One of the questions I have to face is if a blogger is a teacher. I am no elder, no presbyter: I’m not qualified. I warm a pew. However, one of the parts of my profession is teaching: for that reason I have been on various media, for that reason I was entering lecture times in my 2015 diary. And the question as to if there is error on a blog or tweet remains.
Particularly since I tweet and facey. Besides, my discussions (offline) can be incredibly scathing. In private. James tells us to weigh our thoughts: I would add particularly when preaching doctrine. The term “ex cathedra” comes from the chair the bishop (or presbyter) sits in while expounding doctrine. Most people will take that seriously. Even among the reformed, we tend to accept the words of previous theologians without too much testing of scripture. (Calvin would recoil in horror, for people take his commentary, or Schofield notes, as gospel. They are aids to the text, not the text. And the text is of God, not our commentary.
I think James is talking to us, but not just us.
Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body. If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. Look at the ships also: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things.How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water.
(James 3:1-12 ESV)
I hear, and my body trembles; my lips quiver at the sound; rottenness enters into my bones; my legs tremble beneath me.
Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon people who invade us.
Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation.
(Habakkuk 3:16-18 ESV)
Why not just us? Well, mainly because of the amount of bullying and silencing that is happening in our society. We should speak truth, yes. But without a certain freedom of speech, we cannot correct error. The SJW hack this, and want to silence correction.
And they make everything to revolve around feelings. Look, feelings matter little: anyone who has raised a child knows that the kid can and will irritate you, make you grieve and worry, but your love for the child remains. For love is not infatuation, love is putting another first. Which is lost on some.
Now, I have to watch myself here. Snarky self-righteous prigs annoy me, particularly since I have had to squelch the prig inside on many occasions. And sarcasm, like swearing, is instinctual.
However, confrontation of error is a mercy for the person in error. Wise people accept correction: wiser people check with other sources to confirm their findings are correct. (This should happen in a scientific paper: how your results fit in with those published, and in theology it is a rule attributed to Valentine — that the practices in all times in all churches are orthodox, variations on these need to be questioned).
But the place of doctrine remains with the theologians and bishops of the church. Those who are accountable to the hard rod of scripture and to the people of the faith.
Not to interlopers turning up and screeching, giving offense, and saying anyone who criticises them should be silenced. The SJW are a blight on our society. Do not be them, and do not be like them.