Go to the comments on Youtube, any news website, or even people's personal facebook page and you will quickly see a strong cynicism. The internet is home to those who enjoy bringing insults to others for here the anonymity brings safety.

Those who are the most cleaver with their insults seem to win the day and receive the most likes, thumbs up, or karma. Where anyone and everyone can spout their opinion a competition of pride and superiority runs lose. Whether it be correcting grammar, taking advantage of grammatical ambiguity, or mockery over differences of opinion, the internet is a place where adolescent jeering gains the greatest jeering.

A form of it has been referred to as trolling which at its root is simply being a prick simply because one is able. This is always at the expense of others and is used as a means of uplifting one's own glory while diminishing the worth of another. It is done for the lols, so to speak.

But is this truly the way in which we are to behave? Darwin's survival of the fittest is being fought not with claws or weapons but with sarcasm, trollishness, and disdain.

This way of speaking to one another is not only common within the dark corners of the internet but is found within normal conversation. Is this how we are to speak to one another?

Within the Christian Scriptures the Apostle Paul has something to say about it. Ephesians 4:29 states, "Let no corrupting talk come out of your moths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear." 

We are not to be a people who live for the sake of our own benefit but we are to live for the sake of one another. This does not simply speak of giving money to charities or not physically harming one another but we are to actively work to encourage one another.

As for those of us who are Christian, 1 Thessalonians 4 and 5 each have sections of text which give reasons for rejoicing regarding death. Chapter 4 speaks of how living believers should not mourn as those who have no hope because those who have died before us will be resurrected from the dead just as Jesus was raised for the dead. Chapter 5 then speaks of how those who are in Christ should live differently because of the hope of our own resurrections. At the end of each of these sections Paul tells his readers that they should "therefore . . . encourage one another" and chapter 5 adds that they should also "build one another up."

Those of you who are Christian I commend to you that you should look into these words. For if Jesus called us not only to be holy but also to live on a mission to lead the rest of the world to know the grace that can be found in Jesus Christ should it not be that we actively work to build up the church? And not the church only but should it be that Christians should not be known for the same cynicism as can be found on the internet? Be a people who are known for loving another another.

Love your neighbor, Jesus commanded. Let it begin with your words. Certainly, not your words only but let your mouth be tamed so it does not bite but edify and encourage. Live not for the lols but for the sake of others so that God might be glorified.