By Justin Pratt, Clear Springs Baptist Church Senior Pastor
You have seen it a thousand times. So, have I. A headline appears on your screen: “You Won’t Believe What Happened Next!” or “This Changes Everything!” Curiosity gets the best of you, so you click, only to discover that the content rarely lives up to the headline. We call it clickbait.
The term grew out of the internet age, combining “click” with “bait.” Much like bait on a fishing hook, the headline is designed to lure you in. The objective is not necessarily to inform you, help you, or even tell you the whole truth. The objective is to get your attention long enough to get your click. Because in today’s internet market, those clicks and hits pay. It’s called monetizing. Unfortunately, I fear we are witnessing the rise of Click-Bait Christianity. Social media has provided Christians with an incredible platform to communicate truth. But it has also created a culture where controversy gets clicks, outrage generates engagement, and arguments attract audiences. Before long, it becomes tempting to measure spiritual influence by views, shares, comments, and followers.
Remember in high school, everyone rushing to that one part of the hallway to see what was happening? Nothing builds an audience quite like a good fight. Let me be clear: Christians should know what they believe. Peter instructed believers to “be ready always to give an answer” for the hope within them (1 Peter 3:15). We should be able to articulate our faith, defend sound doctrine, identify erroneous teaching, and stand courageously for biblical truth. Still, Peter finishes that instruction: “with meekness and fear.”
The Bible was never given to us merely to provide ammunition for arguments. There are Christians who seem perpetually angry and endlessly contentious. Every issue becomes a hill to die on, every disagreement becomes evidence of compromise, and every secondary doctrine becomes a test of fellowship. Was Noah’s flood universal or regional? Who exactly were the Nephilim in Genesis 6? Were they fallen angels, descendants of Seth, powerful rulers or something else? Then there is the gap theory. Sincere Bible-believing Christians have debated questions like these for generations. Study them, develop convictions about them, and have thoughtful conversations about them, but don’t confuse winning those arguments with fulfilling the Great Commission.
We can become experts on the identity of the Nephilim while never telling our neighbor about Jesus. We can spend hours arguing about the symbolic dimensions of Noah’s ark while never warning a single person about coming judgment. We can win a theological debate online while losing our Christian testimony in the process. Paul warned Timothy about those who became consumed with “questions and strifes of words” (1 Timothy 6:4). He later instructed him to avoid “foolish and unlearned questions, knowing that they do gender strifes” (2 Timothy 2:23). Some things are worth contending for. Jude tells us to “earnestly contend for the faith.” But there is a difference between contending for the faith and being contentious over the faith.
The evidence that I know my Bible is not merely that I can explain difficult passages. It is that the Bible is changing the way I live. It should make me more loving, more gracious, more patient, more humble, more courageous, more holy, and more burdened for people who need Jesus. Knowledge that produces arrogance has missed the point. Truth that never produces transformation has been mishandled. Our world does not need another generation of self-appointed scholars shouting at one another through screens; it needs Christians who know the truth, live the truth, speak the truth in love, and share the Gospel with people who desperately need it.
So study deeply. Think carefully. Defend faithfully. Stand firmly. But never become so interested in winning an argument that you forget we were commissioned to win people.
Christianity was never supposed to be clickbait; it is supposed to be Christlike.
