Influencers

John 1:35-47  (ESV) The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples, and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” ³⁷ The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them, “What are you seeking?” And they said to him, “Rabbi” (which means Teacher), “where are you staying?” He said to them, “Come and you will see.” So they came and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour.⁰ One of the two who heard John speak and followed Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his own brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which means Christ). He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon the son of John. You shall be called Cephas” (which means Peter).

 The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.”  Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. ⁴⁵ Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.”

I’m on FaceBook quite a bit, and lately I’ve seen ads from Amazon with pictures of young people called “influencers.”  I’m supposed to want to buy some product because this good looking young person likes it.  I do think those are funny.  Why would I want to buy something from a person with no background to understand the product?  They just like it. 

In 2019, Conan O’Brien said “If you’re an instagram influencer who doesn’t have a picture of yourself in a sea of wildflowers, can I even trust your dry shampoo recommendations?”

The use of Influencers is a bad version of a logical fallacy called the appeal to authority.  Example: because someone has a PhD in astrophysics, I’m supposed to believe they can tell me how great their blender is?  Amazon’s example is even worse.  We have no idea what expertise the influencer has except they look nice and other people are drawn to them.

Christians are supposed to be influencers too.  Our lives should be something people want to emulate but not because we look good.  The peace in our lives, the love we show to others, the moral stands we take should all point to an expertise in living a life worth living.  People should be drawn to the Spirit that lives within us.

When I was a young man, it turned out all the girls I wanted to get to know well were Christians.  There was just something about them that drew me to them.  I was looking for a woman of high degree, of high moral standards, and someone who was at peace with herself.  Those turned out all to be Christians.

More people today are looking for peace.  People who display personal peace should be the first place they look.  They should be looking to you and me if we have the peace of God.

Why is this important?

Christianity is a sort of chain letter.  Someone tells us about Christ, and we tell others.  Then they tell others, and the process continues.  At least, that’s supposed to be how it works.  It’s when we break the chain the process fails.

Like John the Baptist, Andrew, and Philip in this passage, we’re supposed to be influencers.  John told his friends.  Andrew went immediately to his brother, Peter, to tell him the good news.  Philip went to Nathanael and did the same.  These guys had it figured out and were not afraid to influence others.  By the time of Constantine (311 a.d.), there were approximately 7 million Christians in the Roman world due to the work begun by Jesus pouring His life into and “influencing” His twelve main followers.  Today, there are 1.5 billion Christians because His work has continued into our time. 

You and I are what are called “life influencers.”  We present an image that attracts others to want the peace and certainty we have in a non-peaceful and uncertain world.  We should use this.  We should be like John the Baptist and the disciples mentioned above.  We should use our relationships with friends and relatives to influence them; to point to, tell them, to introduce them to the Light of the world.