their kid speak for the first time, but perhaps more for me because I’ve spent a lifetime chasing words.

My mother taught me to read at an early age, and I’ve been devouring words ever since. We took three newspapers at our house: the Daily Herald, the Chicago Tribune, and the Chicago Sun Times. I read them every day. Sports first, then news, then features. On Sundays I spread out those gloriously fat Sunday editions and was silent for hours.

I regularly visited libraries, begged my mother to buy more Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books, and, at times, read the ingredients on the cereal boxes when there was nothing left in our house to read. My parents, because they feared the influence of television, didn’t own a set until I was in college, so it was either listening to words on the radio or reading them on a page.

But not only have I read words, I’ve been stringing them together from a very young age (albeit not always very well). In junior high, a teacher made an offhand comment that set a trajectory for the rest of my life. She told me, after reviewing some essays I’d written for English literature, Dan, I think you have a gift. You should pursue writing.

Those words changed my life. I saw myself as a writer from that very moment. It didn’t hurt that my father, a man of few words, frequently whispered to me, Dan, you are going to be a famous writer one day.

I’m not famous, but by God’s grace in directing my crooked steps, I’ve been writing professionally for almost two decades. I’ve served in a variety of roles—editor, pastor, executive—but in every position I’ve brought with me my love for words. I’m just not good at anything else. I can’t dance. I can’t weld. I can’t make an omelet. Words are what I love.

I feel a lot like George Will, who confessed once that he didn’t know what he’d be doing if he wasn’t writing, or like the novelist Ray Bradbury, who said once, I don’t need an alarm clock. My ideas wake me.

These days, that’s happening more and more often. And until someone tells me I can’t write words, I’m going to keep writing them.

Now, I imagine you may not be as obsessed with words as I am, and that’s quite all right. God has likely given you other loves, other pursuits that awaken your soul and give you joy. But I might say that even if you are not a writer like me in search of the perfect word, you should care about words, and more important, the way you use them—both in your everyday conversation and, in the case of this book, the way we so often deploy them: online.

A Speaking God and Speaking Humans

In The Dignity Revolution, I explored what it means to be created imago dei, that is, in the image of God. I continue to be fascinated by the rich language the Bible uses to describe humanity. God spoke into existence all of creation, but Moses pauses his narrative in the first two chapters to make a statement about the intricate detail God uses to create men and women. God, Moses says, reached with his hands and crafted humans from the dust of the ground and breathed into humans the breath of life (Gen. 2:7).

It’s a beautiful mystery, this idea of being a reflection of the divine. And there is much wrapped in what imago dei means. But one of the key ways we reflect God is that we, of all creatures, are communicating beings. We use words.

Christianity is, after all, a religion that believes in a speaking God. We sometimes take this for granted, casually saying things like, God told me to take that job, but we don’t often enough stop and marvel that God speaks.

He is not obligated to speak, and yet he does. You could argue, as Timothy Ward does effectively in his excellent book Words of Life, that speaking is at the heart of God’s self-revelation. It is often observed that God’s words and actions are intimately related in the Bible. To say of God that he spoke, and to say of God that he did something, is often one and the same thing . . . He is a God who by his very nature acts by speaking.¹ Ward is exactly right. We know of God only because he has chosen to speak.

I still marvel that after Adam and Eve fell in the garden, God went after them. So invested was he in his image-bearers that he . . . spoke to them: Where are you? (Gen. 3:9). This is such divine grace. Ward says that God speaking is also an integral part of God acting to save.²

In fact, you could argue that the storyline of Scripture—God’s own revealed Word to us—is a narrative of God speaking. Just think, for instance, how often the Old Testament contains the phrase, "and the word of the L

ord

came to . . ." The prophets were always speaking because they first heard God speak.

And in the New Testament, the coming of Jesus is framed by John as what? The Word made flesh (John 1). Even the flesh-and-blood incarnation is God communicating to his people. In other words, God doesn’t just speak words; in Christ, we are told he is the Word. Jesus is the living and breathing, flesh-and-blood communication of God:

Long ago God spoke to the fathers by the prophets at different times and in different ways. In these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son. God has appointed him heir of all things and made the universe through him. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact expression of his nature, sustaining all things by his powerful word. (Heb. 1:1–3)

God speaks through Moses and the prophets and, in the new covenant (an agreement framed by words), by Jesus, whose words, he says, are the very power that both created and sustains the universe. We have, very much so, a speaking God.

Which means that those who bear his image are also speakers.³

Animals might communicate in a rudimentary way. A dog may signal to us that it has to go out by barking. An ape might be able to learn some kinds of sign language. And a parrot can mimic the four-letter words of its master. But creative communication, forming words, is distinctly human.

You’ll never see an elephant writing a novel or an aardvark reading Chaucer. To further belabor this point, consider how our best art tries to humanize the animal kingdom—by making them speak as humans. Isn’t this what makes Mickey Mouse and Donkey from Shrek and Mufasa from The Lion King so lovable? Words are what bring life to the beasts in Narnia and why Tolkien made the birds and beasts talk in The Hobbit. We make animals speak because words make the subhuman human.

Forming words and sentences is so woven into the human experience that we lament when a person loses this ability. We grieve when a singer loses her vocal cords or when Alzheimer’s or some other form of dementia keeps a beloved author from writing. And we compensate for those who have been born without the ability to vocally pronounce words. Sign language allows people to still express themselves in rich ways, and braille and audiobooks allow the blind to consume words without seeing them.

The restoration of communication is often seen in Scripture as a sign of God’s restoration in